Bonus

In a newsletter from the Chocolate Fairies talking about making a change:
"Make it small. Make it significant." and I will add -- Make it today.

Hell is other people

A thought from the author of Beyond Chocolate:

"Or to be linguistic about it, "L'enfer c'est les autres", according to Jean-Paul Sartre. I used to agree totally. I longed for the house (or at least the kitchen) to be mine, all mine! Then I could eat. In a mindless, numb, rhythmic dance, my hands and mouth forming a ceaseless conveyor belt to my bored and beleaguered tum. I looked forward to the rest of my family going out together and leaving me at home "doing my homework". Overeating on my own was my way of rebelling against my mother's policing of every mouthful and every mealtime. ("Only one potato for Josie!") I never learned what was enough for me, or what I did or didn't like. I would eat anything and everything as soon as her back was turned.

She's been dead for 26 years now, but I've kept her memory green by giving other people the right (even though they're unaware of it) to dictate how free I feel about eating. I live with a slim partner and his slim children, and I still don't feel comfortable eating with them.

But now I'm looking at my relationship with food in a new way, I find other people a great source of information. I never noticed before, but some of them (the young ones particularly) are obviously "doing" the Beyond Chocolate principles. When I ask the children what they want for lunch, they go into a daze for a minute and sometimes tell me to ask them again later. This used to annoy me, but now I understand and respect what they're doing - tuning in.

I went to lunch with some married friends of mine last week and noticed they checked with each other what they'd be having for dinner before choosing from the menu. Advanced stuff!

When he's hungry, my dearly beloved wanders slowly about the kitchen, one hand on his tummy and the other had pointing at various kinds of food. For each one, he swings his "tummy hand" out to the side, as if he's opening a door, and points inside. ("I'm checking what shape the hole is.") He always takes the time to find out what and how much he's hungry for.

As for knowing when enough's enough, the smaller the child the better the lesson. Toddlers are so in tune with the moment of satisfaction, they will turn away from the spoon and try to climb out of the chair (and/or spit out the last mouthful) when they've reached their favourite number on their Hunger Scale. Maybe not acceptable behaviour when you're a grown up in a classy restaurant, but a useful demonstration.

And the old demon "wasting food" : I spent decades convinced that everyone was watching me eat and judging me for it. Now I've actually started watching other people eat, I realise how little anyone does it. What I've noticed is how much they don't eat (i.e. what they leave on the plate) and the fact that hardly anyone ever says a word about it. They don't apologise to the waiter or the host and nobody seems to mind. If they didn't serve themselves and take the right sized portion for them, what's left over sometimes looks like the same amount they started with! And not a peep or a raised eyebrow from anyone! (I can hear my mum rotating in her grave, of course.)

I'd always suspected thin people lived in a different world from me. Now I feel I've been allowed into that world and it's not full of calorie-counting, exercising robots. These are people like me who've learned some useful life skills that I am learning too, at last. And the world they live in makes so much more sense than the lonely, frustrating planet I used to inhabit."

Rules

I picked up a copy of the book Beyond Chocolate yesterday and flipped it open to a page where the authors were talking about all of the rules they had for themselves.

Carbs are bad.

Rice will make me fat.

I shouldn't have pasta.

Fat-free cookies are okay.

Salads are always a healthier choice than burgers.

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.

I will enjoy life when I am thin.

If I am not dying from exhaustion, the exercise isn't doing anything for me.

and the list goes on....

Where do the rules come from? Have you ever questioned whether they are true or not?

Rules and habits are how we get a lot done during the day. I park my car in the same spot everyday so I don't have to think about where to find it when I get done with work. I have the same morning routine so I don't have to expend energy thinking about how to get the coffee made, my teeth brushed, and bags packed so I can get out the door on time.

But what happens when needs change but your rules and habits don't?

150 million years ago, I was a high school athlete and a growing girl -- I ate a HUGE breakfast and was starving when lunch rolled around. As I reached my adult height and stopped playing sports, my caloric needs changed -- what would have happened had I continued to eat the HUGE breakfast?

Now, I have coffee on the way to work and a small breakfast-something later in the morning. Needs changed --rules and habits followed. But first,I needed to be willing to examine my rules and habits to see if they still were helping me achieve my goals.

Think about your automatic responses:

Do you really think carbs are "bad"? There are the same number of calories in a gram of carbohydrate as in a gram of protein -- why are carbs bad?

Rice making you fat? It can make you retain water and white rice is digested very quickly, leaving you hungry sooner so you could end up eating a greater number of calories -- but "bad"? It isn't inherently bad.

Shouldn't have pasta? No, you shouldn't have a bowl of pasta the size of your head -- there is nothing wrong with some pasta.

Fat-free cookies -- Have you ever looked at the calorie count on fat-free cookies? The have to make them out of something. If the fat content is lower, chances are they are higher in sugar. --calorie savings? I think not.

Always salads? Many of the restaurant salads have as many or more calories than the smaller burger dinners.

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day? Who says? Lots of people feel nauseous if they eat breakfast. If you are hungry, by all means, eat! But if you are not physically hungry, your body does not need the calories just then. Tune into what your body is telling you -- you will get hungry eventually.

I will enjoy life when I am thin? Your life won't change. If you can't appreciate what your body does for you now, you won't appreciate it when you are thin. There will always be someone who is thinner or younger or more accomplished than you. Carpe Diem, my friends, appreciate what you have today and move forward in the direction that seems sensible to you. But don't hold out for someday -- someday is not guaranteed.

Exercise? Find some way you like to move and move. Life is too short to punish yourself everyday in the name of health. If you like to walk, walk. If you like to dance in your living room, do that. You don't have to kill yourself with exercise to lose weight.

So maybe I didn't cover your rules -- give them some thought and see if they still make sense for you. Maybe they weren't ever true for you -- you just picked them up from somewhere.