Confession

Folks, I have a confession to make.  I don't know who to make it to -- priests don't handle this sort of thing -- so I'm making it to you, my readers.  I look not for expiation, but for aid.  Help in changing my ways, or changing my impure thoughts.  Perhaps your comments will help. 

What is my sin? Well, it's not much of a sin.  Not even a pecadillo.  Or maybe it is, and you can tell me so. 

It's fear. 

Fear of food. 

Isn't that stupid? 

Maybe I'm not a genius, but I do know more about food than the average Joe.  Maybe I'm not the best at working with it, but I'm pretty good.  I make an effort to read, to learn, to do new things, to experience, to see, taste, touch, smell, feel.  I don't think of myself as stupid or prejudiced.  I can throw off old habits, though it's hard. 

I'm scared to eat.  I think the Food Nazis have already won.  Painful to live in fear, isn't it?   

I cannot put anything in my mouth without feeling guilty.  Everything is bad for me.  Too much cholesterol.  Too little fiber.  Alcohol?  Caffeine?  Forget it.  Everything is deadly poison.  Every time I eat, I come to near-paralysis.  What should I eat?  Will I get fatter?  Can I make it healthier for me?  I don't really need this food, do I?  I'm even writing this post right now because I've put off making breakfast for like three hours.  And I am fat.  And my blood cholesterol is worsening.  And it's been suggested I drink less.  And lower my caffeine intake  And exercise.  And I've tried most of that; I'm better at some of it, worse at some.

It might help were there not such a confusing mélange of information about food out there.  God knows I try to sort through it.  Is a glass of wine a day good for you, so long as you don't become an alcoholic?  Are french fries really so carcinogenic that the State of California should sue potato product manufacturers?  Should everyone cut back on salt?  And if I can't sort through it, what am I supposed to tell you?  You can read On Food and Cooking -- Julia Knows I do -- but can we rely on anything else?

I know I'm not the only person like this.  Hell, Paul Prudhomme wrote a book and has a TV show about it -- eating healthfully, that is.  But I doubt Paul Prudhomme lives in fear.  I also don't know what his health is like,  I do know he still looks, well, a little big.

Maybe I'm scared of dying.  Maybe I'm scared of feeling old.  Maybe I'm just tired of looking fat.

But what do I do?  I have to eat.  I love food: talking about it, making it, eating it.  How would you feel if you hated something you love?  Maybe you'd feel like me. 

I thought confession was supposed to be good for the soul. 

How would you deal with this? 

 

Comments

[Joe]

Oh, there's the money thing to worry about -- how should I spend my money for food?

[xta]

joe, i TOTALLY know what you mean. in the last 9 months i've lost 70 pounds and have had to completely change the way i interact with food. i am now fearful of overindulging... what if i start gaining back the weight? i think constantly about food... what i'm going to eat next, how much of it i can eat, how many calories does it have?

that said, i think there IS a way you can reduce your fear of food. the first step might be simple portion-control. try only eating half of what's on your plate, and save the other half for later. (or if it doesn't incite even more guilt, just toss the other half out altogether.) this alone has been a BOON to my way of thinking about food. there's no way i ever *needed* as much food as i had been eating. is it possible to shift your focus away from food as a hobby, and more towards food as sustenance?

also, i've gotten creative about ways to feel like i'm eating indulgently while still heating healthfully, too. substituting ground turkey for ground beef, for instance. i choose a breakfast cereal with added protein because i know it'll keep me from getting hungry until noon, whereas a bowl of cheerios is spent by 10am. and although i LOVE haagen dasz, i purposefully choose to stock my freezer with low-calorie ice milk bars instead. i don't need the calories in the haagen dasz, i tell myself.

it's hard. i understand what you're dealing with.

[Mit Moi]

Aggghhh! Not you too, dear Joe!

Although it's painful, I think xta has it right. Cut all portions in 1/2 and save for 2nd meal. Although I have found I am horrible about self-restriction - so I've started asking them to bring the to-go box WITH the meal so I can split before I start.

Also, when I'm out on the road, and know I won't be able to eat 2nd 1/2 the next day, I ask them if they'll just serve me 1/2 portions - and quickly add I'm happy to pay for full portions. Usually they are happy to cut the size if I am willing to pay full $.

Although it irks me that adults can't order child-size portions for child size $$ - not because I'm cheap - but because I don't need to eat so much.

[Kira]

I have a different approach.

I live life.

I love what I eat.

And screw the consequences.

I do this with the full knowledge that my father is diabetic, that I likely have a very high cholesterol (it was high over ten years ago, and my solution was to just stop having it tested), and that I eat more fat than should be allowed. I eat only when I'm hungry, but when I eat I eat what I want without guilt. It's too great of a joy for me to abandon it to guilt or teeny tiny portions or not eating certain foods. I know I'm not at my ideal weight, but it hasn't prevented me from a) picking up men or b) doing whatever I want to do in life, so I can't manage to care. It becomes especially easy to blow off what folks tell me to eat or not eat when every year, there are new shifts on the bad food, good food lists. I don't like gorging myself, but I'm going to eat my CHEEEESE and be fine with the results since the joy of eating it was more than any side effect I can receive. I like my wine; I rarely am intoxicated from it, so I know I am not drinking too much. A glass or two several times a week is very accepted in Europe, and it works for me too.

I like life. I don't feel guilty about my life. Ditto for food.

[Joe]

Input, output. Input, output. What's in the input, what's out the output. What's "healthy," what's not. Xta and Mit_Moi talk about control; Kira abandons control, or says she does, kind of. I don't know, which is the frustrating thing. Lack of knowledge sucks, especially when it's about oneself.

You know what? I've put on 10 pounds in a week without realizing it. I've put on 15 more after that in a few more weeks, even though I realized what was going on. Took me nine months to lose it. I've lost 19 pounds in 6 months without trying. No, scratch that -- 20 -- no, 30 in 3 months. And it's calories in, calories out, right? Now Kira is about half my size, so for her, that's like (at first cut) half the numbers I listed above. Think about it. I can lose or gain 5 pounds without even noticing. I have to admit: most of the above have to do with drugs I was prescribed for different things. Or maybe some of them didn't have anything to do with the drugs at all -- again, who knows?

A friend of mine -- actually a couple of unrelated friends -- were pretty overweight. At least one of them had a ridiculously low cholesterol count. The low cholesterol person also had given up on any sort of dieting when she saw herself gaining weight and felt she knew she wasn't cheating on her diet. Now they've both had gastric bypasses; one was definitely for health reasons.

Output? I know I'm generally a healthier if I exercise. The problem is exercise makes me feel like crap. It also seems like a huge waste of time, unless you realize it's for your health. I read a column in a magazine where friend A, an exercise liker, tells friend B "Did you know every 10 minutes of jogging prolongs your life by 8 minutes?" Friend B says "That means I lose 2 minutes!"

I keep thinking that we're descended from apes who ran around in forbidding landscapes without a lot of food. So we're omnivorous, and built to extract as much as we can from the little we're supposed to get. The little we get is supposed to be tough to get. So we should build restaurants at the top of mountain peaks, with only stairwells up and down. Well, that wastes time. You'd think the clue was in there though.

Time. I like cooking for myself, and do it because I'm easily bored. But that's not necessarily any help if I don't vary the input, or output, or something. So I eat out to save time. Doesn't help. If I had more time, I'd feel more like exercising and figuring out what to eat (assuming I had the right knowledge, which I don't). But I don't have time. So why am I trying to live longer, and be healthier? So I can have more time here, and enjoy the time I have. But like the non-jogger B above, I don't like jogging: if I don't have good time to start with, and my amount of time is fixed, why bother?

Apologies: this is written in stream-of-consciousness mode. The boss gave me the day off after I almost accidentally cut my arm off with a meat saw. Ah, yes, I wish food were a hobby. But I have to eat. Food is both sustenance, and not. Argh. Tomorrow -- back to work!