[One Small Bowl] Dinner At Parents, The Consequences

[Guest guest]

4/3/2011 Meals: 6am bowl: eggs and sausage patties (could not finish), coffee and cream 12pm bowl: chicken curry 2pm snack at my parents 3 tortilla chips, 3 potato chips, 1T onion dip, 1T salsa, 2 brandies 5pm dinner: 2T mashed potatoes, 1 cup beef stew, 1 glass wine 5pm dessert: ice cream and florentines, another brandy 8pm Binge 1 single serving white cake with frosting 1/2 Ben & Jerry's ice cream container 8oz sour cream with veggie soup mix (dip) 3/4 bag of Munchos potato crisps I did well with the snacks, but I admit, I only ate them because it was served (politeness) even though I had been craving something crunchy, I noted that I wasn't particularly interested in the flavours. I was very interested in the brandies! I know why, but that will be written about in a bit. The dessert was ice cream, chocolate sauce and Florentines. I cannot remember the last time I had ice cream (in about a year?), so this was quite a taste treat. The Florentines were lemony and complimented the ice cream so nicely. At this point, I feel I was doing fine and could have stopped eating for the rest of the day. I was pleasantly full, satisfied and while I knew it would kick me out of ketosis, I thought about this being most likely the last dinner I would eat at my parents house in a year, so it wasn't a big deal. The drinks were another issue. I noticed that the food was not really a problem, but the brandy and wine were. I could have easily pushed the food aside, to just have the booze. I only feel this way when I am expected to enjoy a meal with people I would prefer not sharing a meal with. Part of it has to do with the relationship to my parents, another part is my inherent shyness and dislike of social settings. Anxiety was building, I was medicating. By the time I left, I had had 3 brandies and a glass of wine in a 5 hour period, certainly not drunkenness, but more a tiredness and a growing irritation that I had let it happen. On the way home, I felt the strong impulse to go-ahead-and give-in to something binge-ful. I stopped at a grocery store, bought a bag of crisps, dip, a single serving piece of cake, a small container of ice cream and one huge bagel. Not a true binge by any means, but the intent was. I did purposely buy small, a single piece of cake instead of a whole one, a bagel instead of a loaf of bread, a small container of ice cream instead of a gallon and the bag of crisps was small compared to what I would have bought in the past. Even in the midst of my wanton food spree, I was aware of the end result, that I would soon make myself sick and the left over food would have to be dealt with. This was taken this morning. 1/4 of the bag of crisps was thrown away, the bagel is soaking in water (lol...I am amused by this), there is about 1/2 of the dip I made in the fridge (low carb, so I am keeping it). The ice cream is in the fridge....I will leave it for my husband. The crisps were good for a little while (too salty and intense) the cake was bland and sweet, the ice cream was very good. I didn't want the bagel at all. I poured water into the bag and let it soak itself up. The chips at my parents and the ice cream set off the desire to indulge in them again. These are trigger foods, former binge foods, and the booze was the catalyst to let it happen. The booze set the stage for the binge, I was ready for any excuse to indulge. Yet, I have to say something in me, just didn't get the thrill of it anymore. I HATED not being able to eat the dinner I had from my little bowl. Even when I got home and had all the extra's, it was funny, because I didn't want to contaminate my bowl with the garbage, but I felt sad about eating away from my bowl. This sounds funny, but there is an issue at stake. The bowl represents my stomach internally. What I place in the bowl, is what I place inside me. I feed myself through my bowl. So when I eat at someone else's home, or in a restaurant, or I choose to binge, then what happens is that I find that my mind wants to suspend the reality of what I am doing to my body. If I am not using my bowl....am I then not feeding myself? Part of binge-behavior is the suspension of the reality of eating. Bingeing is about self indulgence without a thought or a care about the consequences. I believe that had I chosen to eat those binge foods in my bowl, I would have stopped much sooner and " seen " with my body and my mind what I was consuming. This is another break through for me. I realize how it is a dangerous thought process, when I begin to separate myself from what I am doing by making special sets of circumstances or excuses. This is no different than the black and white thinking that comes with dieting. If I think that my bowl is one way of eating and eating without the bowl means perhaps a free-for-all, then I am suspending reality. Most of my adult life, I was either dieting or bingeing which are two separate ways of eating, one I am conscience of, the other I block out. The two were never connected, as I tried to keep them as far apart from each other as I could. I was either good with eating or bad with eating. The bowl is in essence, the connecting pathway. It is a representation of my relationship to eating and connection to my body. It use to be " the diet " that managed my eating. Now, it doesn't matter what the food choices are, it matters how I eat it, how I connect the food to my body and my mind. This is a hard concept for me, because I have always relied on " the diet " whatever it may be, to be the answer. So this good/bad foods or diet/binge, bowl/no bowl way of thinking is black and white and the absolutes of it keep my relationship to food separated and out of balance. I saw that happening yesterday at my parents, when the bowl was left behind and I was out of my comfort zone and my reaction was to drink and food became the resentment and the punishment for feeling the way I do about my parents. At home, I did not want to contaminate my bowl with junk food. I am glad for writing about it, about seeing the cause and effect and can look at it more clearly as I progress with my changes. All meals need to be eaten from my bowl at this point. I remind myself that it is not about the amount eaten, or the selection, it is about using the bowl and paying attention to my body's communications. --

Posted By One Small Bowl to One Small Bowl at 4/04/2011 09:11:00 AM