When eating, my "stop" signal does not kick on any more until my tummy is so stuffed that I am well-beyond where I ought to be full. And it isn't a natural occurrence, because I used to regularly stop eating well before I was beginning to be uncomfortably full.
No longer. I've trained myself to do otherwise.
As a result, I have to be taking in way more calories than I need. Which is not good over the long haul, now is it?
The realization struck me while watching The Peanut eat at lunch while I was doing the same. We've purposely tried to not force her to eat if she is genuinely not hungry.
The rule at our house is that she has to try a few bites of everything -- she's a fairly picky eater because of some early texture issues, but we've had some success with broadening her palate by taking it day by day instead of cramming it down her anyway (which was not working at all -- she inherited both our stubborn streaks, alas). We don't make her clean her plate after it's been totally loaded down -- we do small bits to start, and she's allowed to get more of whatever she likes after she eats the little bit first.
She rarely gets overly full, because she uses her own internal compass and lets her own system be her guide instead of some outside, forced concept of what is appropriate. We wanted to avoid the pitfalls of a "clean your plate or else" mindset, since we both have had some experience with that -- and its aftermath -- as adults.
Her mindfulness as she eats is really wonderful to watch.
When she's hungry, she devours her food like a ravenous beasty. When she's not? She picks and pushes it away, sensing internally when she's reached her limit in some way.
I have lost that ability. And I desperately need to find it again.
I just realized that yesterday while I was devouring my lunch at a speed that ought to have been shaming -- not because I was starving, but because that's how I've been eating the last few years after having to rush to get any food in me when The Peanut was tiny and then continuing to be the case through toddler-hood and early childhood. (Those of you who have survived the grab and go years with your kids know what I'm talking about here.)
We are well past that point, though, and yet I continue to speed through the food as though being chased by wolves. And I'd never noticed that, never been conscious of it at all, until just yesterday at lunch. How strange that it would hit me all at once, eh?
"Mindfulness" has always sounded like one of those touchy-feely, woo woo words that people use to sound erudite while not really knowing what in the hell created cause and effect for something.
That is, until I tried it yesterday and things started clicking into place. Next thing you know, I'll begin the day meditating and all bets are off on productivity from there, my friends. (Oh, yes. Please!)
I continued to sort of observe myself through the rest of the day -- a snack, dinner, some later in the evening munching after everyone else had gone to bed and I was watching a movie. And you know what? I did the same damned thing, and still didn't feel "full" until I'd overeaten. Which I didn't realize until well after I'd passed the "full" point.
I've known for ages that eating too quickly doesn't allow your mind to catch up with the signals from your body saying "whoa" to more food. But I'd never paid attention to it in practice. Until yesterday.
Wonder what else I can figure out about things that need to change by simply paying attention to how things really are, not just how I want them to be even though reality doesn't quite match up with my preconceived mental conclusions?
Today? I'm going to work on living consciously. Paying attention to what I've put on my fork for every mouthful, and then eating it slowly and see how that works for me. I'm going to dish out a single serving and that's going to be it. I will eat it slowly and see where that gets me.
Above all? I'm going to retrain myself. If all these years of living unconsciously have gotten me into this mess, perhaps some time living consciously will help dig me back out again. Can't hurt.
(Lovely Thanksgiving dinner photo via jslander. Nicely framed out, isn't it?)
4 comments:
I learned to wolf my food in high school when we only had 1/2 hour for lunch and there was always a cafeteria line. (That's no excuse because at 67 I am a very long way from high school.) But I think the "grab and go" years reinforce it.
I have to force myself to slow down when I'm eating and also with a glass of wine, which I can "chug" if I'm not paying attention.
Maybe the wine chugging is an Irish thing, Molly, because I do that, too. LOL
But I am only a teensy wee bit Irish. My mother was "pure" German and my dad was mostly German. Maybe anything "across the pond" will do it!
I learned a trick in the early years of our respective legal practices from a partner at my husband's firm that has saved me a time or two: when you order a glass of wine at a function that will have a continuous pour, ask for some ice cubes in it. That way, you have less wine int he pour to start and it gets watered out a bit as you go along from the melting ice. Plus, it's tough to just gulp when you have ice in the way. (This works best with a glass of white, I find, as red wine isn't as tasty when it thins out for me.)
At a cocktail party, it is immensely helpful. You can also achieve the same by alternating a glass of wine with a glass of club soda or water. Either way, you force the pacing for yourself if you aren't likely to pay much attention to how much you are imbibing.
And so, I bequeath the secret to cocktail party survival to you.
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