Thursday, October 16, 2008

Why am I eating?

Why do we eat when we're not hungry? I've been cognizant of this habit for a long time but until I read what I had written yesterday about all of the eating I had done over this past weekend despite not feeling hungry, I hadn't given it much thought. I knew that I munched often, that most times I wasn't hungry at all, that I have associations between certain activities and food, and that I'm an emotional eater. But why would you continue to shovel food into your mouth and make yourself uncomfortably full if you're not hungry?

I do this constantly. I'm like an eating machine, thank God I'm eating lots of fruits these days instead of chips, cheezies or other junk foods, but its still extra calories. And I'm not entirely clean from the junk; Red keeps chocolate around, we have Ritz crackers in the house, Fibre1 bars, sometimes ice cream. Of these, its the chocolate and crackers I have the biggest problem with. Ice cream is not really an issue, I only crave it once in a blue moon so I'm not concerned with having it in the house. Sometimes, most times actually, I'm good with the chocolate. It's only those times, like the past month, when I've been struggling with control that I eat it. But overall, it's not bad.

But even if I'm snacking on fruit, there's only so much of that you can ingest before you're blowing your calorie count for the day. An apple contains 65-75 calories on average, strawberries, pineapple, grapes, just about any other fruit besides bananas are about the same for a cup. But when you eat 2-3 apples, a banana or 2, handfuls of grapes that at best guess might be equal to maybe 5-7 cups, 2-3 cups of pineapple or whatever combination of the above might happen during the day, you're looking at 700-800 calories in just fruit! Add that to your normal meals and weight loss suddenly becomes a bit harder.

One way to solve this is to switch some of that fruit to vegetables, which contain, on average, half the calories. Unfortunately, after my big bag of Dole salad mix, I'm done with veggies. That bag contains more than enough of my daily intake of veggies and I don't like them enough to eat more, with the exception of our roasted veggies which we love so much. Now like I said, it could be alot worse than eating fruit. However, even too much of a good thing isn't good. And it speaks directly to the insanity of constantly eating which many fatties do, I just choose to eat healthier these days.

But does this make it less of a problem? No. To beat this, I need to find another way of using my time, of diverting my attention away from the kitchen and breaking those associations that are ultimately my undoing. So what are the usual suspects? Well, there's TV. That's the big one without a doubt. I grew up eating in front of the tube so that association is very strong. And it's one we all can agree on. I don't know too many people who don't munch in front of the TV. It's too easy and its comfortable.

Another big one for me is the movie theatre. I've been a regular movie goer for years and my usual routine was to order the large special: large popcorn with topping, large drink and candy treat, the popcorn and drink coming with free refill, not helpful. I did this for years and it showed. The popcorn is easily 2000 calories and that may or may not include the topping, my google searches for the calorie count never indicates topping or butter added. A large pop will set you back about 400 calories and then you have the small candy, so figure about 250 for that. Add in the refills, which I usually did as well, and there's a 5000 calorie visit to the movies. Add that to the rest of my day and....well, you get the picture.

When I began my current regime of diet and exercise last September, one of the first things I did was cut out the concession stand and boy, was it hard. The smell of freshly popped corn is intoxicating and not having it really impacted my enjoyment of the movie and soured my mood greatly. Sounds ridiculous doesn't it? How can not having some popcorn ruin your movie going experience if the movie is still great? Because of the association; popcorn and movies go together like peanut butter and jam, Abbott and Costello, teenagers and drama, etc. It's just the way it should be. And I hated being denied. Now nobody did this to me, I made the decision. To quote that scholar President Bush," I'm the decider." But it impacted me nevertheless and made Red's life miserable for a while too until I came to terms with it.

I started bringing diet coke and rice cakes, sometimes a couple pieces of fruit, something that allowed me to munch but wouldn't hurt me. It wasn't the same. For the most part, I stopped bringing anything except the diet coke, but then I started ordering fries once in a while, sometimes I'd bring in a bag of M&Ms or some other candy. Other times, we'd grab a pretzel, or 2, from the pretzel place inside the theatre. This continues to this day, after doing so well I've allowed the association to return, albeit in another form. I need to end this.

I find when I'm busy, I don't munch. So boredom is obviously an issue. And I get bored very easily. I'm one of those people who need constant stimulation, it's sad. While Red is perfectly content sitting on the couch reading or watching TV, I need to get out. I need something going on around me otherwise I feel like I'm wasting my time. Playing volleyball, softball and taking dance lessons has helped fill in time, but I need to find ways of occupying the rest of my time. We enjoy our Wii but haven't played in a while for some reason. I have video hockey I like too, but don't take the time to play. Same with my guitar. So it's not that I don't have stuff I could be doing, and therefore not be eating, I just don't do them. I really need to prioritize this.

I think I've covered the why I eat question. I think more than anything, it's boredom and less about emotion. It's about associations that don't need to be there. Clearly, I need to do some work on this if I hope to ever conquer my demons and be happy.

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