Food Relationship Ramblings

It’s about 11pm as I’m writing this, so please forgive my writing as it is now. I plan to publish this as a rough draft lol.

Anyway, I just ate some potato chips and ice cream. While I slowly ate my late night snack, I was a bit surprised to realize how much I was enjoying it. If you had told me I was eating like this 6 years ago, I would’ve never believed you. I couldn’t handle eating from a pint of ice cream or a bag of chips without eating the entire thing. I felt like if I didn’t have it in one go, it would be a waste. I wouldn’t have “finished” it.

Now I’m eating from a family sized bag of chips and a quart of ice cream. I only had about a palm sized amount of both. I noticed myself taking small bites, savoring every sugary swirl and relishing every crunch. I just now realized that I was finally able to have family sized amounts of junkfood at my place.

For a long time, I couldn’t have any junkfood because I’d eat it all in one sitting. I would eat it all at once, so then I could be healthier “faster” with less distractions. Because of this, I never fully enjoyed my food when I was younger. My moments of full sensory engagement with food only happened with the first few bites. I almost felt like I was competing with the plate in front of me. Like I needed to tackle it and getting extra portions was like a bonus round. I never knew when I was hungry or full. I felt like when food was in front of me, I had to clear it out of the way. Like it was a deeply ingrained command in my brain.

So how did I change this? Habits and behavior change, baby. My main method of changing my behavior was how I interacted with any food. I became food neutral. I removed any subjective language from my food. I consciously started thinking of food in terms of, “oh this can give my body a lot of energy, but not a whole lot of vitamins” or “this food would be helpful because it has this nutrient I need more of for the day”.

Another thing I did was write a love letter to food. All of my memories of food kept me warm in very cold periods of my life. I had to thank food for that. Food wasn’t my enemy when there was a point in time that it was my only friend. Food kept me company and reminded me of happier times, traditions that used to exist but dissolved over time. Later I resented food because of how it made me feel out of control. I felt like it ruled over me. In retrospect, maybe it was the passage of time that was my master rather than an old friend.

Food is food. I love how it carries cultures and memories, however, no matter how much or little I consume of it, the memories don’t fade. I don’t need to eat more to be closer, I just need to enjoy all the seasonings and textures. I don’t need to eat less to feel more in control. I just simply need to eat and focus on the present food in front of me. I let the feelings wash over me with the flavors, feeling them float past me like gentle waves lapping at my feet. I’m finally ankle deep rather than chest deep.

My tiny revelation today is a product of all the microsteps I’ve been taking over the years. If you struggle with your relationship with food, it won’t always be like this. One day in the future you’ll look back at today and realize that you slowly made that baby step. Human nature is rarely linear. In order to make any progress, you need to make mistakes. Sometimes when you fall, you land on a trampoline.