postcards from nowhere

Greetings!

Can we talk frankly about what's been on my plate lately?

Too much food!

I experienced a painful awakening recently regarding my relationship 
with food.  I thought no one else had noticed that my eating was a 
little out of control, but I was wrong.  And I'm grateful that this 
person had enough courage and concern about me to bring it to my 
attention.  But ouch, exposure can sure hurt!  

So after I had licked my wounds for a while (pardon the pun), I ventured 
out to the library.  I always seek solace in information.

I went seeking tips about dieting, but came home with an armful of 
titles like Diets Don't Work, Outsmarting the Female Fat Cell, and 
Thin Within.  Wow did I get an education! 

(If you are male, or female but your body looks just the way you want it 
to and you have no issues with food, then please forgive me and just 
skip the rest of this postcard.  Unless you know someone else with 
issues, and in that case read on; you may gain valuable insight and 
empathy for their situation.) 

So here's what I learned:  Diets don't work.  Especially for women, 
whose fat cells are evolutionarily programmed to store enough energy 
to maintain a nine month pregnancy during a famine.  If we go on a 
diet and deprive ourselves of food when our bodies are truly hungry, 
the body says oh no, famine time!  Lower the metabolism!  Save the 
energy in the in fat cells in case it gets really bad, and let's 
burn muscle cells for energy!

Then, when you get off the diet and eat normally again, the body says, 
whew, we made it through that one!  But we better turn this food into 
fat cells right away in case there's another famine later.  Thus your 
body fat percentage actually increases when you cut calories and then 
return to normal eating.  Boy is that a bummer!

The antidote to this is multi-pronged.  (get it?  like a fork?  
ooch, that's SO corny.  sorry :)  

Forty-five minutes of exercise three times a week tells those fat 
cells it's ok to release their energy.  And here's the whopper 
(sorry, I'm really on a roll) -- your body needs to eat in order 
to stay out of famine mode.  The trick is to wait until your body 
tells you it is actually hungry.  Then eat whatever it is asking 
for, but stop before you get to the point of fullness.  

Yes, that was whatever it is asking for.  This could be vegetables, 
steak or cake.  It doesn't matter what the health magazines say 
about what you should and shouldn't eat.  Your body knows itself 
better than those magazines do, and once you learn to listen to 
it you can just relax and enjoy your cake, because you probably 
won't be eating very much of it anyhow.

The significance of this is not to be overlooked.  You can eat 
whatever you want.  No more classifying foods as good or bad, 
no more forbidden fruit, no more hiding chocolate bars.  Just 
make sure you wait until you are truly hungry, and then eat 
only enough of whatever your body requests to reach a comfortable 
feeling.  Which usually will not require the whole bag of cookies.

Outsmarting and Thin Within suggest that you rate your hunger on 
a scale from 0 to 10.  Zero being a totally empty stomach, and 
10 being way too full, like after dessert at Thanksgiving.  Don't 
eat until you drop down to a four (first signal of hunger). Stop 
when you reach a 5 (comfortable).  

If you wait until zero, you'll be too hungry to eat slowly and 
pay attention, and you are likely to overeat. Anything above 5 
is more calories than your body will burn at that time, and it 
will be stored as fat.  Even if you are eating celery or watermelon.

So I'm an intelligent, logical person.  And this makes perfect 
sense to me.  I wait until I am hungry and ask my body what it 
wants.  The answer is salty almonds. But as I begin to eat them, 
I find it almost impossible to access my level of fullness.  
I simply don't know when to stop!

Were you a member of the Clean Plate Club?  Me, too.  Even if it 
took until 8 o'clock.  And enough glasses of milk to swallow each 
pea one at a time like a vitamin so I wouldn't have to taste it.  
It was the prevailing wisdom of the time.  My parents meant 
no harm . . . they loved me and wanted me to eat a well-balanced diet.  
But as I look back I realize that in order to do what was expected 
of me, I needed to turn off the awareness of my body's own signals. 

This is good news, because it means that now I can turn the awareness 
back on.  So far I've learned that eating too quickly makes it hard 
for me to sense when I've had enough.  It seems to help to chew 
slowly, and set the fork down between bites.  But I still have a 
long way to go. 

For now I'm using the guide that my stomach is about the size of 
my fist, so I try to stop after a fist sized portion.  Once I 
tune back into my own signals, I'll discard that guide and act 
solely in response to my body's needs.

The road to body awareness is lined with temptations to go unconscious 
and revert to old patterns.  But I've decided that conscious awareness 
and enjoyment of nourishment is a goal worth working for. And it is 
an example I would like to set for my children.  

Even though we don't have the Clean Plate Club at our house, at times 
I have pushed them to eat when they were no longer hungry.  Seems 
true that until we bring our patterns to the surface we unconsciously 
pass them on. 

As I share this story with others, I am hearing that this issue is 
hot for many of us right now. I've recently acquired my own telephone 
conference line, and I'd like to invite you to join me for a free 
meeting on this topic to see if there is some way we can support 
each other as we re-create our relationships with food and nourishment.  

The call will be billed at your regular long distance rate, and 
I will donate my time.  I'll offer two calls, so hopefully one 
of these times will work for you.  Simply dial (305) 503-1852 ext. 464 
on Thursday, June 6 at  7:00 p.m. mountain time (8 central, 
6 pacific, etc.) or Sunday June 9 at 3 p.m. mountain time. 
Wait for me to ask "Who just joined the call?", and then jump 
on in and introduce yourself.

It's not easy to change a lifetime of well worn habits, so let's 
join forces and see what we can do together!

Take care, 

karen

p.s.  There's a new book I didn't mention above called What Are You Hungry For?
by Lynn Ginsberg and Mary Taylor.  They do a fantastic job of addressing
the spiritual aspect of women's issues with food and body image.  
I highly recommend their book and website:  whatareyouhungryfor.net.