At a meeting the other day, a friend who has been in the OA program a while said that she has been aware for a long time that when she is feeling negative about herself, she tends to get mysteriously hungry. That statement in itself was a "DUH" comment for those of us who have been pondering our compulsion to binge or just nibble continuously.
The really interesting thing was that she followed that observation up with noting recently that those negative self-thoughts surface whenever she is watching tv. She is a very active woman and no couch potato and even while watching tv she's doing something else. But still, after a while she sees the negative thoughts appear.
What is it about tv that does it? Is it the passivity of opening up your head and letting all those quick processed images in? Is it the physically perfect people with issues that normally are solved neatly within the confines of 40 minutes? Does a diet of PBS make you feel better, like a tossed salad for the brain? Is what we choose to watch on tv as indicative of our problems as our eating habits?
I know that the longer I avoid dealing with my feelings, the harder my life becomes, and the more tempting the food looks. I wonder if perhaps when I choose to spend time watching tv, I'm in the midst of trying to squash discomfort or anxiety (like I've done most of my life), and it backfires. Maybe not right away, but it adds up. It takes a real conscious effort to counteract this, and when I begin doing it, it's tough. It takes several attempts. Seriously. Several attempts. I have to remember that. The practice of a lifetime takes, well, a lifetime.
30.10.07
29.10.07
A Lifetime of Habits
I'm middle aged. Yuck! But there it is, don't like how that looks, among the many other things that look the way they do when one gets to this age. But it's interesting, as I look around the rooms where I attend my OA meetings and see that most of the other women (and it is mostly women most places) there are of that "certain age" too. Maybe it's because of desperation. We've done all the other stuff, it didn't work, and short of bariatric surgery, we've landed here in the basement of the church of Our Lady of Perpetual Last Resort. Actually, we've even got a few who've had the bariatric surgery that has not worked for them.
And I think that this is what makes it work for us - the desperation, the being so damn sick and tired of being sick and tired. You get so sick of the unrelenting pain that you will even risk our cult-like readings and give that whole, gag me with a spoon, GOD thing. Even God is better than another lousy diet. And you find out that maybe the whole God thing isn't what you thought it is. It can be a whole different kettle of fish if looked at with some creativity. Look at it as an entity completely different from that hackneyed image guy in the nightdress. My conception of God was so pathetically unevolved from my 2nd grade Sunday school, it was crazy! When I started looking at a higher power as possibly some force in the universe that was trying to keep me healthy and sane, things started looking up, no pun intended.
But it's hard to stay with that concept. Old habits die very, very hard. Only by repeating the new good stuff, and I'm not even talking about eating habits here, does the new stuff stick around. I have to do, as they say in the program, the DO Things: Write and reflect regularly (several times a week, daily is preferable but not always possible), omigod, I have to keep praying. I have to keep in contact with the fellow strugglers who lift me up, and keep slugging away at it. This is what long term success looks like, but it requires daily vigilance. I'm only as good as my last reaching out to what keeps me sane.
It's like.... hmmm....my diabetes. Luckily I'm in remission because of all the weight I've lost. My doctor says its gone, but I know would almost assuredly return if I regained that 150 pounds. But someday it might spontaneously return even if I didn't regain the weight, and I could have to take daily meds and monitor my blood sugar.
Look, in every fashion I can see my compulsion to overeat is a chronic disease. I HATE that. It is never going to be completely gone. Some days are easier, some are damn hard. So, I need this daily practice to keep me healthy. The funny thing is, it's got a lot of side benefits that have nothing to do with my waistband --- I do have flashes of , gulp, serenity. I've got many great friends that encourage me to take risks and keep growing, try things I would have never considered years ago. It's even helping my work. As an artist, I am now having the great experience of my creativity and scope of the possible opening up. If that ain't a great antidote for "that age", I don't know what is.
And I think that this is what makes it work for us - the desperation, the being so damn sick and tired of being sick and tired. You get so sick of the unrelenting pain that you will even risk our cult-like readings and give that whole, gag me with a spoon, GOD thing. Even God is better than another lousy diet. And you find out that maybe the whole God thing isn't what you thought it is. It can be a whole different kettle of fish if looked at with some creativity. Look at it as an entity completely different from that hackneyed image guy in the nightdress. My conception of God was so pathetically unevolved from my 2nd grade Sunday school, it was crazy! When I started looking at a higher power as possibly some force in the universe that was trying to keep me healthy and sane, things started looking up, no pun intended.
But it's hard to stay with that concept. Old habits die very, very hard. Only by repeating the new good stuff, and I'm not even talking about eating habits here, does the new stuff stick around. I have to do, as they say in the program, the DO Things: Write and reflect regularly (several times a week, daily is preferable but not always possible), omigod, I have to keep praying. I have to keep in contact with the fellow strugglers who lift me up, and keep slugging away at it. This is what long term success looks like, but it requires daily vigilance. I'm only as good as my last reaching out to what keeps me sane.
It's like.... hmmm....my diabetes. Luckily I'm in remission because of all the weight I've lost. My doctor says its gone, but I know would almost assuredly return if I regained that 150 pounds. But someday it might spontaneously return even if I didn't regain the weight, and I could have to take daily meds and monitor my blood sugar.
Look, in every fashion I can see my compulsion to overeat is a chronic disease. I HATE that. It is never going to be completely gone. Some days are easier, some are damn hard. So, I need this daily practice to keep me healthy. The funny thing is, it's got a lot of side benefits that have nothing to do with my waistband --- I do have flashes of , gulp, serenity. I've got many great friends that encourage me to take risks and keep growing, try things I would have never considered years ago. It's even helping my work. As an artist, I am now having the great experience of my creativity and scope of the possible opening up. If that ain't a great antidote for "that age", I don't know what is.
4.10.07
Food as Oblivion
I was talking with a friend the other day about binge food. You know, as in what you choose when you really binge out. It's usually junk, but not always. High refined carbs are good --- pasta with butter is a favorite of mine, as is bread and butter. But it almost has to be a type of food that must be like hard liquor or shooting into a vein. High sugar. Lots of crunch, salt, grease. Enough to lose myself in.
I don't use food as a simple fuel, I use it as oblivion. I use it to block feelings, to blunt uncomfortable stuff like anger and envy and sadness. The more I work on feeling those feelings (oh, ugh) I see how much anger is there. It's quite shocking, actually. I've been struggling with lots of uncomfortable feelings since I was elected to the board of my community choir. 120 members. Lots of competing viewpoints, complaints, ideas. I'm feeling swamped. Twice over the last two weeks I came home and before bed ended up eating too much. Last week was the big show down with the leftover pork roast. Last night it was nibbling on the coq au vin. I had even made it to bed (safe, I thought) when I realized my oily paint brushes from work hadn't been washed out. So I went down to wash them at the kitchen sink and then, the fridge magically opened... luckily, I got it shut again before I did too much damage.
But it's incredible how automatically these feelings drive me to the food, and the fridge. I have learned to open the refrigerator before I'm even aware of feeling "off" or doing it. But my body knows what it wants and hasn't bothered to notify my consciousness. Right now I'm doing step work, a twelve step method of dealing with my feelings very popular in my OA programme. But it's damn tough. For over 40 years I've stuffed those feelings down with the food, and when I don't it all feels like too much. I don't have the luxury of blunting them with food. And so I feel overwhelmed. And I have to sit down and write about that feeling. It feels soooo uncomfortable. But if I don't deal with it, I'm just back at square one. So I try again, remembering the old OA maxim that if you have a problem and you eat over it, you now have two problems! Fuck. It hurts!
I don't use food as a simple fuel, I use it as oblivion. I use it to block feelings, to blunt uncomfortable stuff like anger and envy and sadness. The more I work on feeling those feelings (oh, ugh) I see how much anger is there. It's quite shocking, actually. I've been struggling with lots of uncomfortable feelings since I was elected to the board of my community choir. 120 members. Lots of competing viewpoints, complaints, ideas. I'm feeling swamped. Twice over the last two weeks I came home and before bed ended up eating too much. Last week was the big show down with the leftover pork roast. Last night it was nibbling on the coq au vin. I had even made it to bed (safe, I thought) when I realized my oily paint brushes from work hadn't been washed out. So I went down to wash them at the kitchen sink and then, the fridge magically opened... luckily, I got it shut again before I did too much damage.
But it's incredible how automatically these feelings drive me to the food, and the fridge. I have learned to open the refrigerator before I'm even aware of feeling "off" or doing it. But my body knows what it wants and hasn't bothered to notify my consciousness. Right now I'm doing step work, a twelve step method of dealing with my feelings very popular in my OA programme. But it's damn tough. For over 40 years I've stuffed those feelings down with the food, and when I don't it all feels like too much. I don't have the luxury of blunting them with food. And so I feel overwhelmed. And I have to sit down and write about that feeling. It feels soooo uncomfortable. But if I don't deal with it, I'm just back at square one. So I try again, remembering the old OA maxim that if you have a problem and you eat over it, you now have two problems! Fuck. It hurts!
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