Giving Up the Guilt: Food for Thought

This week I started a course from Chabad.org called Faith and Food....I read the supplementary articles first because I've yet had time to listen to the actual video but I loved this bit of writing by one author:


A mindful eater is one who eats without judgment or guilt. A mindful eater eats when hungry. Mindful eaters do not graze, multitask, skip meals, ignore body cues, eat when they’re full, eat because it’s there, it’s so good, or because it’s left on their child’s plate. Being mindful means knowing exactly how your body feels at all times. It’s being in touch with what is going on inside. Mindful eating comes with an awareness of tastes, textures, smells. Mindful eating is a state of consciousness in which we appreciate where our food comes from, acknowledge the energy that goes into its creation, and express gratitude for the nourishment we are provided. ~ Chana Lew

I've had quite a journey with food and guilt and have had to untangle many a snarl in my emotions about food.  I was always a plump little girl.  I vividly recall my first 'shaming' incident.  Each day we children went to the front of the room to collect a nickel and then walked into the cafeteria to buy an icy cold carton of milk.  I still recall the horror I felt when my teacher said "I'm sorry Terri...You don't get a nickel today.  Your mama said you were too fat for milk anyway."   The class laughed.  I promise you until that moment I had never felt anything other than myself.  From that moment on, I knew I was less because I was 'different'.   

Body shaming went on and on throughout my life.  It is unfortunate that body shaming comes in all sizes and shapes.  Too thin, too fat, too tall, too short, too round, too straight.  Food however, often does play a role in the shaming, whether it's because we overeat or under eat or simply eschew certain foods.  Food is inexorably tied to our body image because we cannot live with out food.  It is telling however, that in seeking an image that represented an overabundance of eating, most of the images portrayed an overweight person with loads of sweets all about them.  You can be thin and have a compulsive eating disorder.  You can be male or female.  You can come from any ethnic and religious background.  You can eat too much of so called healthy foods and cause yourself harm as well as eating too many sweets or too much fat.  Compulsive behavior can be disguised in many seemingly innocent ways.

My history with diets began in third grade. The truth is, I always lost weight until the moment Mama tired of being on a diet herself and then we went back to eating as we had always done and I returned to my previous weight.  Over the years that ensued, I bought Mama's story that "Terri just can't lose weight."  All those years through elementary, junior high and high school I was not allowed to make food choices.  I was able to eat only what I was given and when it was given whether those choices were good for me or bad for me.  I think it was along about junior high that I began to feel guilt over food.  And here is along about the time I began to sneak foods and to overeat when I felt sad or angry.

By the time I was a young married woman I had developed a compulsive eating habit.  In my own home, with no one to tell me what I could or couldn't eat, with no one to withhold food or encouraging me to binge eat with them, I had no idea how to monitor my own habits.  It was nothing to me to bake a cake and eat the whole thing.  When I felt ill, I'd force myself to throw up.  With an empty stomach, I would eat once more.  I followed this pattern for years, intermittently dieting (and losing weight) but soon returning to my uncontrolled eating and feeling guilty even if I ate normal amounts of food. I simply could not separate the bad feeling from the need for nourishment.

When I was 28, a friend and I went on a diet.  We spent three months eating salads daily, encouraging one another, swimming 6 days a week and proudly watching the pounds melt off...Until one day, a woman at our local pool made a very mean comment about our weight loss attempts.  We returned to Shirley's home and baked three cakes, a pan of brownies and a batch of cookies and then sat down to enjoy the fruits of our labor.  After one huge slice of cake I stood up and said "No.  No more...I'm tired of this cycle of guilt and eating.  I can't NOT eat...Why can't I just enjoy food and stop this stupid cycle?"   Shirley was shocked.  "What if you die and you've NEVER been skinny?"  "What if I eat and enjoy it without yo-yo-ing up and down and feeling bad every time I put a bite of food in my mouth?" I replied.

It was at that time I began to monitor when I ate, why I ate, and what foods I simply could not  eat and control bingeing urges  (BBQ chips were one of those foods).  I learned to recognize my feelings for what they were.  Depression, anger, and hurt unmasked by food were painful but bearable if I also were not feeling physically ill from binge eating.  Oddly in the years I was treated for depression no one ever bothered to address or even ask about my eating habits.  This is something I had to overcome on my own.

It took years to work my way through this compulsive habit.  As with most 'addicts' I moved from one addiction to another.  While I had always been a teetotaler before, I soon began to drink.  I was never an alcoholic but I did use alcohol to mask or dull certain emotions I felt.   Fortunately I recognized sooner rather than later what I'd begun to do. I gave that up as well and now only rarely have an adult beverage, never to excess.

When I say it took years I mean that sincerely.  I began my journey into overcoming compulsive eating long before I met John.  It was after John and I had married that I took the final step in ending the compulsive eating.  I'd always allowed myself one serving of chocolate daily.  I made a resolution that I'd go one year without eating any chocolate except for allowing myself one serving per month at a certain time.  I truly thought I'd set myself an impossible task...but I made it through the year without eating chocolate more than a couple of times.  I felt I'd finally made the last hurdle with my eating problems.

I did not lose a lot of weight during those years of overcoming compulsive eating.  A few pounds perhaps, but my weight settled at what felt normal for me.  Yes, I was still a big girl/woman but I began to attempt to making myself as attractive as I could.  I learned to dress the body I had, how to apply makeup to enhance my features, found a hairstyle that suited me.  I began to take care of myself in better ways.  I avoided having foods that I felt caused me to spin out of control.  To this day I don't keep certain foods in my home in anything other than single serve quantities and never on a regular basis.  Those foods are rare treats for me.

Occasionally, when things are really rotten in our lives I feel that old compulsion to binge and purge.  I loathe those thoughts that will slip in at times but I control my urges.   I've long realized that for myself food and feelings quickly become connected and if I'm to keep food in it's proper place in my life I cannot afford to give in to that urge.  

There was a  time in the early days of my diabetic journey where I found myself feeling deeply ashamed that I had 'caused' myself to become a diabetic.  After many months of study, I discovered that while there are a few professionals (nutritionists usually, rarely doctors) who still play the blame game with those who are diagnosed with Diabetes II, the overwhelming evidence is that the disease is actually  both a genetic disorder and an inflammatory disorder that combines to create the need to eat those very foods that fuel the disease.  Diabetes can be controlled with diet and exercise and treatment.  However, guilt and blame can   be a deterrent to doing those very things that will improve our health.   I think  that my prior history in overcoming compulsive bingeing and purging is why I found it easy to quickly put a diabetic eating plan into place that works for me.  I realized  it was just one more hurdle where food is concerned. 

I lost a little weight and have settled in at a new 'normal', still a big girl but over 120 pounds lighter than when I was at my heaviest.  Most importantly, I know that NO food is off limits, any food is acceptable in a serving size but I do have to balance the foods I sometimes would prefer with the foods I know will best benefit my blood sugar.  I make choices based on how I want food to make me feel physically rather than eating foods based on my emotional state.  

I'm looking forward to continuing with this particular study but I appreciate what the quoted author's words brought to mind as I read them the other day.  And I hope that if you have had a battle with food and body image that knowing someone else has been there and succeeded in finding a balanced and healthy approach.