Report of this week of IE

[Guest guest]

Please remind me that this is a process, that even days that make me really

unhappy are part of the learning process, though I knew years ago that eating

all day long makes it so that I feel really yucky, and can't sleep at night, and

that buying three bags of candy will lead me to eat....well, three bags of

candy. So I don't know what I've learned, except that four months ago I never

would have bought the candy in the first place. But I really wanted some candy,

and I found three varieties that sounded really good, and if I ate myself sick,

at least I was aware that it was happening when I was eating candy while doing

other things--working on the computer, reading, grading papers, and for the

latter anyway, it made that process a whole lot more enjoyable. I realized that

the candy I ate while I was " honoring the candy " (ie, doing nothing but eating

the candy, and really paying attention to how it tasted and felt in my mouth)

didn't make me sick, and it was really pleasurable. And the eating all day was

when I spent the day cooking a most incredibly delicious meal for about twenty

people for our dance weekend, and it started with sampling the filling for the

eggplant almond enchiladas, and evolved into snacking on morsels of chicken,

cheese, chicken/cheese/pepper mixture, and then apple crisp topping as I was

mixing it up, and on and on. This is a long-standing habit, one which I've been

slowly changing as I want to be able to enjoy the meal when it's finally done.

But I didn't yesterday, and then ate the meal anyway, and it was good, even

though I was too full when I started and I had two servings of apple crisp, and

more snacks--homemade pizza mostly--late at night, and spent a wretched night

now sleeping. Mso what did I learn from that? I dunno....my temptation is to

say that I've learned I can't be trusted around food, which is areal shame

because I really love to cook, so I'm not going to say that. I'm working on

that one.....

But other things--what Katcha said turned out to be right, that once I noticed

once how when I started to start eating faster so as to not miss out on any of a

meal because I wasn't hungry anymore. I didn't necessarily believe her, but I

noticed it at least three times during the week. There is definitely a point

where, after eating slowly and savoring my food, I start eating more quickly.

And that's a signal for me that perhaps I'm really done. Interesting.

Another thing I noticed, today after yesterday's eating fest that I wasn't

hungry for breakfast until later in the morning, and then was quite satisfied

during a.long morning of dance workships (it's our local contra dance weekend),

that I was really hungry for lunch, and I fixed up a big plate of leftover

enchiladas, refrained beans, and ice with peas in it, and then I saw a container

of leftover zucchini and onions sautéed in lemon juice, and I thought, wow, that

looks good, so I put that on my plate too. This was an enormous plate, because

I was really hungry, and I wanted to read while I was eating, but said, no, this

is really good food, and I should honor it by paying attention to it, so I

didn't read, but then after a few bites of enchilada (what I had been looking

forward the most to eating), the zucchini and the rice turned out to be the best

thing. One tiny bite of beans told me they were too salty(though I had eaten a

ton of them the day before), and even the enchiladas were too salty. So I

enjoyed the slightly lemony rice with the sweet peas and the definitely lemony

zucchini, which was from a lunch earlier in the week, and then there was a point

where I started to eat the zucchini faster, and my slow-but-not-stupid brain

said, " duh, that must mean you're not hungry any more, " even though most of my

food was still on my plate. So I wrapped it up for later, or some other time

when I might be hungry again. So I'm encouraged.

My thought for the week is one I mentioned earlier about acting like you love

the food that you're eating. I'm all for honoring my body, but it's so easy to

abuse it. But honoring one's food....it's really pretty amazing the abundance

we have, and I'm going to make a point of truly appreciating it this coming

week.

Sorry about how long-winded this is. It helps me to process. What did you folks

learn this week?

Tilley