Before I settled down to write this post, I went to the kitchen to take the macadamia nuts out of the oven. I’m making honey-roasted nuts – yet again – because they are usually so time consuming that I don’t even have the sweets craving I’m after by the time I’m done making them, and with mostly honey and good fats (in the nuts) I can halfway convince myself they are an okay treat to have.
I walk into the kitchen and see a mug on the bench: instant soup waiting for the hot water to be poured in. I know instant soups have a heap of salt, so I only allow myself one when it’s really bloody cold (like today) and I have a lot of work to do (like today). The only thing is, for a moment, I don’t remember preparing it.
My memory quickly comes back to me, but that moment wakes me up to the fact that I would have been much better off standing in front of the heater for a few moments rather than drink a cup of vegetable-flavoured salt soup. I wasn’t hungry; I was cold. But I went for food. As always.
This week I decided to start a journal of sorts. I hate food journals and can never keep going with them, so I decided on a journal with a schedule and a ‘rough’ menu to go by. Then the rest of the page is for what I am thinking each night.
I’ve already had amazing epiphanies just being honest with myself, like how I work myself into paranoia about my relationship to self-sabotage when I’ve been doing well with healthy eating. Or how I use food as a ‘barrier’ against my depression.
Or like today with realising that I eat not only when I’m emotional but when I’m physically uncomfortable as well.
I don’t like these truths about myself, but I’m now seeing just how much the odds were stacked against me when I was trying to lose weight without facing the emotional and mental muck that goes along with it. I thought I was, but I didn’t want to get ‘dirty’.
Well, I’m done with ‘clean thinking’ and have found myself to be more ready than I thought for the muck. I’m not looking forward to what else I find, but wow, it feels amazing just to acknowledge myself – for better or worse.
Susan (@foodiemcbody) has started photographing every bite she eats and she’s written about it quite extensively. She says that after a mere four days her relationship to food has changed tremendously. I am very tempted to start doing the same… simply because it will force me to first arrange the food attractively and then try to get a good picture. It completely eliminates mindless eating…
I saw her post on that and became intrigued. I think I will start doing it tomorrow or Monday. Maybe it’ll give me a new perspective.