[One Small Bowl] Ducks and Numbers

[Guest guest]

Yesterday’s Meals: 6am bowl: eggs, bacon 12pm bowl: beef and broccoli with cheese and extra fat added 3pm bowl: salami with cream cheese and peppers 6pm bowl:beef and broccoli with cheese and extra fat added 7pm bowl: SF gelatin with cream 8pm bowl: salami with cream cheese and peppers Liquids: 2 cups of coffee with cream, about 1/3 gallon of iced tea and lemon, some water I woke up refreshed at 2am. Sigh. It will whack out my day, but I suppose it really doesn't matter. I can nap anytime. BG was 106, the best reading in a long time. I ended up with 6 bowls of food yesterday, but it was a day that needed to ease me back into ketosis, I decided it was okay to eat more. (Giving myself permission to eat is still a novelty). It was more important that I stayed low carb all day than it was to restrict eating. I still feel really good, head clear and no aches or pains. This is a bit of my old mindset, to count what I eat, to try and judge whether I did " good or bad " and it will take me awhile to move out of that and learn to trust the principles I am learning from mindful eating. I am aware that I do that, I find myself counting scoops of food, the salami rollups and I do laugh at myself. It does not matter whether I put 2 scoops of food in my bowl or 6, it matters only that I put some food in it when I am hungry. When I was busy with a project yesterday, I forgot to eat and did not think of food. In the evening, it was my settle-down time and I wanted to feel good with food. On the truck, I ate dinner and got up on my bunk and that was that. At home, I sit down to watch a film, and suddenly I want a dessert and coffee. I suppose I shouldn't worry about it. At least I don't feel awful with the low carb choices in food as I would with high carb (and wine!). I suppose too, that I need to just listen to my needs, both body and mind and let there be an agreement instead of a fight between the two. Gerrard says " having lived according to this system for over two decades now, I can eat any food that I really want. Yet I automatically eat in a nourishing way, one that is literally satisfying to the body, soul and psyche " . I am still amazed that this little turtle bowl is proving to be just the right amount of food in one meal. I sometimes fill it to the rim (which would be exactly 1 cup of food) but more often than not, it is only partially filled. I have a bit harder time with the turtle cup, as I am used to cups with saucers and it feels weird to grab it for hot coffee and tea, but once I do, I am pleased with the shape of it, how comforting it is to hold. I made tea at 2am, but without thinking, grabbed a cup and saucer and sat down, had to go back in the kitchen to trade if for my turtle cup. It is a little harder for my mind to wrap around the idea of a small container for liquids, as in the past, it was all about drinking as much as I could manage, but that is not listening to my body’s needs, that is a rule made by somebody else. For millions of years, no one was told how many cups of water to drink a day and they managed to survive and thrive. I suppose the best amount to drink is what the body actually needs. It amazingly has a signal called thirst. In One Bowl, the next step (I am at page 72) is to eat alone for awhile, to get the chance to focus on your relationship to food, what you eat and how your body responds to it. It is not a permanent way of eating, but a retreat for a training period. Once this training period is over, you can choose to go back to eating from a plate and in social settings as long as you continue to practice the lessons learned from One Bowl. If at any time that you feel disconnected from the food and the relationship of food, body and mind, you simply take a few days and go back to eating alone and with your bowl. This can be done throughout your life, moving back and forth between your normal eating style and a retreat with the bowl when needed. There is a natural flow to it, and you will know when you need the retreat. You can also spend time with the bowl and opt to use a plate in social settings. This is why I love this book so much, it has such a gentle message of listening to your body and not about making rules. Oh, and this time period is guided by your needs, if you can only do this when at home and not in the work setting, then that is fine. It's up to you to decide your need or comfort zone. When I first did this many years ago, I did take my bowl with me to work and no one even noticed that I ate from it, even snacks. One co-worker eventually commented that she liked my bowl when she saw the face of a cat at the bottom, but that is because she liked cats, not bowls. lol. Later, after my comfort level increased, I carried the bowl in my purse and ate fast food out of it. In those days, I would just and sit in the car and ate the meal from my bowl. I tried taking my bowl into a restaurant a couple of times, but that comfort level dropped and I opted not to get the stares from the waitress who probably thought I was a cleanliness freak and refused to eat off of their plates. lol. What I did do that worked for me, was to simply ask for bowl of chili or soup and felt a relief to be eating an amount I was use to. This of course was not possible every time I ate in a restaurant, sometimes I wanted something else to eat. It was just about experimenting and testing my own waters with it. He goes on to talk about the first initial feelings that come up with eating alone. These are all unique feelings and are to be respected and worked with. Some will be bothered by it, some will find relief. I noticed for myself that my long standing sneak eating issue was causing me guilt to eat alone. For the last 8 years, I have been eating nearly all my meals with my husband, at the table and in a proper setting. It was the safety of the mutually shared meal that kept me from eating outside the meal (except when in sneak eating or bingeing periods). That was my control factor. I did not want to ever appear like a pig in front of my husband. Never mind that I continued to gain weight and could hardly hide my body’s size at 317 pounds. Last night, I felt a twinge of guilt, my mind telling me that I shouldn't need any more food for the day after dinner. But I made a choice to override my mind's chatter and listen to my psyche, my inner need to stay low carb fro my BG's, to ease back into eating well for my health and that to me, is like a middle ground between my mind and my body, perhaps the bridge between the two. I did notice that once I had some SF gelatin and a cup of coffee after dinner, I was satisfied. When I ate a few salami rollups later, I felt a definite stop within me. That's when I knew my need was over with. I would not have known that natural limitation was there, if I had not attempted to eat. Learning to trust myself is a wonderful experience. I heard and felt that stop, it had nothing to do with a pre-conceived rule to regulate my eating! I must be entering ketosis again, as that clears the way to hearing the body cues for me. I am flowing into eating when I feel like it, not according to the clock or the name of a meal time. I am recording the hour that I eat, but I am smiling at the " number " value and what that need must be. Does it really matter whether I eat every hour or go 12 hours between meals? I am alone, I have no meals to prepare for anyone, so what does it matter when I eat? My logical mind wants to regulate my eating to three meals a day, to have that mind control over the number of times I eat in a day. This certainly brought me back to the eternal question, should I not be eating from hunger alone? Or should I be concentrating on eating a set number of meals a day? Where is the control factor? Again, I smile when these arguments pop up in my head. What if I simply listened to my inner need at the moment it is " needy " ? As a person who has always wanted all her ducks in a row, what if I just let the ducks be where they want to be and let myself enjoy where they are? I use to be so afraid of this concept, but now I want to experience it. As a recap (up to page 77), first you choose the bowl, then you get use to eating from it with no limitations on the food selection or amount, then you move into eating alone in quiet solitude and listening to the thoughts and feelings that arise from the experience. There is no time frame for this, it is all up to you when you feel ready to move on. The next experiment is to learn when to stop eating. As I have already written, that is the most elusive thing to discover, but once it is heard, it makes sense. It becomes a reality, not an elusive dream. I heard that stop last night and I am ready to listen for it and feel it, know it and smile at it. This is the inner symphony I want to hear, not the numbers written down in neat columns, not placing the ducks in a row, not following a rule for controlled eating. --

Posted By One Small Bowl to One Small Bowl at 3/28/2011 04:57:00 AM