Food for Thought: July 12th

Growing Up

There is no magic. Nothing - be it person, place, or thing - is going to give us instant and permanent gratification. We keep thinking in the back of our mind that there is some way we can manipulate life into granting us all of our desires, even when they contradict each other.

When we seriously and with honest effort work our way through the Twelve Steps, we begin to grow up emotionally and spiritually. Abstinence from compulsive overeating makes this growth possible. It is not easy, but it is definitely worth the effort.

Acceptance and renunciation are necessary if we are to live with satisfaction in the real world. Grandiose illusions are of no help. We come to understand that certain foods, emotions, and attitudes are not for us if we are to maintain our sanity.

There is no magic, but there is a Power greater than ourselves. Who is directing our growth.

Grant me the willingness to grow up.

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

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Thin Body Vs. Fat Mind: Waging War

 

I may have a thin body, to all outward appearances, but inside my head lurks a Fat Mind.  What does that mean? It means that I still THINK like a fat woman.  I still look at unfinished desserts on my husband’s plate & think to myself, “HOW can such a thing be possible? HOW can he leave even a MORSEL of that luscious cake on his plate?” If I ask him why, he’ll tell me he’s full.  What does FULL have to do with CAKE, I wonder? In my Fat Mind, my stomach could be overflowing with fullness & I’d STILL eat every crumb of cake on my plate.

Sometime during my childhood, I developed the need to feed my MIND instead of my body.  If something was bothering me, I turned to food. If I was upset, a lollypop was stuck into my mouth, like a pacifier, to keep me happy. Somewhere along the line I decided that food = comfort.  Not to my Body, but to my MIND. Feeling anxious or worried? Nothing a bag of chips couldn’t cure.  Or at least tamp DOWN for a time.  I found I could allay my nervous Mind by feeding my body with excessive amounts of food.  But just for a while……..just for the time it took me to eat whatever it was that was ‘comforting’ me.  Then I’d have to go get MORE, because my Mind was still hungry. No matter that my stomach was screaming to STOP! Telling me it’s had ENOUGH! My mind was still famished and so, there was no such thing as “enough” where food was concerned.

Know what I mean?

The human Mind never feels ‘full’…..it just hungers for more more MORE, and we wind up having a monstrous binge and wondering why? We ask ourselves, HOW could I feed my body THAT much food and still want MORE?  The answer is, because your Mind is still demanding to be fed. 

A very large part of this journey requires us to do the HEAD work…….to answer the questions of Why we do what we do, and how we’re going to STOP doing what we’ve BEEN doing for decades.  How do we STOP considering food to be a comfort?

The answer is, we don’t.  By & large, we change our daily habits, but we can’t change our decades-old INSTINCTS.  Our instincts will always lead us to eat excessively.  Our instincts will always tell us to overeat, promising us comfort and relief from whatever ails us.  Our fat MINDS try to convince us that a bit of junk food ‘won’t hurt’, or that it will be ‘no big deal.’  Once we give up the Thin Mind and allow the Fat Mind to take over, it wants to take over COMPLETELY.

My Fat Mind translates my emotions as hunger. ALL of my emotions. Happiness, sadness, anxiety, fear, stress, even good stress………….let’s say I win the lottery……….that’s a GOOD thing, but my Fat Mind would tell me to run out to eat to CELEBRATE! Then I’d get thinking about all that $$$$ and how people would come out of the woodwork to ‘borrow’ from me, and boy howdy THAT would be stressful, wouldn’t it? I know, let’s invite the Fat Mind to INVENT some drama so I can have a valid REASON to eat! 

What a crock.

For five years I’ve read the blogs and board posts here at Medifast, and I see the same struggles being expressed by nearly everyone.  Once they go off plan, they can’t get their groove back.  For the past 13 months, I’ve been a health coach and I see my clients struggling with the same problems.  For the past 40 years of chronic yo yo dieting, I’ve EXPERIENCED the same struggles myself.  Once I let the Fat Mind out to play, it’s wreaking havoc & destroying my best plans to stay the course.

We see people recommitting to diets after regaining all of their weight, sometimes for the second or third time. What went wrong, we ask? How could we KEEP allowing such a thing to HAPPEN?  The answer is, we’ve invited the Fat Mind back into our lives and IT is controlling the show now. Even when we desperately WANT to lose weight, STILL we struggle and compromise our programs, ‘just this once’, or for ‘just a taste.’ 

For the past few months, I’ve been ‘trying’ to lose the 14 lbs I gained after I quit smoking & lost my teeth back in December.  Trying isn’t Doing, however, and I’m painfully aware of that fact.  Why can’t I seem to get my  groove back? Because my Fat Mind is back, sticking his tongue out at me and laughing in my face, telling me how useless my efforts are.  How it’s ‘ok’ to be a bit larger than I once was. That it’s no ‘big deal’……….or that the bread & butter won’t hurt me, or that I’ve been ‘good’ for a few days so it’s ok to let loose a bit.

My Fat Mind is a freaking liar, of course, and that’s a fact.

The only way to shut the MFer up is to STARVE him.  Once I feed the bum, he’s raring to go, demanding more more and MORE. 

If YOUR Fat Mind is running the show right now, what are you going to do about it? It can seem absolutely IMPOSSIBLE to regain that strict mindset we once had, back in the day when we were 100% OP no matter WHAT. When that ‘take no prisoners’ attitude was in charge, and our appetites were simmered down & sleeping.  But now we’ve woken UP our taste buds and they are screaming for more. The Fat Mind is screeching in our ear about JUST EAT IT and HURRY UP, NO ONE WILL EVEN KNOW! Guess what folks? WE know.  Our BODIES know. And our Fat Minds have once again been FED instead of starved.

For today, I am acknowledging my Fat Mind and letting it know that I WON’T feed it, because it will NEVER be satisfied ANYWAY! So what is the point of letting it have a small taste? It’s those ‘small tastes’ that KEEP the Fat Mind alive & well and wrecking our lives!

For today, I am going to resurrect my Thin Mind mindset, and feed IT with packets and healthy L&G meals and plenty of water. I’m telling the imposter to sit down and SHUDDUP and I MEAN it! I’m not playing, like I used to tell my kids when they were small & acting up.  I’m putting the Fat Mind in TIME OUT and throwing away the key.

For today, I won’t rely on some elusive ‘willpower’ to stay the course. Today, I will rely on COMMITMENT and just DO IT.  I will work my plan like I work my job; with devotion and seriousness. I will work my plan like I do the laundry…..whether I feel like it or NOT!  I will eat my healthy food and consider it MEDICINE for what ails me.  What ails me is my Fat Mind, and my healthy food plan is the CURE for that ailment! 

Good ACTIONS create good thoughts, not the other way around. If I want this, I will have to work for it, and ignore the messages my Fat Mind is sending me.

Period.

Who’s with me?