Tag Archives: eating

everyday observations

glug

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So if I have this eating disorder where I binge, isn’t it an interesting question to know what sets me off? My triggers, as they’re somewhat annoyingly called. I thought I had figured out a big one – exercise. I thought I had found a perfect correlation between the two. No good deed goes unpunished, so to speak. But doesn’t that also expand out to any spat of healthfulness? Like do I reach a point if I’m attempting to eat healthily and/or lightly, where I suddenly decide I now deserve to pour hot coffee all over my clean newspaper. It’s really quite dangerous. That’s what makes it a perfect fit for the term eating disorder. It’s utterly toxic.

Essentially you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t. And that is certainly an interesting part of what seems to be NEDA’s philosophy. Become an expert on your disease, but don’t think there’s a magic bullet other than what may or may not be illuminated over the course of the journey.

You’re damned if you eat poorly, which seems obvious from the outside, but it’s far from it from here. And you’re damned if you eat well or exercise, because you’re inevitably setting yourself up for the next round of crapping all over yourself. It feels right to eat poorly because 95% or so of you is pleading with you to do it. How can you coldly ignore that voice forever?

I used to think it was about hunger. Like the feeling of hunger. But I don’t mind hunger, really. It’s anything healthy. Health. Organic health. It is unsustainable. Insupportable. Hunger is an aspect of good health. But it isn’t the whole picture.

everyday observations

To write or not to write / take it or leave it diet

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I will try to write without breaking the trance that aids me, so it seems. The meditative state, perhaps. I will take it or leave it. That’s my diet of the day. If I can feel that I can take it or leave it, perhaps in a sort of blasé way, then I am left in a position of being able to make my own decisions. Because it’s not that I don’t understand how to eat. It’s that I feel compelled to eat inappropriately.

There are inner and outer triggers that qualify as compulsions. Maybe I feel that I will disappoint someone if I don’t eat in the manner they expect me to. Or I sense a ghost lurking inside me advising me to eat this or eat that, maybe because I did it before and it didn’t kill me, so what’s the harm?

everyday observations

Paultry

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Haven’t posted for awhile. Imagine that. It’s a little like coming home though, isn’t it? Maybe my exploration into humanism explains that to some degree. This is a human, not superhuman, exercise and exploration. I never knew it, but I was raised and live my life as a humanist. Not as anything else.

I guess I thought I could notate a couple of discoveries I’ve come upon lately. I unhinged some degree of relief from my left hand pain. I haven’t really verbalized it yet, so it’s a bit foggy. One thing is that the bottom of my hand must be an equal player in this whole exercise. It’s not all about the top. The first realization I had, which I shared with my colleagues, is that the neck is precisely where my thumb wants to be, should be. So I experimented with miming the left hand on thinner, smaller objects, and it seemed to prove my theory out. That was until I tried it on a guitar. Then I realized that there is something else which must be an impediment besides the height of the neck. As it turns out, the width is just as much of a problem, just as on a guitar. Just realizing and acknowledging this issue already helped. Negotiating the obstacle course which is the cello neck will continue to be my task. That is why I started by saying I must give the lower part of the hand great credence in all of this. That is the part which deals with this maze from moment to moment.

The other discovery is regarding another favorite pet peeve of mine – eating. I now see utterly clearly why there are so many fat/chunky people walking around. Restraining yourself from eating til you’re stuffed is just really fucking difficult. And finding that delicate balance between undereating and overeating is nearly un-do-able. I am saying this because I have realized the most obvious thing in the world, the thing I’ve been reticent to admit all these years. You must eat less and move more in order to get to a happy physical state. And when you eat less, you will feel hungry, or at the very least hungrier. So, how horrible is being hungry? Perhaps not so much. Perhaps at my middle age I have discovered worse sensations in life than hunger. Your weight is not a static animal, it is fluid. It is unfair to judge yourself, either positively or negatively, for something that is in a constant state of flux.

reflections within

au naturel

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Combining the two (or more) pursuits. Maybe it’s connected to the career path thing. I do one thing only. I guess I am in fact in the process of expanding my horizons.

I have put eating well and playing well at the top of my list. I seem to need lists. It’s an annoying grownup thing. Compartmentalizing. We were just talking about that with Cody. He doesn’t have to compartmentalize. He is just 6. He still has a pure connectedness to all parts of himself. Like a sinew. Everything is interconnected. They talked about that at Seacrest.

There’s an interesting question. Where (and who) would I be if I had been schooled differently. I suppose I would have had to have been raised differently in order to be directed towards a different sort of educational setting. So now I sit and journal, semi-publicly, in an effort to complete my existence which may have been stifled from early on. I feel a connectedness when I write. I could have written this way since the beginning. Was it something that wasn’t nurtured? Is that the problem?

everyday observations

marshmallow

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So maybe pain gets a bad rap. Is that like the Alanis Morissette song where she thanks a bunch of things that don’t usually get thanked? Maybe.

I usually don’t feel much gratitude for pain. But it is such a great tool. I’ve realized that if I’m not acutely aware of pain or discomfort, it is much harder to pinpoint things that I need to work on – and there are many such things. In fact, my best hope is to seek out the negative feeling that is eluding me within an experience. Naturally most people spend their time seeking all things positive. Maybe that’s the saddest thing of all. What if we need to heighten our awareness of pain and sadness? They’re there, if you take the time to look for them. Most of the time emotions are mixed up like paint colors jumbled in a can. That’s why they’re hard to identify. That’s probably why joy is also elusive.

Now it may seem I am mixing my metaphors. Physical pain versus emotional sorrow? I suppose I have learned that there is much crossover. If you look for it, you will find a great deal of subjects and categories that in fact commingle in the human experience and soul.

Example: Many people may not think off hand that the act of eating is intertwined with the rise and fall of emotions occurring minute by minute, hour by hour. But what if I told you that not permitting yourself to feel sadness causes you to eat very differently? The food ends up being an aid for distancing yourself from this spectrum of emotions. We’d like to believe we’re the ones who have control over these feelings. Not so. They are pulling the strings. Uncomfortably good emotions must cause similar reactions as well.

Pain keeps us honest. That’s why playing the cello is such a fascinating pursuit. You get nearly instantaneous feedback on what you’re doing right or wrong. You can learn for as long as you like. As an activity, eating is not so helpful. You often don’t know you’ve done anything harmful until hours later. It takes years to find out that you have been developing a gut. So you have to dig a little deeper to connect to where the pain is. It’s a moment by moment sensitivity. That’s why I went for my emotions. They are accessible anytime you want them. Naturally most of the time it is a dark emotion that you need to befriend in some way or another, in order to stop using the food as a buffer or escape.

everyday observations

smarm

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So far so good. But how to apply it to anything else? I was contemplating that last night, as I fought my typical cravings. I need to know if it can be likened. My distinctions between passions. First I was trying to decide if eating (for one) could fall under the category of a passion. It’s more of a craving, right? Is that connectable? People say they have a passion for good food or for fine wine. Maybe a passionate wine collector. Or a passionate foodie. I don’t think I’m that type. But I do think it’s possible that my passion for beautiful music is somewhere in the realm of my food craving and food fantasizing.

So the thought is that I can differentiate between the different food cravings. The salty snack craving, the sweet snack craving, the gluttonous overeating craving, even the well-balanced, healthy eating craving – assuming I have one of those. So perhaps the idea is for me to be keyed in to each kind of craving, and not to mix them up into a conglomerate need for food. Each kind is distinct, so my higher faculties will be in a position to allocate my desires for them appropriately.

everyday observations

Hamantaschen

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It’s part and parcel of being a guy. My character defects are interwoven inside my gender traits.

Wanting to eat compulsively, eat overabundantly, eat emotionally is wrapped up in my gender. Eating doesn’t directly cause character defects nor directly cause harm to others. But it’s intertwined inside of them. It’s also interwoven inside my character strengths. Everything good about me has become linked to food, just like everything bad. My taciturn nature. My moodiness. My brooding. My incommunicativeness.

These things are also wrapped up in my manhood. I feel I am simply behaving like a man. However I am behaving like an ass. Manhood can cut both ways. Good and bad.

Even this trying to cut to the heart of the matter, not bottling, is tricky. It can so often backfire if I am not keeping my eyes on the prize. Salvation. Self-knowledge. If I only go half way, it can be a catalyst to a slip. If I rest on my laurels, if I am at all self satisfied or self obsessed, I am cruisin’ for a bruisin’.

Scott and I used to use that expression. Good ol’ Scott. I wonder where my defects of character bled into our friendship. I can think of one instance where I was probably in a particularly brooding state of mind, and he called it out. But there are others where my particular personality quirks gave us that wonderful rapport that was the key to a close friendship. That’s what I’m talking about. My obsession with food is a symptom of who I am, the good and the bad. If I wasn’t a glutton, Scott wouldn’t have had the opportunity to cook me somewhere in the neighborhood of 6 egg in a baskets on some Saturday mornings. It was a springboard for certain fun times. It didn’t directly cause me to act like a jerk, like alcohol apparently does. But it got fused with whatever maladjustments I have been prone to over my life. Of course in my first family food was intimately interwoven into our traditions and daily lives. So whatever bad personal qualities I absorbed within that environment, have been addressed in a certain way by my relationship with food.

Food is unfortunately an odd but common replacement for human connection. Perhaps some character defects spring from this replacement. Anti socialness. Distraction. Detachment. Uncommunicativeness. Fuzzy thinking. When you put food above people, you obviously are less social. When you’re always thinking about food, you can’t focus on other things and your mind gets lazy. When your diet is so unhealthy, it affects your brain and brain functioning. I am finding myself getting very sleepy lately as a result of not overeating. I think it’s both physical and emotional. Physical because of not having the constant oral stimulation as well as the substance flooding through my bloodstream. Emotional because I used to be trying to be high on food all the time, and now that’s been removed from my daily routine.

hypotheses and philosophies

harmonie

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I am amusingly forgiving in regards to my particular brand of overdosing. My brand of bingeing. My brand of self poisoning. My brand of the death march.

What am I doing on Earth? I wonder if I’m getting any closer to figuring that out. I seem to have been put here to confuse, hurt, and please people. I was put here to eat an inordinate amount of food, junk or otherwise. Just as long as it’s inordinate.
I was put here to watch an inordinate amount of tv. I was put here to be unproductive. I was put here to spend. I was put here to be sore in my left arm. I was put here to keep wisdom to myself.
Isolating should also be mentioned.
Listening to oodles of music from a variety of sources has been a lifelong pastime.
I have written some journals, I guess. They cover the gamut. Although there is certainly a lot of repetition.

When will I find out why I was really put here? Tonight? How’s tonight? Was I put here to help build and run a few restaurants? Was I put here to keep a house in order? I wonder if the 12 step program can elucidate these questions for me. It’s tricky though, isn’t it. I don’t give myself to this program. Maybe because it really is a tall order. It certainly isn’t what I have typically done in my lifetime, as a whole. I am more likely to do Mad Libs and eat chocolate til the wee hours than do the soul searching and higher power opening up necessary to be a program role model.

everyday observations

All, Most

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By the way, the same also applies to food. I couldn’t remember before, but I knew there were other uncontrollable issues. I cannot stop my food intake once I get started much of the time. So one of my solutions is to not get started in the first place. As you might surmise, that doesn’t always work, or I would be dead.
Let’s also not forget television watching. Again I try the not starting approach.

The annoying thing (one of them) is when I observe others who have far more ability to gauge what is their natural zone of healthy behavior. It isn’t a constant uphill battle for many, at least as far as I can observe. And I do observe quite a bit when I’m in a group. I don’t really bury myself in myself. I think I would get sort of claustrophobic without that outlet.

originally published on 8/12/07

everyday observations

Burrs

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I have enough shirts. There’s one deep dresser drawer, two closet shelves, a plastic bedside cubby, and various hung items. But I adore wearing new ones. Things just get old fast in my world. I need variety and unpredictability. But there are two problems: no room and no money. The room part would be solved if I did what I feel like doing, which is to get rid of anything less than a couple of months old. But these are perfectly good items. They only suffer from familiarity.
Some things improve with age. Appreciation of life’s many shades is enriched given time’s passing. Instruments become shaded and nuanced. Things of true beauty perhaps all improve, though there may be a breaking point where either enough is enough or decay sets in. I don’t consciously think about such issues, but I suppose I do make choices based on them. While I may think I’m going with my natural gut feeling about something, I could just be having some sort of knee-jerk, weirdly premeditated response to whether I perceive something as fresh and new and fun, or used and cliche and boring. It might only seem natural on the surface. Maybe that explains my new diet of the month, for instance, the Skinny Bitch. Is it great because it makes me feel better (both physically and ethically) or because it makes me feel different? This adoration of novelty is only part of how I make my choices, I know. I am (hopefully) using a complex assortment of drives, adding up to a given course of action. Unfortunately I err on the side of wishy-washy quite a bit, especially when no one guides me. I do better with a bit of nudging. I wish I liked being nudged…. It’s okay sometimes.

originally published on 10/18/07