This Valentine’s Day marks ten years since I stopped purging – since the ravages of bulimia ruled my life.
I have spent the last decade normalizing my eating, which also, for me, entailed finding a way to keeping my weight within in a reasonable range. Hence, I bought into the diet mentality.
I’m hardly alone. According to the CDC, nearly half of American adults attempt to lose weight each year. I assume they are all looking for the secret formula to shedding those unwanted pounds.
Wanna hear something funny?
My husband and I went out to dinner last summer with a couple we hadn’t seen in over a year. The husband is a retired physician. I noticed he had dropped a lot of weight.
Bursting with curiosity, I brazenly asked him his secret.
“I stopped eating so much,” he replied simply.
“That’s it?” I screeched in disbelief.
“That’s it,” he reassured me.
Obviously, for most of us, it’s not quite that easy. Just think about the millions of people who turn to popular weight loss programs and pay big bucks to aid in the scale’s southward decline.
I turned to Weight Watchers
Weight Watchers is a global company that offers weight loss and maintenance plans. WW helped me figure out portion control and aided me in identifying when I was actually hungry, as opposed to when I was just bored, restless or frustrated.
Here’s a trick I learned at one of my Weight Watcher weekly meetings on the topic of gauging hunger: If you are truly physically hungry, you will crave biting into a big juicy red apple. Otherwise, you are responding to other non-biological cues.
And then came NOOM
Noom is a psychology-approach app that helps people make behavioral changes in order to live healthier lives. Noom taught me a lot too. I learned that an effective way to combat thought distortions is recognizing the danger of all or nothing thinking. Example: “I ate an enormous lunch today; I’ll never be able to improve my eating.” Noom raised the bar on my awareness of delusional thinking – convincing myself of something to justify a decision. Example: “This small sliver of cake doesn’t really count.” Noom made me more mindful of exaggerated thinking – making a situation into something bigger than it is. Example: “I had a donut for breakfast, so my entire day is ruined.”
I’ve also learned about healthy substitutes: Craving cheesecake? Dip some fruit in low-fat Greek yogurt, then freeze it for at least 1 hour for an icy treat.
Fixated on Crème brûlée? Split a ripe banana lengthwise, broil for 4 minutes, and watch the natural sugars caramelize.
Zoning out over apple pie? Toss a diced apple in cinnamon, then sauté it in a nonstick pan until soft.
And when that doesn’t work? I’ve learned to give into the craving! No one ever got fat from wolfing down one slice of pizza, one chocolate chip cookie or one slice of carrot cake – even when slathered in velvety cream cheese frosting.
And then there are Triggers
Eek! All kinds of triggers: Environmental – just seeing or smelling food can cause me to eat the mound of caramels in my beautiful ceramic bowl, next to my family room couch or the pint of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream languishing too prominently in my freezer.
Emotional – a positive or negative feeling that causes me to eat. Examples include mindlessly eating for comfort when I am angry, lonely, sad or even happy and excited.
Mental – anything in my mind that causes me to eat. Examples include reading a description about food or even thinking about a favorite food – mac and cheese or a biscuit smothered in butter.
It took a long time for me to identify triggers, but once I did, I removed the caramels from the family room and stashed the ice cream in the back of the freezer.
One of my biggest accomplishments over the last ten years has been centered on learning to enjoy and savor both food and its preparation. I’m back to baking banana bread and experimenting with making chicken soup in my new Instant Pot.
I know many people tie their self-worth to the number on the scale. Where the needle falls each morning that I step on my digital scale (religiously at 9am) still impacts my mood, but not my self-esteem. It determines how much I will eat during that day. Period. It no longer colors my self-image. It no longer impacts my mastery over both emotional and mindless eating. It no longer curtails my social life. It no longer diminishes my great pride in having overcome a demon that I never thought I could eradicate from my life: BULIMIA.
