A few days ago I felt like I had had a breakthrough. I found myself no longer defaulting to looking forward to my next meal as a source of excitement/ as a past time. I found myself feeling neutral/uninterested at the thought of eating. Like my eating window would have started and I was like “yeah I could also just not eat”. From spending every waking moment fixated on food, I was feeling the way Brooke describes in the Stop Overeating class: disinterest/apathy.
This feeling reminded me of what was one of the happiest times in my life: I was travelling around Ghana with a friend, and at that point I did not give a crap about the shape of my body or what I was eating. I felt grateful for what my body could do. The days were so exciting and full of learning and wonder that none of the excitement/joy in my life was about food. I ate when I needed to eat and it was easy and drama-free. I came back, without having made any effort, the lightest I have ever been, about 145lbs, which is my goal weight (I’m almost 6ft tall). I have been losing weight gradually over the past 6 months (about 20 pounds) and I want to lose another 10 pounds.
I lost the feeling of “apathy” about food, just as easily as it came. This week I found myself eating far past full again, basically bingeing, in a way I have not in months. I think I was thinking “Wow, I’m actually going to be able to be the weight I always wanted, and maybe it will be easy” and then “I am so close, I need to not fuck this up” which ended up with me feeling restricted, afraid and I ended up eating in a way that felt out of control again.
I hadn’t tried to get the feeling of “apathetic” about food, but now I realize that is what I want. I can imagine feeling how I felt when I was travelling. For food to be a side-event in a full life of work and friends and projects and learning. Food is just a footnote in my life.
My intentional thought is to not read too much into this “relapse” of thinking and reminding myself that it makes sense that the new, intentional way of thinking about food (i.e. that food is NOT the most important part of the day, but a source of fuel to do the things I want to do). I am CHOOSING to take action to lose weight, and stop overeating to show myself what seemed impossible is possible for me. Also to fight feeling restricted, I want to practice thinking that ultimately I always have a choice, and that I can allow urges without committing to never eat again. I have my own back, I am not going to starve myself or be mean to myself.
