i recently went to dinner with a friend and we were talking about the dating scene here in princeton. we got on the subject of what it would mean if we lived in a way that we had complete confidence in our bodies. we were discussing what it means to keep men in the "friend zone." one of the more interesting aspects of the conversation went something like this: men tend to be attracted to confidence. myself and my friend are both very confident women when it comes to most every aspect of our lives. both of us have many men who are friends and many men who want to spend time with us. the area of our lives that we are both insecure is concerning our bodies, so we never interact in a way that would show physical interest in the men (even when we are very physically attracted to them). this keeps the men in the "friend zone." so, we pondered, what would it look like to just go for it, to not keep the men we spend time with at arm's length, to not assume from the outset that they would never want to be more than friends. this, it seems, could lead to heartache, but it could also lead to something very different than our current experiences.
some of you may be wondering what all this has to do with what i normally write about, but i would say that this is integrally connected. as i am trying to make peace with food and my body in a non-judgmental and healthy way, it is really important that i begin to make peace with my body in relationship to potential relationships. as someone who has spent the majority of my life hating my body, there seems to be nothing more terrifying than being naked with someone i love and hoping that they would be pleased by my body. this, i would say is one of the reasons that relationships with the opposite sex are really difficult. not because i am thinking i will jump in the sack with the guys i date, but i date in expectation that it could lead to marriage. ergo, sex is a part of the consciousness. as i strive for a healthy understanding of food, my body, my brain, etc., this is a part of the equation that is probably really important.
i will keep ruminating on this...
Monday, February 21, 2011
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
random thoughts on the week
ZUMBA!
i have been really enjoying exercise in my zumba classes. i was never coordinated enough to do dance, but perhaps it would have been an exercise i would have enjoyed. exercise has never been something i have enjoyed. i have to force myself to the gym. the concept of a "runner's high" is foreign to me. i have always heard that if you find an exercise that you like you are more likely to make exercise a part of your routine. so, i have to say, yay! for finding an exercise that i really enjoy. now whether or not i am good at it is another concept altogether, but there are no mirrors in the classroom, so i can't judge myself. haha.
as far as food goes, i had a pretty bad week. i wanted to eat everything. i was a total bottomless pit. although, i learned something, which is a good thing! i take a birth control where i only menstruate four times a year. the week before one of those times, which was this last week, i want to eat everything. this is so good to know because it will help me gauge what is going on with my body and it will help me not be so hard on myself because i will know that it will only happen four times a year. it was also good for me because i had to think a lot about whether or not i was hungry and why it might be.
i am pretty bummed about the fact that i am so very busy because i am not able to write on here as much as i would like to. i am trying to write at least once a week. some foods that i am really liking lately are sun-dried tomatoes, which are great on sandwiches; blueberries, eggplant, mango sorbet, laughing cow swiss cheese, and kettle corn. i have not been cooking as much as i would like, simply because my schedule is really full. trader joe's has great frozen food items, and a grilled cheese is always a quick meal. i have also been eating a lot of soup from panera since it has been cold.
all this to say, things are going well. i am still learning. i am exercising more. i am exploring foods, and i am trying not to judge myself. not too bad at all.
i have been really enjoying exercise in my zumba classes. i was never coordinated enough to do dance, but perhaps it would have been an exercise i would have enjoyed. exercise has never been something i have enjoyed. i have to force myself to the gym. the concept of a "runner's high" is foreign to me. i have always heard that if you find an exercise that you like you are more likely to make exercise a part of your routine. so, i have to say, yay! for finding an exercise that i really enjoy. now whether or not i am good at it is another concept altogether, but there are no mirrors in the classroom, so i can't judge myself. haha.
as far as food goes, i had a pretty bad week. i wanted to eat everything. i was a total bottomless pit. although, i learned something, which is a good thing! i take a birth control where i only menstruate four times a year. the week before one of those times, which was this last week, i want to eat everything. this is so good to know because it will help me gauge what is going on with my body and it will help me not be so hard on myself because i will know that it will only happen four times a year. it was also good for me because i had to think a lot about whether or not i was hungry and why it might be.
i am pretty bummed about the fact that i am so very busy because i am not able to write on here as much as i would like to. i am trying to write at least once a week. some foods that i am really liking lately are sun-dried tomatoes, which are great on sandwiches; blueberries, eggplant, mango sorbet, laughing cow swiss cheese, and kettle corn. i have not been cooking as much as i would like, simply because my schedule is really full. trader joe's has great frozen food items, and a grilled cheese is always a quick meal. i have also been eating a lot of soup from panera since it has been cold.
all this to say, things are going well. i am still learning. i am exercising more. i am exploring foods, and i am trying not to judge myself. not too bad at all.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
long time gone, now...
hey everyone! i am so sad that it has been 10 days (as my dear friend alicia informed me) since i last updated this blog. my apologies. i have had good intentions, but i have been sick, sick, sick. this is the first day in about a week that i have actually been awake all day. drugs, sleep, and kleenex have been my life. i have had some time to keep reading intuitive eating. i will say that it is really, really hard to do. i did not realize how programmed these bad habits are. some of the most simple things are SO DIFFICULT:
am i hungry? this is such a basic human need. babies cry when they are hungry. the two year old i babysit asks if she can have a "nack" when she is hungry. dogs nudge you on the legs. tigger, my cat growing up, would attack my feet then dart into the kitchen where we kept her food bowl. so when did this become such a difficult thing for me? one of the first steps in this book is "honor your hunger." it is surely hard to honor my hunger when i don't even know what it feels like. i suppose this is a sin of abundance, because i have grown up in a place abundant with food, i have never known what it feels like to be hungry. a different perspective that the book offers is that years of dieting and restricting have taught me to tune out my instincts in favor of an external locus of control i.e. counting something (calories, points, fat grams, etc.).
another thing the book teaches is to eat what you really want. it says, "if you don't like it, don't eat it. if you do like it, savor it." okay, i know this sounds crazy, but i don't know what i like to eat. i certainly have consumed enough calories to make me overweight, but i don't know what i like to eat. in the past i have chosen one of two paths: either i ate what i was "supposed to" on my diet (rice cakes, soup, carrots, fat free ranch dressing) YUCK! okay, i do like soup, but ff ranch is NASTY. the "or" in this scenario was that i was failing my diet so i would eat "bad" or "forbidden" foods (nachos, french fries, pizza, chocolate). neither of these paths ever took into consideration what i like to eat. i really like broccoli. i also really like pizza. there can be room for both of these in my diet. come to find out i still hate carrots and i don't really like nachos as much as i thought i did (except from labodega).
am i satisfied? am i full? am i stuffed? oh, yes, i am trying to relearn the nuances of this. crazy thing is i often have NO IDEA. so thinking about this is where i became really convinced that "dieting" has screwed me up. i do not know when i am satisfied. so many years of my life satisfaction has not been a glimmer of a thought when it came to eating. lean cuisine meals are not about satisfaction, they are about leanness. you eat what is there and stop when it is gone. dieting left me so unsatisfied that the pendulum swung the other direction and i would eat tons of foods high in calories, fat, and sugar. this also left me quite unsatisfied both with my lack of self-control and feeling groggy. so this is what i am striving for...satisfaction.
not eating because of what the book calls "emotional hunger." for me, this means not eating late at night when i am lonely, tired, anxious, and/or stressed. because of every meal time being so controlled, evenings were the one time i found enjoyment in food. i "saved up" calories to eat at night when i was lonely and anxious. so, unfortunately for me, this has become a habit. i stay up late working on homework and snack on "junkfood." relearning to differentiate biological hunger from emotional hunger has been the most difficult struggle thus far. i have pretty well not done well on this 7 out of the last 10 nights. BUT, that means i have done well 3 times more than i have in the past! not using food to comfort myself is probably going to be a huge mountain to climb.
overall, i KNOW that i am doing the right things to become healthy in relationship to food. a friend of mine here at seminary recently told me that she also read and applied this book to her life. she told me "its hard, it takes forever, and it works. its the best thing i ever did." okay. i can do things that are hard, i know this about myself. the real difficulty will be being patient with myself. i have given myself 20+ years to "unlearn" and mistrust my instincts about food, surely i can give myself a year to relearn them. a lot of people gain weight when they first begin relearning, but the weight eventually settles in a healthy-for-your-genetics place. so what i need to remember is: a little weight fluctuation at first is worth making peace with food, and striving for ideally thin has yet to work for me, so perhaps i should strive for healthy. healthy for my genetics will probably, realistically, still be a size 12 or 14, the people in my family are not skinny by nature. i think i can learn to make peace with a 12 or 14.
am i hungry? this is such a basic human need. babies cry when they are hungry. the two year old i babysit asks if she can have a "nack" when she is hungry. dogs nudge you on the legs. tigger, my cat growing up, would attack my feet then dart into the kitchen where we kept her food bowl. so when did this become such a difficult thing for me? one of the first steps in this book is "honor your hunger." it is surely hard to honor my hunger when i don't even know what it feels like. i suppose this is a sin of abundance, because i have grown up in a place abundant with food, i have never known what it feels like to be hungry. a different perspective that the book offers is that years of dieting and restricting have taught me to tune out my instincts in favor of an external locus of control i.e. counting something (calories, points, fat grams, etc.).
another thing the book teaches is to eat what you really want. it says, "if you don't like it, don't eat it. if you do like it, savor it." okay, i know this sounds crazy, but i don't know what i like to eat. i certainly have consumed enough calories to make me overweight, but i don't know what i like to eat. in the past i have chosen one of two paths: either i ate what i was "supposed to" on my diet (rice cakes, soup, carrots, fat free ranch dressing) YUCK! okay, i do like soup, but ff ranch is NASTY. the "or" in this scenario was that i was failing my diet so i would eat "bad" or "forbidden" foods (nachos, french fries, pizza, chocolate). neither of these paths ever took into consideration what i like to eat. i really like broccoli. i also really like pizza. there can be room for both of these in my diet. come to find out i still hate carrots and i don't really like nachos as much as i thought i did (except from labodega).
am i satisfied? am i full? am i stuffed? oh, yes, i am trying to relearn the nuances of this. crazy thing is i often have NO IDEA. so thinking about this is where i became really convinced that "dieting" has screwed me up. i do not know when i am satisfied. so many years of my life satisfaction has not been a glimmer of a thought when it came to eating. lean cuisine meals are not about satisfaction, they are about leanness. you eat what is there and stop when it is gone. dieting left me so unsatisfied that the pendulum swung the other direction and i would eat tons of foods high in calories, fat, and sugar. this also left me quite unsatisfied both with my lack of self-control and feeling groggy. so this is what i am striving for...satisfaction.
not eating because of what the book calls "emotional hunger." for me, this means not eating late at night when i am lonely, tired, anxious, and/or stressed. because of every meal time being so controlled, evenings were the one time i found enjoyment in food. i "saved up" calories to eat at night when i was lonely and anxious. so, unfortunately for me, this has become a habit. i stay up late working on homework and snack on "junkfood." relearning to differentiate biological hunger from emotional hunger has been the most difficult struggle thus far. i have pretty well not done well on this 7 out of the last 10 nights. BUT, that means i have done well 3 times more than i have in the past! not using food to comfort myself is probably going to be a huge mountain to climb.
overall, i KNOW that i am doing the right things to become healthy in relationship to food. a friend of mine here at seminary recently told me that she also read and applied this book to her life. she told me "its hard, it takes forever, and it works. its the best thing i ever did." okay. i can do things that are hard, i know this about myself. the real difficulty will be being patient with myself. i have given myself 20+ years to "unlearn" and mistrust my instincts about food, surely i can give myself a year to relearn them. a lot of people gain weight when they first begin relearning, but the weight eventually settles in a healthy-for-your-genetics place. so what i need to remember is: a little weight fluctuation at first is worth making peace with food, and striving for ideally thin has yet to work for me, so perhaps i should strive for healthy. healthy for my genetics will probably, realistically, still be a size 12 or 14, the people in my family are not skinny by nature. i think i can learn to make peace with a 12 or 14.
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