Re: Food = ???

[Guest guest]

I'm so glad that my parents weren't that way. And with my own kids, while I

tried to have at least one thing on the table that they liked to eat, I always

figured that if they were hungry they would eat. I never did understand some of

the people I knew who actually worried about their kids eating enough. I always

wanted to assure them that unless there was something drastically wrong with the

child, he WOULD eat enough. These children were growing, and had plenty of

energy, after all. (but I never said anything, because then they might worry

that there was something drastically wrong, and I didn't,t want to cause that.).

One of my friends, who didn't particularly worry, once said, I don,t know how my

kids are living, because they never eat anything, and I watched those two kids

consume whole pounds of cheese. But they didn't do it at meals, but in between,

and my friend just hadn't noticed. What she noticed was that they were never

hungry at meals. No wonder.

I can imagine, though, how hard it would be to overcome an entire childhood of

having your eating controlled by someone else--either telling you to deprive

yourself, or to eat more. Hell, I get resentful even now, if someone even HINTS

that they think I should be eating in some way other than I am. It doesn't

matter even if I,ve told that person not to let me have any of the potato chips.

But I am certainly finding some of the charges that food has other than

nourishment are slowly dropping away. We've had pie in the house ever since

Thsnksgiving. I've even made more pie--another pecan pie and a pumpkin

cheesecake, and I'm probably going to throw out the original pumpkin pie soon,

even though my son and I love pumpkin pie. We're just not eating it. I also

have some cookies I made a while back (really yummy ones made with just peanut

butter, honey and sesame seeds) that I haven,t touched in weeks. I thought I

was out of control around sweets, and now I,m looking at them and asking myself

if I really feel like eating them. Sometimes the answer is yes, but more often,

it's no. And last night I went to the store and bought baby carrots, zucchini

and broccoli because I was feeling distinctly vegetable/-deprived.

And, by the way, I tried out the " It's okay to stop eating " phrase yesterday,

and almost cried at how kind that voice was. When have I ever talked to myself

so kindly before?

So there are my thoughts for the morning.....

Tilley

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> Subject: Re: Food = ???

> To: IntuitiveEating_Support

> Date: Tuesday, December 6, 2011, 10:59 AM

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> I'm sure most here will agree that food has symbolized 'love' for most humans,

but I swear its a tool of anger and other emotions too.

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> As a kid I spent summer vacations with grandparents who lived during the

Depression (1930s). Dear Gma had me sit at the table until noon because I would

NOT eat (which I didn't) cooked oatmeal. To this day the thought of slick gooey

oatmeal gags me. As an adult I understand that Gma was coming from that place

where having ANY food meant one ate it gratefully. But her insisting that I eat

something that I just could not choke down was not respectful of me nor would it

make me appreciate HER hangups, especially at my expense. Of course it would be

years and nasty memories later before I could understand what happened that

morning. I still can't eat cooked oatmeal.

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> Katcha

> IEing since March 2007

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