First I'd like to say something about Gwen's comment yesterday about the effect food has on our mental as well as physical health. Absolutely agree Gwen!
The point of my post yesterday was to put down my thoughts around some of the reasons some people overeat. There are folks who follow SAD because its the norm and they don't know better. Something happens, they educate themselves, and they make a change. It's very straightforward for them.
For others, there's a lot of mental mess mixed up in there as well. I've used food as a coping mechanism for over 30 years - whether it's a true addiction or just a habit, it's tough to change. To take an extreme example, I'm sure most alcoholics know that booze is destroying their health, but still struggle to give it up.
Then there are folks (and the ones I know personally are women, but I'm sure it can happen to men as well) who feel more comfortable overweight due to unwanted sexual attention, either in childhood or adulthood. They KNOW they would be healthier at a lower weight, but their mind isn't comfortable at a lower weight - they don't feel "safe".
All those things are very powerful, and for some people, those are the kinds of issues that must be addressed for them to lose weight and maintain that loss.
Many of those mental issues apply to me. Here I am - making a radical change in my life. Giving up my well paying corporate job to venture out and do something else. Stressed out, burned out, and exhausted. And the last link of my support system (my spouse) pulled out of the driveway last Monday and is now over 800 miles away. Yes I have friends, but the closest real one is 5 hours away. The people I know here (including the people I currently share a house with) are acquaintances. Good people, but we don't have "history".
On paper, right now looks like the WORST possible time to do the Whole 30. But I think its the best, for 2 reasons.
1) I'm cooking for myself only. I don't have to worry about someone else wanting to keep "prohibited" food in the house or running up to the convenience store for crap and offering to pick me up some.
2) It's true I don't have a lot of support for working through my emotional garbage right here, but I KNOW what Gwen said is true - my food choices are contributing to my stress. They are helping in the moment, but they are part of the problem overall. If I want to pull out of this emotional place, I HAVE to change the way I eat. I HAVE to take charge of my health. What worked in the past isn't working any more.
It's definitely going to be more difficult without having my family here with me. I get lonely and bored, both of which can be dangerous. But I HAVE to do this. My well being is on the line.
Thankfully, I don't have a tremendous amount of weight I want to lose - this is more about eating right as part of an overall stress management plan. (I'd like to lose around 25 pounds).
I have a number of things I plan to try to help with the stress is addition to changing my diet:
- I am going to go to the meditation center and give it a try.
- In a similar vein, I am going to check out (or buy) a book or two on meditation based stress reduction - a system developed by an MIT scientist.
- I am going to go to an OA meeting - I may find folks in a similar situation who can give me emotional support.
- If I need it, there is an EAP counselor on site at work once a week who I can talk to if I feel the need over the next couple of months.
Alright, food prep is already complete. It's off to clean the bathroom, do a little paperwork, then do my "homework" for my sewing class.
Have a good day!
2 comments:
Neca, I think you might have missed my point...I too was in the beginning stages of seeking out meditation, and anything else to help lower my stress levels, and I found that going primal, all by itself, did the trick! Sometimes JUST food changes can be sufficient! That was my point.
I recommend highly two books, read in the same order I read them:
1. Wheat Belly
2. The End of Overeating
(after that, I found marksdailyapple.com)
Reading those two books, in that ordered, SO pissed me off about Big Pharma and Big Agra and Food conglomerations and the restaurant industry as a whole, that THAT new-found passion propelled me to make the changes in my diet that I had resisted for so long before. By learning how TOXIC, truly toxic, most grains and sugar was, I was able to find the emotional strength to give them up. Then, a few months into that, my emotional state totally stabilized. But I had made no changes other than becoming 90% grain and sugar free. :)
Good luck! You can do this, and your plans sounds very sensible to achieve this!
Thank you for the clarification! If diet alone does it, fantastic. But I want to have some other options lined up - short or long term. If nothing else, I have options ready to go if I feel like I need them.
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