Other than for work, since my recovery from binge-eating disorder and chronic dieting in the first half of my life, I really don’t like discussing food and weight very much. Maybe I hear enough about it from clients, but I think the rub is that food and eating, for the most part, are personal and individual subjects and not all that interesting. Does anyone really care what I ate for breakfast yesterday? Do I really care (other than professionally) what someone might eat at a dinner party tomorrow? Not so much.
The problem with being obsessed and preoccupied with food,
weight, eating, and nutrition is that we tend to blather on about it. We can’t
stop thinking about calories, fat grams, complex carbohydrates, or protein when
we’re alone, so the conversation spills over into our relationships. My point
in blogging about this problem (and it is a societal problem, to be sure) isn’t
so much how it affects conversation, but to help you explore what would fill up
your life without food and weight as a topic of discussion. Who would you be
without your weight complaints and food anxieties? What would snag your
interest? What would you chat about with people?
Letting go of a long-standing food problem is as much about shifting identity as it is about changing beliefs and behavior. What will fill the food/weight void? If you’re not hungering for food and thinness, what would stir your passion and spur you on? Many people with eating problems are afraid they would have nothing but an empty space inside if they gave up their food obsessions, but in my considerable experience, if you make space, something grand and wonderful will move on in. One client I had ceased bingeing and bought a piano, another reigned in her eating and got pregnant, a third gave up her sedentary job and started to travel.
Perhaps when you stick to the familiar chit chat about food with friends and family, you’re doing so because you’re afraid to voice your real desires. Maybe, like one of my clients, you dream of living in Paris. How much easier to sit and overeat than to make that dream a reality. Maybe you stick to food patter in fear of what might come out if you don’t: that you hate your life but are scared to live it differently. You are so much more than your eating disorder, but only if you will let yourself grow beyond it.
Abusing food is emotionally safe behavior. It won’t stir up desires that might unsettle you or make you delve deeply into what you want out of
life. Rather than ask who you will become without your eating disorder, let it
go and find out for yourself.
Best,
Karen
http://www.nicegirlsfinishfat.com/
Normal Eating talks and media events
PLEASE NOTE: I encourage you to comment on my
blogs and will do my best to address topics/questions you raise in future
blogs. I cannot provide individual responses, but encourage you to post
your questions and comments at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/foodandfeelings
or http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nicegirlsfinishfat.
IMHO, this is one of your better blogs (they are all good, but the message and the delivery in this one is great!!!) Thanks for all of the cool examples of recovered patients who are living their dreams now (playing piano, having a baby, traveling, etc). It's really interesting and nice to hear about people who have recovered.
Posted by: KC | February 26, 2010 at 12:14 PM
This post is both challenging & encouraging....thank you!
Posted by: Janis | February 26, 2010 at 02:24 PM
WOW! Right on target for what I have experienced in my recovery! I was really afraid to dream...to many dreams had been snatched out of my hands.
Posted by: wendy | February 27, 2010 at 08:06 AM
It's a good reminder also for people to know how boring it is to listen to conversations about weight and what foods are eaten, not eaten, want to eat, or feel guilty about eating...and so on ad nauseum. Boring, boring, boring! While becoming a normal eater after 3 1/2 years of working on it, I can look back and see how uninteresting and odd those old food conversations were, and am glad that I don't do that anymore. Now I can focus on living my life.
Posted by: Joy | February 27, 2010 at 05:18 PM
Karen, Thank you so much for your amazing post. It fills a void that many fail to understand. My question to you is, what does one do when after having recovered, discussions of food begin to aggravate scars? Should we completely disassociate with these discussions to keep healthy?
Posted by: Mia | February 28, 2010 at 05:37 AM