Food and the Mind

What hangups, if any, might you have with food. I know there are many out there. Dieting would not be so hard if we didn't have them. I definitely do have an hangup or two. So I'm wondering if anyone has a similar hangup or what ideas, thoughts, suggestions you could give me. Share your issues too and maybe we can at least commiserate, if not find a way to ditch them.

Here's my hangup.
Growing up, I had a mother who in my husband's words is a 'hypochondriac by proxy'. In my opinion she was just co-dependent. If you don't NEED her for something all the time she will think of things that are wrong with you. I even noticed this after I had my own daughter and she began seeing severe allergies, symptoms of rickets, poor development, deafness, vision problems, deformities, etc. in my daughter. I have since learned that calling mom about REAL issues and asking for advice seems to stave off her need to find dire problems with my health, my marriage, or my daughter. The way this ended up manifesting itself while I was a child and did not know how to deal with it has set me up for a downward spiral of habit and thinking that continually sabotages my weight loss efforts.
My mother insisted that I was allergic to almost everything. It was easier to tell people what I was ALLOWED to eat than to tell them what I was supposedly allergic to. I was allowed to eat...
* Peaches, pears, bananas, and plums,
* rice, rye and oats,
* Meat (although she went through fazes where she insisted I was suddenly sensitive to chicken or beef)
* All vegetables.
This list was also accompanied by dire warnings of NO tomatoes, peanuts or nuts, chocolate, corn (in any form, such as corn syrup which is in everything), food dyes, or eggs. Even that I would supposedly die from exposure to eggs.

I was not allergic to these things. I was constantly sneaking into the kitchen to steal bites of anything that I was not allowed to have. If I went to a friends home I would steal food from there as well. I constantly ate peanut butter whenever I could get it. At school I traded my rice cakes for REAL bread, every day that my friends could be convinced. My nickname was Rice Patty - a school nickname among many but the only one that holds pleasant memories. I ate candy any time that I could and even snuck out to go trick-or-treating with a bedsheet over my head. Unfortunately I got caught that time before I could eat more than a piece or two. I had NO reactions although the tiniest bowel change, chapped lips, or itch was pronounced to be a reaction to something I might have eaten even if it was unknowingly. My mother never knew how constantly I ate forbidden foods. I was always so anxious that I chewed my lips raw which frequently landed me in forbidden EVERYTHING land, in which I was only allowed rice, vegetables, peaches pears and bananas and venison. Most of the time I was allowed dairy but there were times that would be removed as well and all I got was nasty rice milk.

The result of this situation, while growing up, is that I find myself sneaking foods even when I have no one who I am accountable to. Before I met my husband and while I was in college I would often binge on previously forbidden foods. I may binge to the point of giving myself digestive upsets because the food in large quantities may be problematic normally - such as dried fruits which have the tendency to alter your BM if you eat a whole box of prunes.

Now I KNOW I can eat what I want but before I can stop to think about what I am doing I automatically take food even when I'm not hungry. I'm tried the mindful eating thing but this is such a long term habit that it's difficult to remember to think. I've told my husband now about my feelings and history and he, in a loving way, may ask me why I'm eating something, especially if I'm binging. This, although meant to help me stop my habit, feels like the restrictions that I suffered for years. I tend to even resent him saying things even though I logically know why he says it. I'm not sure how to break this cycle of thinking.

I have confronted my mother. Shown her new Dr's reports where they tested me for everything they could. Tried to allow myself small treats. Thrown diets out the window. Talked to my husband. I don't have friends who have any clue where I'm coming from. I feel lost, frustrated, angry, and like giving up. I want to feel better and look better. I just can't forget the past. How do I change the now?

 

It's really unfortunate that parents can screw up their kids so badly.
I don't know how you stop that toxic mental programming that is running in your background all the time.
How about trying a cognitive therapist?

 

I've thought about it but I have no idea where to look. We have people who say they are mental health associates, counseling for addictions but I have not seen one that sounds like they would deal with this. Also, I have no idea who will accept my health insurance. It's not great insurance and I can't afford different right now. My insurance will only pay for one visit with a nutritionist per year unless I am diabetic or something similar. How do you look for that kind of therapy? What names do you look for - other than cognitive therapist?

 

Considering the fact that your experience lasted a good portion of your life, it's going to take another good portion to get out of your habit. The main problems here are your past and you, one cannot be affected at all, and the other can only be changed if you permit it. Therefore work on your mental strength, it is probably going to take years of commitment, and seem impossible but the rewards are worth it.

If you really want to go see a doctor though I would look into doctors who specialize with OCD, what you are doing carries a few similarities and I feel like the doctors could understand you well. I highly recommend trying to break this mental mustang of yours through your own will, yes it looks like mount Everest, but once you're at the top you see the world in a different perspective.

Exercise is good too, even if it's just going outside for a walk around the neighborhood, I find it easier to stick to my goals when I am active.

 

Thanks. OCD is right on. I have quite a few OCD tendencies. As for exercise. I was actually going to a club and enjoyed that but I had major foot surgery just over a year ago and quit for a while. Since then money has been tight and so I have not restarted my membership. Iwould much rather work out at home with videos that I have or other options. I enjoy walking in the summer but were we live we always have snow in the winter (we have about 2 feet on the ground atm) and most streets have no cleared sidewalks. I know I need to get back to working out. When I was doing that before I did not at least gain weight. My eating tendencies making loosing anything very hard though. I KNOW my eating is the key for me.

 

Heck. They say a scalded cat fears cold water. OK, it seems to be a circular trap which makes the following sense: "I don't want the help I'm asking for"
And seems to work something like: Mom got on your case, thus occluding your young chances to discover your own judgements. Food becomes bullets in a battle rather than resources to be allocated. You grow up and it is logical for you to get on your own case to develop choice, also for you to ask for advice and support from others, and for them to get on your case as requested.
HOWEVER It feeds back into old mother/daughter pattern of 'this feels like imposition and I must react against'. This knocks the people supporting you, and probably within yourself, too.

Part of the solution:

Standard support will include tracking your intake and behaviours ... this will take inventory as well as 'making you' stop, if only for a moment, to THINK. This is simple pattern/habit interruption, which will create moments of space into which you may begin to choose to put stuff YOU want. eg, questions like "What do I REALLY want to do at this moment", or statements like "Hey ... I interrupted my habit ... yaay Me" NOTE ... that statement is still true even if you then decide "Hey I WILL binge on x, y, z", because that's a different binge altogether ... its a Chosen Binge. Well done. Equally, Well done if you go .. "Heck, I'll procrastinate the binge, cos I'm going to read this journal I've been keeping, and see what thoughts and feelings and good ideas come up"

It's just about asking yourself, "Did I choose this moment?" That's all. Notice and Recognise the "Yes I did"s, also the the "Oh Bugger ... no I didn't", and Feel Good in either case, because this is about noticing stuff. Just noticing. Hey .... next time your walking through a doorway STOP right in the doorway ... buildings, rooms in your home, etc, and go "I NEVER do this 'suddenly stopping in doorways' kind of stuff" or whatever you need to realise you've been doing this all your life and are suddenly awake to it. Increasingly, because doorways remind us of many other things.

Heck, you used to be smoothly being yourself, and then your mom used to interrupt you lots when you were a child .. mostly incompetently, but she was sure good at it. With the help of that skill you learned from her, you can increasingly begin to interrupt the things YOU choose.

When you figure where your mother has been in all this ... and where would be better to put her, now, and what would be better to put in her place, now you are old and wise enough to interrupt her, too, and her input .... her input, is it the sound of her voice? Or a look? Or her putting a hand on your shoulder or something, or what?

The circle is because, as adults, we start by responding with sense and logic but then, it is like the smoke of ghosts from the past condense imperceptibly until we're shouting at OUR MEMORY OF THE PAST but the person in front of us is NOT HER. How do we begin to tell the difference? We KNOW when we're on an adult level - sometimes at the time, and sometimes in memory of the time. We also know when we were teeing off on stuff which is not here or now. But how do we learn to know that at the instant we need to know that? And what, specifically, do we need to know?

OK, obviously, the more you practice and refine the skill of interrupting yourself ... or rather, the skill of MAINTAINING yourself but interrupting your HABITS, then the more you will catch yourself BEFORE present logic gives way to past upset ... before it gives way to the re-emerging of unpleasant resonances. The more you do this, the more you may notice more and more ... and more detail. They say the devil's in the detail, well, so are a lot of angels, too.

Identify the first moment, the first split second that logic begins to give way .. Something's Happening. You're with loved ones in the present, so it's gotta be in your thinking .. in your noticing ... and the more you've been practising noticing, you Catch the Threshold at the moment before it goes over the top of logic and into 'feeling the restriction you'd suffered for years' ... aka 'Get Off My Case'. It becomes a choice point before you've sunk too far into the negative experience.

Sometimes, people often have a flashes of insight when they interrupt at that point just before the feelings ... cos let's face it, those feelings .. SOMEthing must have happened to trigger them but UNnoticed habits flash by Soooooo FAST, that they do not get the opportunity to do so QUICKLY. When you interrupt in the middle of FA!ST often enough ... F!A!S!T there are enough wakeful points for it to become quickly, at which point slowinggg down now, is possible. Like half way through the doorway, and LIKE YOURSELF, NetvorFena, now as you notice what happened waaay before that split second when you're adult logic began to give way, but you caught it? What happened before that feeling you're learning to interrupt in its early stages? OK, Obviously, you can build the choice point, but what if you can also remind yourself where the negative feeling comes from At That Moment, rather than hours after the event? All the good logical and adult analytical thinking you've been doing as you've worked through this for years. All this, apply it to that moment before the slope into negative experience.

It's all about you're noticing, interrupting, noticing more, and adding something into the interruption which you like and are already good at.

Conclusion:

Check and work with this material and notice where it definitely does NOT work ... some simply won't fit you at all, and that, please throw away, because you've been force fed too God Dammed Much in your life. And if any bits or just a single bit is useful, then it's time for cautious optimism. Let's know how it goes.

It sure does make sense for you to consider employing coaches, counsellors, etc, because a trained outsider running alongside you on a regular basis is like a living 'journal' ... can help you keep track of how you are keeping track as you progress. They can watch your back.

My intent here has been to draw a roadmap with which you may begin to move away from being like the 'scalded cat who fears cold water', and toward piloting yourself safely and with full awareness and appropriate rapport, into the harbours of assistance and resources provided by other people, and within yourself.

Best wishes.