Have you heard the saying "if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck
and quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck"? Well, I think the same goes
for diets and bad eating. If it looks bad for you and smells bad for you and
tastes like something that's way too rich/salty/fattening/sweet, then stop
eating it! All my life I've been barraged with food that tantalizes the senses
and automatically caused me to drool and I never felt the least bit bad about
eating them. But never stopping to consider the things I was putting into my
body led me to the point of severe obesity. And, honestly, if I'd kept eating
those things the way I ate them, I would have died long ago. There's eating yourself into a food
coma and then there's eating yourself into an early grave. Not really something
I care to revisit.
My relationship with food has morphed from unhealthy to healthier. I've traded
cheesecake for apples; steak for chicken; ice cream for yogurt. I stopped
ordering the really rich drinks from Starbucks and steer clear of anything that
looks remotely like fast food. I'll gravitate toward salads before pasta and
will eat vegetables like they're going out of style. In the last few months, I've even
traded in my coveted Diet Coke for green tea....that was the hardest. I MISS
Diet Coke!
But I'm not perfect. Far from it, in fact. I slip more often than I care to
admit. I am only human, after all. And I do love food....and sometimes I miss
the old days of eating chicken salad made with walnuts and extra mayo from my
local deli. I miss eating out for Chinese food and Mexican. I try to always
make the healthy choice. And when I don't make the right choice and I eat
French fries instead of salad, I try not to beat myself up. I try to remember
that I make mistakes and that one misstep does not a habit make. And I try to remember that it's OK to not be perfect all the time...it's OK to have that slice of cheesecake or that juicy burger or that milkshake.
But...I also need to recognize my cheating ways and confront them head-on. When
I slip and eat something that I don’t normally eat anymore, I know there is
usually an underlying reason. I'm not simply eating the cheesecake because it's there - I'm eating it because someone has made me mad or made me want to cry. I'm eating it not because I'm hungry but because I'm emotional. All my life I've been eating my emotions and hiding behind the things that make me feel less than. And I'm still emotional and I still want to eat my emotions...that's the hardest thing to change.
Changing habits and learning not to be an
emotional eater are harder than one would think. You cannot simply change a
lifelong habit in a matter of days or weeks…or sometimes even months or a
couple of years. Emotional eating has been engrained into my psyche for over 30
years and expecting these habits to change overnight is not that easy. It’s
retraining yourself and reprogramming your brain. It’s learning to recognize what
triggers emotional eating and trying to avoid those triggers. It’s learning to accept
your faults and trying to learn to NOT beat yourself up. It’s finding it within
yourself to take a breath, forgive your faults and move on. It’s learning to
live life and not to live behind food. And sometimes that’s the hardest thing
of all.