The Pasta Conundrum

I’ve made it pretty clear at this point that I’m not a fan of fad/crash diets like Paleo or Atkins, and I absolutely think that HMR is a bad idea. That being said, I acknowledge that every body works in a unique way and if something works for you in a way that makes you feel great and is sustainable long term without causing dangerous weight yo-yo’s, then cool. Listening to your body is key.

I’m not an anti-carb or even low-carb eater. I think carbs are part of my balanced diet, and I like them. They do need to be limited somewhat because they tend to be very calorie dense, but outside of that I think carbs are yummy and great.  However, something weird is going on with me and pasta.

I make pasta about once a week for dinner, and then portion out the leftovers for lunch at work for the next couple of days. At dinnertime I’ll prepare myself a bowl, eat it too quickly and feel as though I’ve eaten nothing at all, then go fetch myself an entire second bowl. It’s like when I eat pasta the mechanism that tells me I’m full just completely shuts down. Afterward, I feel uncomfortably bloated, bubbling, and sick.

At first I thought it was just because I was eating too much, but I came to realize I was bloated, bubbly, and sick even after eating my carefully measured portions of pasta at lunch.

Thankfully this can’t be celiac disease, true celiac is still fairly rare and I do not suffer from it or any other kind of food allergy. I eat bread and plenty of other gluten containing products daily with no problem whatsoever, but pasta apparently does not agree with me so I’m thinking I’ll have to eliminate it from my diet.

This makes me sad as I love pasta, it’s a quick easy dinner that provides plenty of lunch leftovers, but it’s just not worth the cost – it causes binge behavior and makes me feel awful afterwards. In keeping with my own advice to listen to my body, it’s got to go.

Now to come up with some tasty pasta alternatives that the guys I live with will actually eat...

Food Policing

Seriously. Don’t do this. Ever.

What follows is more or less a transcript of a conversation I had in my work break room this morning while I was trying to put together my morning cup of caffeine.

Me: Staring blankly into a very full refrigerator, trying to figure out where I left my little bottle of coffee creamer. A male co-worker came in (aged 50-something, generally a nice guy).

Him: Using the low, chastising tone of voice you use with your dog when you find them rooting through the kitchen trash, “get outta there.”

Me: Looking up in confusion, “excuse me?”

Him: “I said get outta there.”

Me: Further confused, “why am I not allowed to look in the fridge for my coffee creamer?”

Him: “Because that stuff is all junk.”

Me: Now angry, hurt, defensive, you name it… “well, when I desire an opinion on what I put in my body other than my own, I will be sure to come look for you.”

Him: “So in other words, shut up?”

Me: “Pretty much.”

Then, since I was hurt, angry, and defensive, I explained that my coffee creamer is fat and sugar free. Which I shouldn’t have, because it is in no way, shape or form anyone’s business other than my own what I am choosing for breakfast. He then food shamed me again because – chemicals.

He even said, “speaking as a diabetic; that artificial crap is worse for you than just eating sugar.”

Although I was feeling a strong desire to point out at that juncture that, although fat, I am not a diabetic (nor suffering from any weight-related complications) I simply took my coffee and left.

I wonder what he would have said if I hadn't identified that I was specifically looking in there for coffee creamer? His objection began when he came into the break room to find a fat girl peering into a fridge, so the fact that I was looking for food of any sort is what wasn't allowed. At my size I should be able to live comfortably off my fat stores for a few months, right? And according to him I need to do so until I stop shamefully taking up too much space.

Speaking as someone who does have an eating disorder, this kind of encounter can be incredibly harmful. Getting policed, shamed, and harassed for having the nerve to both be fat and eat in public is exactly why people retreat to eat in secret. And eating in secret is where binging occurs. I’ve struggled for years to find the courage to unapologetically eat in public – and when something like this happens it knocks me back down a peg like nobody’s business.

I reiterate, I know that intentions are good ones when this kind of conversation occurs. I know, and I don’t care.

Do. Not. Do. This. To. Anyone.

Ever.

Why Sustained Weight Loss Fails

This isn’t meant to be the sum total of reasons why 95% of people can’t sustain significant weight loss, they’re just my personal observances on why it’s so very difficult for me.

1)      It often doesn’t feel worth it. To lose weight I have to be hungry a lot, for at least several hours every day, which is emotionally draining (see ego depletion). I also have to consider, weigh, measure, and catalogue everything I eat, which is tedious and (again) emotionally draining. In return, I get to look like a cloth bag stuffed with cotton. Some of the cotton slowly gets removed, but since the exterior bag is exactly the same size as before, it is now wrinkly and saggy and at 40 years of age (it might be slightly better if you are younger) the bag does not seem inclined to shrink at all. So as weight loss continues I can reasonably expect to look more and more like the saggy baggy elephant. With it being as emotionally draining as it is, this end result doesn’t really feel worth the difficulty of losing and then sustaining that loss which will need to continue every day for the rest of my life.

I have also become very physically uneven. I have a stomach that collapsed over itself when I got fat and in case that wasn’t gross enough, the right side hangs lower down than the left. My right thigh is larger than my left thigh (and the fat over my right knee sags down over the knee) and my left calf is larger than my right calf. Since I have never had what society deems to be a “hot body” I admit it’s probably psychologically easier for me not to look good than it would be for somebody who did (or does) look traditionally good. I’m used to not having a good looking body, I’ve never had one so I don’t even know what it’s like to. For this reason I have low expectations where my self-esteem is concerned. But since it’s such a daily struggle to maintain and keep losing weight and I now look in some ways even worse than before – why am I bothering?

2)      I’ve explained before how the body doesn’t know the difference between “healthy weight loss” and “starving” because… well… there is none. And when you starve your body it goes into a state of hyper vigilance waiting for an opportunity to not die when the calories it’s been deprived of are re-introduced. What this means is, I’m even more inclined toward weight gain than I was before. So the slightest slip up on my part can translate to putting pounds on at a truly terrifying speed. Also, when you starve your metabolism slows down to (again) try not to die because you are starving. So the more weight I lose, the less calories I need, the more daily hunger I have to endure to continue to lose weight and look even more saggy and droopy.

3)      I’m aware of the argument that I’m now “healthier” as a result of weight loss. Except… I wasn’t unhealthy before. Losing 70 lbs. has actually caused my blood pressure to elevate slightly. I guess this is a symptom of stress my body is showing because I’ve been living under starvation conditions for so long, but I can’t confirm that because there’s no doctor anywhere who will admit that “dieting” and “starving to death” are actually the exact same thing. However my joints function better, they will probably last longer, and I briefly experienced an improvement in my asthma symptoms (although they came back late this summer with a vengeance for reasons I can’t explain). I also have way better stamina, which feels good.

4)      Self-treating for an eating disorder is difficult and risky. For me, the reason for being overweight is that I suffer from B.E.D. (Binge Eating Disorder). There are effective treatments for this, but they are cost-prohibitively expensive, so I try to teach myself behavior modification techniques on my own using books. Behavior modification has statistically been shown to be the most effective treatment for my type of E.D. but the E.D. is not going away, and treating myself for it has limited effectiveness (some weeks I don’t binge at all, some weeks I binge every day). It just feels like an exhausting and never ending fight right now that I know I don’t have proper help for, and the help I really need I cannot afford.

So I admit, there have been positives. I look better in clothes (and worse out of them). Clothes shopping is easier. I have better stamina and endurance. I sweat less during everyday activities (I no longer sweat while taking a walk unless it’s particularly hot) but I still sweat like crazy and turn red as a beet during high impact workouts. I turn so red that occasionally someone will stop me and ask, “are you okay?” which is embarrassing. I seem to be one of those people that just easily turns red during exertion.

What is my point? I don’t know, I don’t really have one. I’m just venting out how I feel right now and how I feel is negative and tired. I’m sure I’ll feel better about the whole thing tomorrow. I might need to shake up my routine again and try something different.

Done for the Day

I have identified a problem with my current weight loss program.  I’m not sure how to solve it yet, but I figure that having realized what’s going wrong is half the battle.

I have difficulty being done for the day.

My appetite usually starts out small and grows stronger in the afternoon and toward dinner time.  I can easily eat a small breakfast, around 200 calories is fine.  I have a snack of fruit in the late morning and push lunch late, around 1PM.  Lunch is usually around 500 calories, which also doesn’t bother me.  I then have either another piece of fruit or a savory 100 calorie snack at some point in the afternoon.

Then dinner comes around and everything goes to pieces.  I have dinner, and then I want seconds.  I don’t need seconds, my sense of feeling full works and kicks in appropriately when around 500 or 600 calories have been consumed.  I just like eating and I want to continue to eat.  More often than not, before I can stop I’ve consumed nearly twice the number of calories I needed.

The incredible growing appetite phenomenon is a common problem.  I believe it’s because our brains reset our resolve as we sleep, and as the day goes on it gets slowly used up.  If you spend a lot of your day saying, “no” to that morning doughnut in the lunchroom and, “no” to the fast food place at lunch and, “no” to the cake that shows up in the afternoon, then each subsequent, “no” is going to be harder than the one before.  This is because you’re suffering ego depletion every time you turn down food for rational health reasons that your animal survival instinct wants.  This is why I practice behaviors like avoiding situations that will put me near foods (or smells) that I have difficulty resisting and making sure I never get too hungry.

That’s part of it.  The other reason why lunch is so much easier than dinner is that I know at lunchtime I still have dinner ahead of me, so it’s easier to stop.  I realize how pathetic that sounds, but it’s the truth – at lunch, I’m thinking about dinner.  At breakfast I’m usually thinking about lunch.  Behold the sad reality of a food addict.

After dinnertime there’s nothing to look forward to other than going to bed in a few hours with an empty, growling stomach.  Since I (ideally) do not consume enough calories during the day to support my current body weight, my body’s complaints over the matter are kind of inevitable, and I experience a weird sort of animalistic fear of hunger late in the day.  I guess it’s not dissimilar from a dog growling over her food bowl while wolfing down all contents.

In the wintertime I’ve been able to halt the charge for seconds by having a hot cup of tea.  The hot liquid soothes my stomach and nerves and helps put an end point on eating.  Hot beverage = done, and I’m okay.  It works about half the time, if I can find the resolve to go and heat up my tea instead of grabbing another serving.  Unfortunately its summer right now and I don’t want hot tea in the evenings.

Since the issue I’m dealing with is a disordered eating problem, I know the solution likely lies in employing more behavior modification techniques and somehow convincing my illogical lizard-brain that it’s okay and safe to end the day not stuffed full of food.  I just haven’t got it figured out yet.

Marketing Dishonesty in Food

Last weekend a friend of mine was visiting from out of town, and when we spotted a frozen yogurt bar next to the restaurant where we had eaten we decided to go there for dessert.  I got nutella and peanut butter twist frozen yogurt, topped with more nutella (MOAR NUTELLA!) and some chocolate chips.

It was a sweet, decadent, delicious treat the likes of which I will have around once every two to three months.  It was fantastic.  I enjoyed every bite.  I regret nothing.

Here’s what I have a problem with:

What I ate last weekend should not under any circumstances be classified as health food.  Trying to bill it as such is dishonest, annoying, and frankly dangerous.  The intentional attempt to mislead consumers into thinking that this gigantic wallop of sugar is a great way to boost your immune system and build strong bones makes me want to beat somebody senseless with a waffle cone.

The truth is that the product I ate contains 22 grams of sugar and 150 calories per half cup.  Since my total serving was probably closer to 1 & ½ cups, that’s 66 grams of sugar and 450 calories and that’s before I dumped more nutella and chocolate chips on top.

It’s okay for a treat to be a treat.  It’s a treat exactly because we don’t and shouldn’t eat that way every day.  I don’t even eat treats like that every week or every month, it’s about a quarterly indulgence and even that is more frequently than is smart to hork down three days’ worth of sugar in a single serving.  It is never smart to eat that much sugar in one go, but I love it and I do sometimes indulge because I’m trying to put food in its proper place in my life rather than continuing to pathologically abstain, obsess, and then binge.

I study food and nutrition so it’s easy for me to recognize that billing a sugar-frosted yogurt bar as health food is a complete crock of horse poo.  However, not everyone has the time or interest level for the kind of research that fascinates me.  They very well might read the signs plastered all over the building about all the healthy calcium and protein and figure that this is not only tasty, but a really wholesome snack.  Let’s stop by every week!  Marketing occasional indulgences with misleading buzzword lines like, “our frozen yogurt contains live and active cultures that promote a healthy lifestyle” is intellectually dishonest and potentially harmful an insane degree.

Processed foods like cereal and granola are hugely guilty of this kind of marketing bait and switch as well, focusing all the words on their packaging on the few vitamins and minerals that were squeezed into a product and relegating the volumes of salt, sugar and fat to a teeny tiny font size on the back.

Refined sugar is delicious and I love desserts that feature it.  I don’t buy into the food hysteria that classifies it as an addictive like crack, cancer-causing, instant obesity inducing substance.  It takes time and repeated, regular indulgence to become overweight – which means that having a froyo when a friend visits or when you’re on vacation (or just because it’s been months and you really want one) is totally fine.  I want delicious treats to be an occasional part of my diet without obsessing over them or lying to myself and classifying them as health food so that I can overindulge on a regular basis.  You can lie to your brain all you want, but your body isn’t going to buy it.

A decadent frozen yogurt bar is good for the soul.  And that's all it has to be.

Delicious? Absolutely! Health food? Absolutely not.

Living With Binge Eating Disorder

I’m absolutely crazy about these candies that come out around Easter called Robin Eggs.  They’re basically a Whopper malted milk candy coated in a layer of chocolate, then coated again with a hard, sugar layer on top.

One serving is 8 candies, and there are 180 calories in a serving.  There are seven servings in a bag so the bag contains a total of 1,260 calories (a day’s worth).

I am completely capable of polishing off the entire bag in one sitting.  Feel free to gasp in horror, but that’s the ugly and occasionally shocking reality of binge eating disorder.

I love these candies and don’t want to live the rest of my life without ever enjoying them, but I also don’t want to hurt my physical and mental health by binging on them and I know that if I buy them and put them on the shelf with my other snacks eventually I will do just that.  If I’m lucky I’ll manage to eat them in two sittings instead of one, but that’s still not an acceptable amount of empty sugar calories to consume in one day.

So here’s the coping method:

I bought the bag when I was not hungry, brought it home, opened it up and immediately divided it into seven appropriate serving sizes.  There were four candies left over so I had to even them off (yum).

I placed a single serving into my cupboard, and Ted hid the rest away somewhere in the house.  When I want a serving, I need to ask him to bring me one.  It’s up to me when I would like a serving, but dividing them up and hiding them cuts off my ability to turn them into a binge.

Obviously this method is tricky if you live alone, but if you have a good friend who lives close by or a neighbor you trust who are willing to help out, that would work too.

I will always have an eating disorder, but I want to be a person living the rest of my life in recovery from it rather than being a slave to it.  Balancing things I enjoy into my life in a way that I can live with isn’t easy, but it’s worth it.

Thunderstruck

Claiming that all people are whatever body size they are for the exact same reason is a logical fallacy – humans are far too complex and diverse both mentally and physical for that to be the case.

In the range of human sizes, there are some people who are biologically hard wired to be thin (ie. the ones like my husband who eat and eat without thought and never put on weight) and others who are hard wired to be fat (those who do everything possible to reduce body size without any substantial results).  I personally fall into neither of those categories.

There are undoubtedly a myriad other reasons at work as well behind why people are whatever size and shape they are – some within their control, some not.

However, I was utterly thunderstruck by a series of articles I was reading recently about obesity as a symptom of an underlying mental health problem.  The thing these articles pointed out that had honestly never occurred to me before, was the following:

If a person begins to lose dangerous amounts of weight intentionally and to the point where their life is threatened, we classify their problem as a mental health issue.  We attempt to intervene, we try to care for them and save them.  They may be hospitalized and they are treated for their disorder with compassion and hopefully as much dignity as possible.  There are countless articles and public health advertisements correctly encouraging them and their families to seek help before it’s too late.  They are not considered to be at fault for what has gone wrong with them.

If a person begins to gain dangerous amounts of weight intentionally and to the point where their life is threatened, we classify their problem as a personality flaw.  They are called gluttonous, weak willed and lazy.  We guilt them, publicly shame them, and offer no mental health related assistance of any type.  They are expected to solve the problem on their own or pay large amounts of money to get someone to help them.  Perhaps they’re offered surgery.  Perhaps they’re offered a spot on a reality television program so that the rest of society can derive entertainment value from their suffering.  There are countless articles and public health announcements berating them for being such a horrible drain on everyone else’s insurance costs.  They are completely considered to be at fault for what has gone wrong with them.

How have I never even noticed this before?

Why is this okay..?!

Mentally Unhealthy Food Culture

I have spent the past ten months mostly depriving myself of food that my brain perceives as “bad”.  These are items I feel I do not deserve to eat because I have been (and still am) obese.  Things like desserts offered after dinner at my parent’s house or cakes, cookies, and doughnuts constantly on offer at work.  I’ve also avoided bringing certain types of foods into my home which count as dangerous in my mind because I know I have difficulty not seeking them out and consuming all the available supply of them if I can do so without being discovered.

I adore chocolate, but I have been having my husband hide it from me in our home and only bring me a single, controlled serving when I ask for one.  When I discover fast food leftovers that the guys leave in the fridge I’ve been guilty of angrily stuffing them down the garbage disposal and then yelling at my family for leaving pitfalls in my path.

There’s no delicate way to put this: that kind of behavior is seriously messed up.

All of this is evidence that I have a very disordered and mentally unhealthy relationship with food.  Its importance is completely out of proportion in my life.  I’ve come to realize that treating food like an addiction and an enemy isn’t a sustainable way to live a healthy and balanced lifetime at the weight that I desire.

I have a co-worker who usually keeps several small servings of chocolate in her desk.  She forgets about them for weeks, and then when she feels like it will eat a bite – perhaps a single Hershey’s kiss for example – and leave the rest for later.  I have told this co-worker on many occasions that I cannot do what she does because I’m a food addict and I’m helpless to do anything but obsess over and consume all available quantities of chocolate in my possession relentlessly until it’s all gone.

The problem with this is that I’ll never be anything other than a helpless food addict if I don’t start working to develop the same normal, natural relationship to foods (including treat items) that my co-worker has.  So as of this month I’ve started practicing some behavior modification.

For right now, I’ve added two baby steps to my daily routines:

The first is that I purchased a jar of chocolate hazelnut spread (something I’ve been known in the past to dig into with a spoon and eat and eat and eat until I’ve made myself sick) and put it in my desk at work.  For breakfast, I dip out a single tablespoon serving and enjoy it on my toast.  By having it at work I’m not tempted to pull out the jar when I’m home alone so I’m getting practice eating a sensible portion of it in a place where I feel safe.  I’m teaching my stomach (and more importantly my brain) that a single serving is satisfying, enjoyable, and enough.

The second thing is that I’ve begun to have dessert again while in social situations.  When I’m at a family dinner I obtain a sensibly sized portion of the treat I most want (like two or three bites of brownie for example) and slowly enjoy it.  Again, since I’m not alone I’m not in danger of my addiction behavior kicking in and can safely practice getting used to being satisfied with a very small serving of high calorie / high sugar / high fat treat.

At the same time, the only responsible party in either of these situations is me.  I am not foisting responsibility for what I eat onto any other person.

I cannot live the rest of my life saying, “NO – NEVER” to these foods and I cannot continue to hide behind the lie that it’s easier to have nothing than to enjoy a correctly sized, small portion.  Avoiding certain foods entirely out of fear is not moderate, mentally healthy eating behavior.  Complete and strict abstinence will result in continued obsession over what I cannot have, then anger, resentment, eventual breakdown, and finally binging.  Putting the responsibility onto someone else is simply unfair – not to mention an unsustainable practice since nobody can watch over another human being all the time.

Instead I need to re-teach myself to hold all foods in their proper place: enjoyable, but not that big a deal.  I need to learn that not having a huge portion or all available servings of a treat doesn’t make the small taste I did have any less valuable or enjoyable.

Someday I want to be in a place where I can be comfortable having any type of food in my house because it’s just food, it’s not a mistake or an addiction substance or a problem in any way.  I want to get to a place where my body and mind are used to what proper proportion looks and feels like, instead of an incorrect chemical process kicking in and driving me relentlessly to binge.  If I’m going to make a change that lasts for life, I have to practice.

Over and over again these past ten months I’ve had co-workers, family and friends sigh at me and say, “You’re so good” or, “you’re being so good!”  Or conversely as they pick up a plate of cake they say, “I’m being so bad!”  This is heartbreaking.  Food is not good or bad, it has no moral value whatsoever.  The fact that we say these things (and I have been the worst offender of all – even if mostly in my own mind) is evidence that our society has gone completely off the rails with regards to how we eat.  There is nothing good or bad in any way about food, nor do food choices ever define anyone’s worth or virtue.

The fact that it’s been so beaten into us to self-flagellate mentally and often verbally over something so simple as enjoying a piece of cake is another sad side effect of our cultural obsession with health and thinness as a defining factor in the value of a human being.  It has the exact opposite effect as what is intended: instead of guilting and shaming us all into acceptably thin bodies, it creates people such as me who relentlessly obsess over the “bad” food until we wind up eating an entire jar of chocolate hazelnut spread in one sitting and then have to spend years working off the stored energy and mentally retraining ourselves NOT to do so again.

I can’t speak for other countries, but I know that America’s food and fitness obsessed culture is a very, very mentally unhealthy place to be.

A single petit four of average size contains about 100 calories.  This is an appropriate size and calorie content for enjoying dessert.  Also, it's really pretty!

The Shame of Hunger

Something that a regular reader of this blog may notice is that I talk about being hungry a lot.

I do this because for most of my life admitting to being hungry, or having any bodily functions for that matter, was a source of shame for me.  Somehow it got drilled into me that girls were supposed to be lithe, ethereal creatures who live on light and air and who never feel such base things as hunger, need to use a bathroom, or get sweaty.  To this day I become distinctly uncomfortable if anyone knows when I’m having my period.

I would listen in envy as other girls talked about forgetting to eat (this has, to date, never happened to me) or watch as they picked birdlike at food with little apparent interest in it.  This, I thought, is how girls should be.  Not like me, constantly starving and prone to considering my next meal, or even the next serving before the last bite had even been finished.  I was wrong, screwed up somehow, more like a big, sweaty monster or a voracious animal.  I was unkempt, unclean, base and constantly greedy for food – as though I were more pig than human.

I don’t know exactly where this extremely messed up self-image came from.  Maybe it was television, maybe magazines, maybe just growing up in the 80’s and watching most of the girls in my school compete to stay under 100 pounds on the scale (a body weight I would have to have been dying to achieve).  I know now that it’s insane to feel shame of any sort about the biological functions that keep us alive.  They are normal, natural, and quite healthy.  I am legitimately hungrier than my body needs me to be to achieve my personal ideal body weight – but since I didn’t choose that or do anything to deserve it, it should be no more shameful than being a chronic allergy sufferer or having flat feet.

Still, the shame is lodged deep within my psyche.  It persists.

My friend’s young daughter reminds me in some ways of myself at her age.  She struggles with feeling hungry all the time; although for all I know at her age while she’s rapidly growing taller it’s not really a bad trait to have.  Where she differs from me is in a total lack of shame about being hungry or anything that her body naturally does.  I watch her in both awe and admiration being bold and unembarrassed about anything and everything.  Granted, this trait on occasion can cause some face-palming on her mother’s part as some things really are more polite to do in private (like farts for instance).  But I cannot remember ever being so wild, free and unapologetic about my body as this little girl is.  I fear it will go away in time, I fear that eventually this world will beat into her the same innate shame about bodily functions that I had.  As time passes she’s already starting to show concern about what the numbers on the scale say (and she’s not yet ten years old), but she’s still doing far better than I was at her age, so I have hope.

As for me, I keep on telling everyone that yes – I am hungry.  I’m hungry a lot.  Despite the shame that still causes me I will no longer pretend I’m some kind of aether sprite with no nutritional requirements or bodily functions.  I am a human, a mammal, and I live in a body with needs that require tending.  I am not the only one that suffers in exasperation with feeling inappropriately hungry all the danged time.  The more I come to grips with that, the more I set aside the shame and admit it to the world, the more I can hopefully give others like me the courage to stop pretending too.

Hunger-shame is part of what causes me to eat in secret, and eating in secret is addiction behavior that also leads to binge eating episodes.  If it’s ever going to stop, if I ever want to have a truly healthy relationship with food, I’ve got to come to grips with myself as a member of the human race once and for all.

Cool? Yes. Realistic body image for me to aspire to? Not so much.