 |
| Patisserie á Paris |
This whole camp out near your kitchen thing 24/7 has highlighted a life-long struggle for me.
I grew up in a household where one of my mum's primary love languages was feeding us amazing food. She also had her own catering company for a while there. Parties were an occasion for brilliant treats like club sandwiches, marshmallow balls, amazing cakes, lemon slices, continental slice, potato salad and cheesecakes.
Family events were a feast, and with 3 younger brothers and a father who were all food enthusiasts, it became a competition about who could eat the most, and also finish the fastest.
There were ample encouragements to 'use it all up', and 'eat everything on your plate', and 'don't put such a ridiculous amount back in the fridge', all on a premise of 'waste not, want not'.
I've done both extremes from hardly eating to non-stop eating for months at a time. In the lifelong journey of learning about one's body and how best to make it work, I've spent a long time trying to find the right balance of food v exercise, or input v output, and have discovered, forgotten then rediscovered how very little food I require to survive.
I've had periods of being super fit, and periods of not moving. I've had periods of losing 10kg in a month, and others where I've put on 10kg a year for a few years in a row. I yo-yo a lot, and my body and habits are very changeable.
In the last year it has been a real (re-)learning curve about how little food one needs to survive. My 'normal' of doing 2 weeks' worth of shopping and filling the fridge and the freezer, getting enough to feed a family of 6, and then shoehorning it into our menu for two has proved expensive, ludicrous and over the top, where before it was probably all those things, but it didn't matter as much because we had a decent sized budget, fridge, freezer, and energy output to somewhat balance it out.
There's a few different values or priorities when considering food. Obviously the base line is sustenance, nutrients. The point of food is to fuel your body, right? If you're not an athlete, then it can be difficult to have this as your sole focus.
The next would be enjoyment, taste. Savouring the flavours is a common facet of consuming food. Tasting delicious things feels gooooood.
Another could be something to do, a time filler. This I guess speaks to habit, the ritual around preparing food, and eating it.
I, personally, like the creative side of it - seeing how you can make beautiful tasty things, crafting a cool cake, icing something idyllic. Seeing how I can combine different flavours to create something delicious if one of my core raison d'etre. Most recently: caramel slice with salted caramel and chilli chocolate icing.
Hosting and making amazing food to delight others with is also one of my favourite things. This is one of the reasons I like my current job because part of it is making food for other people. It's also one of the reasons I struggle with my current job - because the kids are fussy and cramp my creative style.
The act of creating food for other people has really put that all of this is quite harsh relief. I started baking with the kids a lot, and discovered I held a fundamental belief that it was some version of cruelty to have a house with kids and have no baking around. So I would stealth in some baking each week as a 'public service'. These very health conscious people soon put a stop to that.
Jared's been complaining about portion size since forever, that the food is amazing, but it is too much. Turns out Jared was not the only one who thought that, and what I thought was kid-sized portions were still too big. Learned, slower than I should've, to give the kids about a quarter of what I think is 'enough', then if they miraculously finish that, then they can have more.
I have this endless thirst for life, and experiencing everything, and part of that is food. But when you couple this with the value of 'must finish everything you start' and 'do everything to the extreme', it can lead to some really ridiculous norms around food and some really toxic expectations of what your body can and cannot handle.
I guess most of those options boil down to are you eating for purpose or pleasure? Is eating utilitarian to ensure your survival, or is it a pastime?
Like most binaries, usually the ideal is somewhere in the middle. Either extreme is dangerous. I'm convinced if you care too much about it and consider every bite that the stress of that is equally as harmful as what you were going to put in your body. Similarly, if you are entirely carefree, and eat whatever you like, whenever you like, it doesn't seem to lead to an overly happy place either.
I've been thinking about this a lot and how my nanny family are all sleek and healthy and svelte, and how I'm... not. I can only conclude that my relationship with food probably requires a bit of a change.
When I was teaching, food was not necessarily about physical need.
I have discovered that a lack of sleep induces hunger, that stress induces hunger and emotional turmoil induces hunger, boredom induces hunger, trying to force myself to do work I don't actually want to do induces hunger, and lack of exercise induces hunger. Exercise mostly inoculates me from hunger. The more my body is moving, the less I want to eat.
I have discovered that I have little to no propensity for feeling full. I can just keep eating, so often I do. Just because I can, and it tastes soooo gooooood. Eating is like a hobbie, a pastime.
When teaching, you may or may not get a lunch break, so I did a lot of eating as a prevention for hunger, because quite simply a hungry teacher is not a nice person to be around, and you need to be 110% on for teaching, there is no room for less than your best.
Eating out of habit - I eat because it is breakfast time - became the norm. And stress eating. And lack-of-sleep eating. And morning tea snacking because it was there. And snacking while writing reports. And binge eating when you get home because there's only been a coffee since 8am.
This lifestyle of trying to always be doing more and outdo yourself had an unwanted side effect of making me a lot bigger than I needed to be.
I felt like I didn't really have a choice - this hunger had to be satisfied and I didn't have time for a lifestyle change, so the only option was then to embrace the curves. Body positive all the way baby, and if you try and challenge me on that, then you don't know what you're talking about. It's completely possible to be bigger and be healthy, and you can still be bigger and sexy, bigger and comfortable in your own skin. What alternative did I have - hide myself in self-loathing and shame? Live with constant knowledge that I was somehow fundamentally wrong as a person because I like food a little too much? That's not really my style.
The hunger was insatiable. In truth, it was born out of grief. It started after my brother died, and I haven't been able to turn it off since, because with each new year there was something new, something stressful, something that required more and more of me, so perhaps the unconscious logic was there needs to be more and more of me, in order to maintain that. Eating was a coping mechanism for change.
But right now there is no hunger. There are the times when my brain is convinced we 'should' be eating, dinner time is now, Lauren. Sometimes half way through a 25km bike ride, there's faint pangs of hunger.
Right now, there's also a lot of indulgent comfort eating and eating out of boredom happening - we have been going through a lot of tim tams, biscuits and crisps and snacks, and wine. A lot of wine.
My quiet success in the last year has been a life that has slowed down enough so that I'm not stress-hungry, I'm not I-don't-know-if-I-can-do-this-hungry, I'm not angst-hungry, I'm not grief-hungry, I'm actually hungry-hungry because I've walked a bunch of places today, and been to the gym. And I can cope with being a little bit hungry, rather than needing to immediately satisfy it. The balance has shifted, I've started listening to my body more and consuming less. Thus, in the last year, I'm back to what I was just before my wedding, rather than feeling like I am a victim of my appetite, like I have no control.
See, I studied skinny people for a long time and listened to them whine about 'how much they eat' and 'how they're always hungry'. Bullshit. They are capable of eating slowly. They are capable of 'forgetting to eat'. They are capable of 'saying no'. They get full after like 10 bites. They are capable of not finishing everything on their plate because their brain has registered fullness, rather than waiting for their stomach to be full. I discovered that their version of 'eating a lot' and mine are vastly different.
This thing in Western culture where we treat our bodies as receptacles for our vices, and flood them with caffeine, drink as much as possible, eat as much as possible, it's kind of like abusing yourself. It doesn't seem to lead to good outcomes. How do we fix it? Learning to listen to our bodies.
We often train our kids to overrule their body for the purposes of parental gratification in order to eat everything on their plate, or finish x up so it doesn't go to waste. In my case, I also overrule my body for competitive reasons, to 'win' at eating, for sheer enjoyment, to socialise, for nourishment, for indulgence, for comfort and for reward. Noticing these thought patterns in my head has been weird. I started challenging the standard lines in my head about food and eating - with questions like how much do I actually need to eat, rather than how much do I want to eat? The answers are very different.
Normally you eat because you're hungry, right? Let us examine hungry a bit further.
Step 1: Identify Current Fullness
So, I give you the fullness scale. A 13 point scale, applicable for all those that get HUNGRY!
Normally, I jump between hangry and definitely still peckish with pretty quick turn around. Currently, we do not live in normal times.
Bare with; recalibrating.
I give you the Isolation Fullness scale:
So in this new isolation fullness scale, where hungry is no longer really a reality, the question is just how long does it take you to go between different ends of the scale. Normally you eat, digest a bit, do some work, and eat again in about 4-6 hours right? Not right now though.
Step 2: Listen to My Body
If I am actually legit listening to my body, then it's down to one small meal a day, despite me doing a bunch of exercises to try and 'earn' hunger. Like its now 1pm and I haven't eaten since 3pm yesterday with the exception of 20 pistachios, an apple, a coffee and a tiny yoghurt pottle. I'm fine. I probably do not need to eat again until dinner time... or tomorrow. (I just want to, cos eating is fun.)
But then there's the issue of being stuck living 2m away from the kitchen. What in the world else am I going to do with my time right now, other than create glorious culinary masterpieces? There's only so much yoga and writing one can do each day.
My latest idea is create a bunch of food that takes ages to prep, then produces very little actual food. I haven't really executed this just yet, but there are machinations for things like souffles and pasta from scratch. If you have ideas that fit into this category, please by all means, leave a comment with what it is.
I was baking bread for awhile there, because it takes ages and the kneading is therapeutic, it tastes delicious and it's not full of sugar, but the sense of obligation around food that comes with having bread in the house is just too much for me - my obligation is to the bread, to eat it before it goes off, rather than to myself and whether or not I'm actually hungry. I called this 'omnombligation'.
Step 3: Identify If I Am Actually Hungry Or If This Is Omnombligation
Omnombligation is feeling obliged to eat, regardless of whether or not you're hungry. It is this idea of an external force prevailing upon you to eat food, rather than it be about sustenance, or even pleasure. This is one I really struggle with. I don't know about you but I have a photographic memory, and it is constantly showing me a picture of the inside of the fridge and going 'Lauren, x needs to be used by tomorrow... you should turn it into something delicious. Now.'
We've been having a lot of snack dinners - like cheese and cracker platters. The voice in my head that says I need to finish everything on the plate, so as long as that food is there, it'll be devoured.
This omnombligation becomes most pronounced when there's bread around - short shelf-life and all, and also with veggies and fruit. Obviously I need to turn them into amazing things rather than let them go to waste. I basically turn myself into a human garbage disposal, rather than focusing on what my body needs at any given moment, and having hunger-centred mindfulness around eating.
Step 4: Give My Body What It Needs More Often Than What It Wants
When I was 20, I went to Australia with my then boyfriend, and we had a meal with his auntie. She brought out cheesecake for dessert. There was some leftover, and she simply threw it in the bin, saying as she did so 'Anything after you're full no longer serves you. Continuing to put it in your body is simply like treating yourself as a rubbish bin.'
I was stunned. This went against everything I'd ever been raised to believe about food. Putting food in the bin is fine if it's legitimately off, but before that, it's a race against time, and you need to eat it before it goes to waste otherwise that's money, effort and resources in the bin. Those pathways are deeply entrenched. Omnombligation is my normal.
This idea of treating your body like a human garbage disposal conflicts with some of my other values like 'honouring yourself' and 'listening to your body's needs', and 'self-care', so it is something that I've really tried to teach myself, particularly when I do not feel hungry.
Bananas are an example of this - when they were getting spotty, my mum would always turn them into banana cake and take them to church lunch. This is fine and lovely, but if you don't have a church lunch to take them to, then you're just creating a lot of omnombligation for yourself as you and whoever else shares your house now has to eat the banana cake before it goes off. (Maybe with some ice cream?)
Step 5: Slow Incremental Lifestyle Changes, Not Diets
I find it really difficult, but one of my 2020 goals is getting into the habit of throwing out bananas. I shudder each time I do it, feeling like I'm committing some sort of crime. Slowly but surely, it is starting to feel like less heinous and each time I do it, I'm honouring myself rather than giving into these ideas about food waste being evil and creating omnombligation for myself.
The next step is learning to leave a little bit on my plate - consciously leaving a few bites and experimenting and challenging my idea about what 'enough food' is. I did OK with some pasta the other day, but bring nachos into the mix, and I lose all self-control.
After that, work on simply buying less food in the first place. I have this association of a full pantry with security. Given all the recent panic buying, I'd say I'm not alone in that. But it is this see-saw between MUST HAVE FOOD IN THE HOUSE and then MUST EAT ALL THE FOOD IN THE HOUSE, both in equal measure, all the time, forever.
Step 6: Critique My Normal
Sometimes it's OK to over-indulge and pig out a bit, necessary even, for mental health, I would argue. The problem is I find it very easy for the exception to become the rule. Once-off indulgences are a blip on ones normal and make little to no difference. It is the normal that matters.
You know that thing where if you ask yourself a question, your brain is programmed to find an answer? How you frame the question will determine what kind of answer you get from yourself. 'Am I pretty?' gets a very different response to 'Where are the flaws in my face?' as a crude example.
I've started asking different questions. Instead of
'What delicious thing can I eat now?'
I'm trying to take a step back and ask,
'Am I actually hungry? Is it just thirst?'
or 'How can I fulfil my desire for something crunchy without having crisps?'
Carrot and celery sticks are normally the answer at the moment.
'Do I need wine, or will tea satisfy my desire for a beverage?'
We'll try tea and see what happens.
I've also been (intermittently) recording what I eat in the Lyfsum app, which is quite a reality check from my narrative to myself of 'I'm not eating that much, how come I keep gaining weight?' to 'Oh, I actually ate double my calorie allocation for today, and didn't even enter the chocolate and wine I just had... perhaps that was too much?' Knowledge is power. It can also feel like a punch in the gut.
Step 7: Enjoy Food
Mindful eating is a very trendy. I don't fully understand what it is, but I think it's about slowing down, savouring and enjoying your food. There is a lot of joy to be had in food, I think.
I've just spent an hour watching TED Talks, trying to find one I watched years ago, talking about how losing weight is not as important as maintaining healthy habits, and that most people stay within a 5kg range most of their lives, called a setpoint. How your body maintains its homeostasis, its base normal if allowed to, and that set points can go up, but seldom go down. If you can lose weight, you are likely to be battling your body for the rest of your life to keep it off. It challenged all the 'shoulds' and guilt I had around food.
I know where focus goes, energy flows, and I would like to focus on honouring myself, taking good care of myself. Through this video, I have started to forgive myself for no longer being a size 10, and to decouple weight and health, as studies show that health is about much more than just the number on the scales. I've also mostly succeeded in decoupling my worth and beauty from my size, but that one is more recurrent, largely fought by my adoring hubby shushing the condemnation in my head.
I have given myself permission to have whatever I want, whenever I want it, but have then also forced a lot of would-be thrown out food onto myself as well. It's a journey, but it's one I'm glad I'm conscious of.
I'm learning to trust my hunger, but also to be more discerning about my hunger and ask if it is just boredom or if it is actually hunger.
So now I'm off to have my first meal in 24 hours... It is nachos and I just want to devour allllllll of them. I'll try savouring slowly instead. Wish me luck.
I look forward to that time where I can forget the contents of the fridge, and have chocolate in the house and leave it there untouched.
Extra:
Mindfulness with Eating and Alkaline Foods
Intermittent Fasting - Limit hours a day where food is consumed
Trust your hunger
The Mindset for healthy eating
Eating with joy, eating whole foods
Doctor talking why she's stopped telling her patients to lose weight
I grew up in a household where one of my mum's primary love languages was feeding us amazing food. She also had her own catering company for a while there. Parties were an occasion for brilliant treats like club sandwiches, marshmallow balls, amazing cakes, lemon slices, continental slice, potato salad and cheesecakes.
 |
| A small sample of the spread for my 21st |
Family events were a feast, and with 3 younger brothers and a father who were all food enthusiasts, it became a competition about who could eat the most, and also finish the fastest.
 |
| 18th birthday - pink party! |
I've done both extremes from hardly eating to non-stop eating for months at a time. In the lifelong journey of learning about one's body and how best to make it work, I've spent a long time trying to find the right balance of food v exercise, or input v output, and have discovered, forgotten then rediscovered how very little food I require to survive.
I've had periods of being super fit, and periods of not moving. I've had periods of losing 10kg in a month, and others where I've put on 10kg a year for a few years in a row. I yo-yo a lot, and my body and habits are very changeable.
In the last year it has been a real (re-)learning curve about how little food one needs to survive. My 'normal' of doing 2 weeks' worth of shopping and filling the fridge and the freezer, getting enough to feed a family of 6, and then shoehorning it into our menu for two has proved expensive, ludicrous and over the top, where before it was probably all those things, but it didn't matter as much because we had a decent sized budget, fridge, freezer, and energy output to somewhat balance it out.
 |
| This is what we're working with, people. There's not even enough room for all the magnets of places we've been! |
There's a few different values or priorities when considering food. Obviously the base line is sustenance, nutrients. The point of food is to fuel your body, right? If you're not an athlete, then it can be difficult to have this as your sole focus.
The next would be enjoyment, taste. Savouring the flavours is a common facet of consuming food. Tasting delicious things feels gooooood.
 |
| Who doesn't love ice cream shaped like a rose?!?! |
Another could be something to do, a time filler. This I guess speaks to habit, the ritual around preparing food, and eating it.
I, personally, like the creative side of it - seeing how you can make beautiful tasty things, crafting a cool cake, icing something idyllic. Seeing how I can combine different flavours to create something delicious if one of my core raison d'etre. Most recently: caramel slice with salted caramel and chilli chocolate icing.
 |
| Rachel's guitar cake, 2018 |
Hosting and making amazing food to delight others with is also one of my favourite things. This is one of the reasons I like my current job because part of it is making food for other people. It's also one of the reasons I struggle with my current job - because the kids are fussy and cramp my creative style.
 |
| Wolfenoot Nov 2018 |
The act of creating food for other people has really put that all of this is quite harsh relief. I started baking with the kids a lot, and discovered I held a fundamental belief that it was some version of cruelty to have a house with kids and have no baking around. So I would stealth in some baking each week as a 'public service'. These very health conscious people soon put a stop to that.
Jared's been complaining about portion size since forever, that the food is amazing, but it is too much. Turns out Jared was not the only one who thought that, and what I thought was kid-sized portions were still too big. Learned, slower than I should've, to give the kids about a quarter of what I think is 'enough', then if they miraculously finish that, then they can have more.
 |
| Chocolate pancakes covered in chocolate. Banana for scale - and potassium! |
I have this endless thirst for life, and experiencing everything, and part of that is food. But when you couple this with the value of 'must finish everything you start' and 'do everything to the extreme', it can lead to some really ridiculous norms around food and some really toxic expectations of what your body can and cannot handle.
 |
| Street stall in Laos. Tourism by way of food sampling is a great way to taste the world |
I guess most of those options boil down to are you eating for purpose or pleasure? Is eating utilitarian to ensure your survival, or is it a pastime?
Like most binaries, usually the ideal is somewhere in the middle. Either extreme is dangerous. I'm convinced if you care too much about it and consider every bite that the stress of that is equally as harmful as what you were going to put in your body. Similarly, if you are entirely carefree, and eat whatever you like, whenever you like, it doesn't seem to lead to an overly happy place either.
 |
| Banana coconut smoothie and fruit pieces - best Laos breakfast |
I've been thinking about this a lot and how my nanny family are all sleek and healthy and svelte, and how I'm... not. I can only conclude that my relationship with food probably requires a bit of a change.
When I was teaching, food was not necessarily about physical need.
I have discovered that a lack of sleep induces hunger, that stress induces hunger and emotional turmoil induces hunger, boredom induces hunger, trying to force myself to do work I don't actually want to do induces hunger, and lack of exercise induces hunger. Exercise mostly inoculates me from hunger. The more my body is moving, the less I want to eat.
I have discovered that I have little to no propensity for feeling full. I can just keep eating, so often I do. Just because I can, and it tastes soooo gooooood. Eating is like a hobbie, a pastime.
 |
| Food is also a great cure for homesickness! |
 |
| Particularly chips n dip. Best cure for homesickness. |
When teaching, you may or may not get a lunch break, so I did a lot of eating as a prevention for hunger, because quite simply a hungry teacher is not a nice person to be around, and you need to be 110% on for teaching, there is no room for less than your best.
Eating out of habit - I eat because it is breakfast time - became the norm. And stress eating. And lack-of-sleep eating. And morning tea snacking because it was there. And snacking while writing reports. And binge eating when you get home because there's only been a coffee since 8am.
This lifestyle of trying to always be doing more and outdo yourself had an unwanted side effect of making me a lot bigger than I needed to be.
I felt like I didn't really have a choice - this hunger had to be satisfied and I didn't have time for a lifestyle change, so the only option was then to embrace the curves. Body positive all the way baby, and if you try and challenge me on that, then you don't know what you're talking about. It's completely possible to be bigger and be healthy, and you can still be bigger and sexy, bigger and comfortable in your own skin. What alternative did I have - hide myself in self-loathing and shame? Live with constant knowledge that I was somehow fundamentally wrong as a person because I like food a little too much? That's not really my style.
 |
| New York Hard Rock Cafe, 2019 |
 |
| Sydney 2009 |
The hunger was insatiable. In truth, it was born out of grief. It started after my brother died, and I haven't been able to turn it off since, because with each new year there was something new, something stressful, something that required more and more of me, so perhaps the unconscious logic was there needs to be more and more of me, in order to maintain that. Eating was a coping mechanism for change.
But right now there is no hunger. There are the times when my brain is convinced we 'should' be eating, dinner time is now, Lauren. Sometimes half way through a 25km bike ride, there's faint pangs of hunger.
Right now, there's also a lot of indulgent comfort eating and eating out of boredom happening - we have been going through a lot of tim tams, biscuits and crisps and snacks, and wine. A lot of wine.
My quiet success in the last year has been a life that has slowed down enough so that I'm not stress-hungry, I'm not I-don't-know-if-I-can-do-this-hungry, I'm not angst-hungry, I'm not grief-hungry, I'm actually hungry-hungry because I've walked a bunch of places today, and been to the gym. And I can cope with being a little bit hungry, rather than needing to immediately satisfy it. The balance has shifted, I've started listening to my body more and consuming less. Thus, in the last year, I'm back to what I was just before my wedding, rather than feeling like I am a victim of my appetite, like I have no control.
 |
| July 2017 |
See, I studied skinny people for a long time and listened to them whine about 'how much they eat' and 'how they're always hungry'. Bullshit. They are capable of eating slowly. They are capable of 'forgetting to eat'. They are capable of 'saying no'. They get full after like 10 bites. They are capable of not finishing everything on their plate because their brain has registered fullness, rather than waiting for their stomach to be full. I discovered that their version of 'eating a lot' and mine are vastly different.
This thing in Western culture where we treat our bodies as receptacles for our vices, and flood them with caffeine, drink as much as possible, eat as much as possible, it's kind of like abusing yourself. It doesn't seem to lead to good outcomes. How do we fix it? Learning to listen to our bodies.
We often train our kids to overrule their body for the purposes of parental gratification in order to eat everything on their plate, or finish x up so it doesn't go to waste. In my case, I also overrule my body for competitive reasons, to 'win' at eating, for sheer enjoyment, to socialise, for nourishment, for indulgence, for comfort and for reward. Noticing these thought patterns in my head has been weird. I started challenging the standard lines in my head about food and eating - with questions like how much do I actually need to eat, rather than how much do I want to eat? The answers are very different.
Normally you eat because you're hungry, right? Let us examine hungry a bit further.
Step 1: Identify Current Fullness
So, I give you the fullness scale. A 13 point scale, applicable for all those that get HUNGRY!
Normally, I jump between hangry and definitely still peckish with pretty quick turn around. Currently, we do not live in normal times.
Bare with; recalibrating.
I give you the Isolation Fullness scale:
So in this new isolation fullness scale, where hungry is no longer really a reality, the question is just how long does it take you to go between different ends of the scale. Normally you eat, digest a bit, do some work, and eat again in about 4-6 hours right? Not right now though.
Step 2: Listen to My Body
If I am actually legit listening to my body, then it's down to one small meal a day, despite me doing a bunch of exercises to try and 'earn' hunger. Like its now 1pm and I haven't eaten since 3pm yesterday with the exception of 20 pistachios, an apple, a coffee and a tiny yoghurt pottle. I'm fine. I probably do not need to eat again until dinner time... or tomorrow. (I just want to, cos eating is fun.)
But then there's the issue of being stuck living 2m away from the kitchen. What in the world else am I going to do with my time right now, other than create glorious culinary masterpieces? There's only so much yoga and writing one can do each day.
My latest idea is create a bunch of food that takes ages to prep, then produces very little actual food. I haven't really executed this just yet, but there are machinations for things like souffles and pasta from scratch. If you have ideas that fit into this category, please by all means, leave a comment with what it is.
I was baking bread for awhile there, because it takes ages and the kneading is therapeutic, it tastes delicious and it's not full of sugar, but the sense of obligation around food that comes with having bread in the house is just too much for me - my obligation is to the bread, to eat it before it goes off, rather than to myself and whether or not I'm actually hungry. I called this 'omnombligation'.
Step 3: Identify If I Am Actually Hungry Or If This Is Omnombligation
Omnombligation is feeling obliged to eat, regardless of whether or not you're hungry. It is this idea of an external force prevailing upon you to eat food, rather than it be about sustenance, or even pleasure. This is one I really struggle with. I don't know about you but I have a photographic memory, and it is constantly showing me a picture of the inside of the fridge and going 'Lauren, x needs to be used by tomorrow... you should turn it into something delicious. Now.'
We've been having a lot of snack dinners - like cheese and cracker platters. The voice in my head that says I need to finish everything on the plate, so as long as that food is there, it'll be devoured.
This omnombligation becomes most pronounced when there's bread around - short shelf-life and all, and also with veggies and fruit. Obviously I need to turn them into amazing things rather than let them go to waste. I basically turn myself into a human garbage disposal, rather than focusing on what my body needs at any given moment, and having hunger-centred mindfulness around eating.
Step 4: Give My Body What It Needs More Often Than What It Wants
When I was 20, I went to Australia with my then boyfriend, and we had a meal with his auntie. She brought out cheesecake for dessert. There was some leftover, and she simply threw it in the bin, saying as she did so 'Anything after you're full no longer serves you. Continuing to put it in your body is simply like treating yourself as a rubbish bin.'
I was stunned. This went against everything I'd ever been raised to believe about food. Putting food in the bin is fine if it's legitimately off, but before that, it's a race against time, and you need to eat it before it goes to waste otherwise that's money, effort and resources in the bin. Those pathways are deeply entrenched. Omnombligation is my normal.
This idea of treating your body like a human garbage disposal conflicts with some of my other values like 'honouring yourself' and 'listening to your body's needs', and 'self-care', so it is something that I've really tried to teach myself, particularly when I do not feel hungry.
Bananas are an example of this - when they were getting spotty, my mum would always turn them into banana cake and take them to church lunch. This is fine and lovely, but if you don't have a church lunch to take them to, then you're just creating a lot of omnombligation for yourself as you and whoever else shares your house now has to eat the banana cake before it goes off. (Maybe with some ice cream?)
Step 5: Slow Incremental Lifestyle Changes, Not Diets
I find it really difficult, but one of my 2020 goals is getting into the habit of throwing out bananas. I shudder each time I do it, feeling like I'm committing some sort of crime. Slowly but surely, it is starting to feel like less heinous and each time I do it, I'm honouring myself rather than giving into these ideas about food waste being evil and creating omnombligation for myself.
The next step is learning to leave a little bit on my plate - consciously leaving a few bites and experimenting and challenging my idea about what 'enough food' is. I did OK with some pasta the other day, but bring nachos into the mix, and I lose all self-control.
After that, work on simply buying less food in the first place. I have this association of a full pantry with security. Given all the recent panic buying, I'd say I'm not alone in that. But it is this see-saw between MUST HAVE FOOD IN THE HOUSE and then MUST EAT ALL THE FOOD IN THE HOUSE, both in equal measure, all the time, forever.
Step 6: Critique My Normal
Sometimes it's OK to over-indulge and pig out a bit, necessary even, for mental health, I would argue. The problem is I find it very easy for the exception to become the rule. Once-off indulgences are a blip on ones normal and make little to no difference. It is the normal that matters.
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| Love me a good salad! |
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| Birthdays = celebration with food, right? |
I've started asking different questions. Instead of
'What delicious thing can I eat now?'
I'm trying to take a step back and ask,
'Am I actually hungry? Is it just thirst?'
or 'How can I fulfil my desire for something crunchy without having crisps?'
Carrot and celery sticks are normally the answer at the moment.
'Do I need wine, or will tea satisfy my desire for a beverage?'
We'll try tea and see what happens.
I've also been (intermittently) recording what I eat in the Lyfsum app, which is quite a reality check from my narrative to myself of 'I'm not eating that much, how come I keep gaining weight?' to 'Oh, I actually ate double my calorie allocation for today, and didn't even enter the chocolate and wine I just had... perhaps that was too much?' Knowledge is power. It can also feel like a punch in the gut.
Step 7: Enjoy Food
Mindful eating is a very trendy. I don't fully understand what it is, but I think it's about slowing down, savouring and enjoying your food. There is a lot of joy to be had in food, I think.
I've just spent an hour watching TED Talks, trying to find one I watched years ago, talking about how losing weight is not as important as maintaining healthy habits, and that most people stay within a 5kg range most of their lives, called a setpoint. How your body maintains its homeostasis, its base normal if allowed to, and that set points can go up, but seldom go down. If you can lose weight, you are likely to be battling your body for the rest of your life to keep it off. It challenged all the 'shoulds' and guilt I had around food.
I know where focus goes, energy flows, and I would like to focus on honouring myself, taking good care of myself. Through this video, I have started to forgive myself for no longer being a size 10, and to decouple weight and health, as studies show that health is about much more than just the number on the scales. I've also mostly succeeded in decoupling my worth and beauty from my size, but that one is more recurrent, largely fought by my adoring hubby shushing the condemnation in my head.
I have given myself permission to have whatever I want, whenever I want it, but have then also forced a lot of would-be thrown out food onto myself as well. It's a journey, but it's one I'm glad I'm conscious of.
I'm learning to trust my hunger, but also to be more discerning about my hunger and ask if it is just boredom or if it is actually hunger.
So now I'm off to have my first meal in 24 hours... It is nachos and I just want to devour allllllll of them. I'll try savouring slowly instead. Wish me luck.
I look forward to that time where I can forget the contents of the fridge, and have chocolate in the house and leave it there untouched.
Extra:
Mindfulness with Eating and Alkaline Foods
Intermittent Fasting - Limit hours a day where food is consumed
Trust your hunger
The Mindset for healthy eating
Eating with joy, eating whole foods
Doctor talking why she's stopped telling her patients to lose weight
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