You know....for months, years in fact, I've been trying to figure out what causes me to eat. Do I eat when triggered by stress? Do I eat when I'm bored? Do I eat when I'm sad? Do I eat when I'm happy? Am I eating because of some childhood trauma or emotional upset? WHY WHY WHY???? I can never pin point any one indicator. Sometimes when I'm bored I eat. When I'm stressed and worried about something I will overeat, not because I'm eating to take away the stress....I overeat because I forget that I'm eating. I lose track of my eating. I'm mindlessly eating. Happy or sad really has no bearing on my eating. Yeah, I like to bake because it's a relaxing soothing happy thing for me to do...but that's the ACT of baking.....not the act of eating. My childhood is rather uneventful and quite happy. My memories from childhood are good ones. So I've pondered....and it always comes back to one thing. I like food. Plain and simple. Food tastes good!
Last night I realized something that I've been skirting with for quite a while. I've even written about it throughout this journal. I realized that there is no reason other than that I like food. Yesterday I tried a new crock pot dish. On paper it sounded delightful....in execution....well it was edible. Todd and I ate the meal, but I can guarantee you that this dish will never again grace our table. As I was eating my meal, my thoughts were rolling, and here they are; "maybe after Todd leaves I can have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, I just love PB&J's", "Ice cream....I have some ice cream bars in the freezer....they sound so yummy". My mind roamed the kitchen cabinets while I was eating my lackluster dinner and pondered what delicious food I could eat later. And that is when I realized that even while I was eating (lackluster as it may be) I was disappointed because it didn't taste as yummy as I had dreamt it would be...and my mind was looking for something that was yummy.
Now on it's own this is not that much...but a few weeks ago I wrote an entry in which I described a meal where I sat down and had the opposite thing happen. The meal was really good.....I knew it from the first bite and by the second bite I was dreaming about eating a huge second helping....all because it was sooo delicious!
In the midst of these thoughts and discoveries a friend sent me a link to an article about overeating and how some people just have the tendency to see food and just want it. I concurred with it here and here. All of these revelations and self discoveries have been in the last few weeks. So I'm going to stop trying to figure out the why's and the what's? It is simply a love affair with food that I have. I want good food! When it's bad, I dream of good food...and when it's good, I want more! I'm not going to waste any more time in self pondering to decipher if I'm eating to drown out some unknown repressed traumatic memory, or if I'm eating because of this or that. It's not worth my time. I'm fine.....I just like food.
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Thought of the day.......How come the weight comes on so quickly (most recently 2 pounds in one day) but doesn't leave as rapidly (I'm losing about .2 pounds each day for the last two days). That makes no sense at all to me???? And no...on that 2 pound day I did NOT eat like a banshee!!! I was only 3 or 4 points over my daily allotment! (which should be OK as we have those flex points...although darn my body...I can't eat those flex points)
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In other news....last night I ended up with a migraine. I usually don't get migraines....but last night was my 'lucky' night. This morning I'm up and functioning....but my head just still isn't quite right. Hopefully it will be better before I go home.....day three of the 30 day shred awaits me!
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Desi the cat continues to improve. :-)