Food for Thought: January 27th

Enough Is a Feast

The frantic search for more and more has characterized many of our lives. We believed that if only we had more money, more clothes, more sex, more food, and more things - we would be happy and satisfied.

The more we consume, the more miserable we become. No amount of material things will satisfy our emotional and spiritual hunger. We learn to know our Higher Power, and we learn that He satisfies our need, not our greed. He feeds our hearts and our spirits with the abundance of His love, and when we are strengthened spiritually, physical control is possible.

Our measured food plan fills our bodily needs. The measured amount is enough. We accept it and become comfortable with it. More than that, we learn the truth of the ancient Zen saying that "Enough is a feast."

May I be content with enough instead of grasping for more.

From Food for Thought: Daily Meditations for Overeaters by Elisabeth L. ©1980, 1992 by Hazelden Foundation.

****************************************************

The Allure of the Binge, from my Blog

Every once in awhile, I get to thinking how nice it would be to have a big ole binge. Sometimes I remember the old days, when I’d do that…have a binge….and how it made me feel temporarily calm & relaxed. 

I read a blog last week  where the writer talked about how he feels so Relieved as soon as he makes the decision to have a binge. Whether he went ahead & ate the forbidden food or not, it was the decision to binge that made him feel relieved.

I know that feeling. There’s something about giving yourself the Go Ahead to eat whatever you want to that feels like freedom, doesn’t it? Freedom from diets, freedom from scales, freedom from worrying if something is on plan or off plan; freedom from caring.

Escape.

That’s the biggest allure of a binge: the freedom it promises, right? I don’t know about you, but every time I’ve had a binge, I didn’t care about the consequences; I only cared about the blessed nothingness that excess food brought along with it. No thinking, no worrying, no obsessing, no micro-managing, no racing mind. Nothing. It’s only the next day that I do care, after the sugar coma wears off & I’m faced with ‘the diet’ again.

Of course, there is no freedom whatsoever with binges. Once that decision is made, the real trouble begins. That’s when the real freedom ends and the true enslavement & addiction to food begins.

I know if I were to have a binge, no matter how much I ate, it still wouldn’t be enough.  Once I let that tiger out of his cage, he is totally Ravenous, let me tell you. 

When I have my bad moments & start thinking along the lines of having a binge, this is what I remind myself:

No Matter How Much You Eat Chris It Will still Not Be Enough

And that’s the truth.

So why should I get started down a road I’m not sure I can find my way off of?

If I have a binge, I will start feeling guilty immediately afterwards. I will feel ashamed of myself in the process. Shameful behavior leads to more shameful behavior. I awaken my taste-buds by eating trigger foods. Even if I’m able to get back to my Food Plan the next day, for instance, I’m still thinking about eating trigger foods. And, there’s only so long a person can think about something before he makes it a reality.

If it’s ok once, why not twice? Or three times? And so the vicious cycle goes.

It’s like a roller coaster analogy. You ride the car slowly slowly slowly up the tracks *staying abstinent* & then reach the top *a struggling point* where you stop for a 2 second breather, before that car takes off like a bat out of hell down the tracks towards the bottom. You lose your stomach once that car takes the plunge, and you know you’re in for a wild ride. A wild ride you can’t get off of or stop until it reaches its destination.

If I were to start having binges, my destination would be bottom alright, rock bottom. 

The key, for me, is not to get on that roller coaster to begin with. To stick to my Food Plan because I know for a fact that it keeps me on track. It keeps my addictive nature on simmer instead of on full-boil.

When we read blogs of those who have regained weight, it always started out with ‘just a bite’ of a trigger food. Sometimes it started out with the full intent to binge. But, one way or another, it always starts out with the consumption of a trigger food.

I can honestly say I’ve never read a blog from a person who regained their weight & had the whole mess start out with a broccoli stalk.

It’s sugar that starts the whole downhill decline.

If all I had to eat was vegetables & protein, I’d never have one moment of struggle.

It’s when I think I can ‘handle’ a sliver of pie or a ‘few’ cookies that I truly do struggle. Those foods are not part of my Food Plan so I don’t eat them, as a rule. I’m not always 100% though, and I do have my moments where I try to delude myself that I can handle sugar ‘in moderation’ or even eat like ‘a normal person’.

That’s when the vicious cycle starts & where it stops, nobody knows.

So, for today & today only, I will stay true to my Food Plan. I will recognize the fact that it keeps me on track & sane. I will remember what it feels like to experience true freedom rather than con myself into thinking excess food can provide that. It can’t. It never has & it never will.  

For today only, I will remember that while a binge can feel like Relief, the true relief comes from adherence to my Food Plan.

For today only, I will remember that every action has a reaction, and, most likely, a reaction I’m not interested in discovering.

For 24 hours, I can do anything. And that’s all I have to worry about: today. Yesterday is gone & tomorrow isn’t here yet.