The food will still be there

Do you think if you don't eat it all, the rest will magically disappear? Do you fear never having access to food again? It's time to dispute your beliefs about the disappearing food, and tell yourself "the food will still be there." Read the personal thoughts of some members of the Yahoo! Diet Survivors message board (printed with their permission):

Ann Blachly, Pomeroy, WA

(excerpted from Ann's journal)

What is the rush?
What's the rush to eat or drink food when my body is very clear in telling me I've had enough for now/enough for today?

Whatever it is will be available tomorrow/next hunger. Every day doesn't have to be a party in my mouth...non-stop until bedtime.

Let my body and digestion rest/finish the first task before starting a new one.

Multi-task eating/digestion is painful, miserable. Real pain in my gut, bloating, indigestion, reflux, gas, most likely bad breath, clogged sinuses/snoring, poor sleep.

Acid reflux: Simple rejection of certain "food" stuffs. If I can't digest it--it isn't food for me. Use imagination. Choose foods that don't cause acid reflux/anti-digestion. Take half the serving I usually do. If I am not satisfied, I can always get more.

Big time-waster: Could be doing fun stuff. Sewing, decluttering (yes, decluttering is fun as sludge is removed to NEVER have to spend time or energy on again). Home improvement - painting the bathroom, cleaning carpet. Things I can take pride in and enjoy. Be grateful!

Writing letters, creating items to love my family with. Create things of beauty to sell and support my family--share the load.

Time to move my body to increase strength, agility, flexibility, stamina, create good tiredness for restful sleep.

Time and energy to keep up with outside the house and yard maintenance.

Time to be with my husband (errands off the farm) instead of staying home to DO what could be done previously.

Time to be able to get to bed and sleep at a decent hour, instead of waiting for digestion to finish.

STOP--I prefer to not create overload/disorder in my body. I desire to create orderly ingestion and digestion, rest and sleep, recreation of my body and mind. (Contract to treat myself with respect for my digestion for one week at a time---journal positive results)

Eating to be sociable is rude and senseless. No one cares what or how much I eat.

I don't need to eat it to be rid of it. Freeze it or throw it out.

I am more important than sugar and flour. If waste is a concern, don't make so much or don't make it at all. If the desire isn't 10 out of 10 or 100%, Don't Bother.

Example: Caramel rolls that didn't rise properly. Eating the tops still caused indigestion. Baking them twice in attempt to cook the bottoms didn't work. Threw them out. Need to throw out the old yeast, too. And buy a much smaller amount of yeast in the future.

---

Sharon James, Adelaide Australia

The less food I had in the home the more I would panic and the more I would binge.

When I was young I lived with a very young mother (14 years older than me) and her partner at the time. He was very controlling and would be in "charge" of food distribution.

I was always hungry and when I wasn't sneaking into the kitchen to steal potatoes that I could eat raw behind the shed out the back, I was munching my way through his beloved home grown vegetable garden.

Sometimes I would even bump into my mother behind the shed while she ate raw vegetables in secret also.

I guess this is where my food obsession was born.

I don't need to eat constantly, I just need to be surrounded by food! I need to see lots of it to feel secure and know that I am doing my "job" and taking care of my family properly.

Once the light at the back of the fridge actually becomes visible or the cupboard is looking empty, worry would set in and I would eat, as if I was afraid I was going to starve.

A year or so ago I was spending up to $300 a week on food just to have it there to look at! I guess you could say I was collecting. Just to feel like my family had enough to never go hungry.

I have noticed that I am much better as the preoccupation with food diminishes but for a while (mainly when I was dieting) it was a very real obsession.

---

Sue Corning, Seattle, WA

I had an irrational belief that I must eat everything on my plate or whatever I served myself at a meal, because I won't get anything to eat before the next meal. I feared that if I don't leave each meal uncomfortably full, I will get hungry before the next meal and not be able to eat.

Often my hunger is accompanied by low blood sugar symptoms of faintness, irritability, anxiety or just big bad hunger headaches that remain even after eating. That fear motivated me to overeat at meals. However a BIGGER fear that I would lose control and binge if I let myself snack between meals perpetuated my fear of having no food, because I would not ALLOW myself to have food between meals.

My irrational beliefs that I must eat until I'm uncomfortably full to prevent between meal hunger and I will lose control and binge if I allow myself between meal snacks actually were rooted in reality. During family of origin dinners my brother and dad `finished' up leftovers.

So I didn't have seconds. My mom would not allow me to `snack' between meals, because she thought I was too chubby. I learned to take as much as I might possibly want with my first serving. When I started dieting, I learned not to allow myself between meal snacks limit my intake. During my first marriage my ex- husband relied on my leftovers at restaurants to get enough to eat.

He was a foot taller and 75# heavier, but saved money by eating anything I didn't eat from my entrée. I eventually just ate the food to keep him from eating it and taking away my choice. Later after I was diagnosed with celiac disease, restrictions of gluten, dairy and soy containing foods severely limited my food choices unless I carried `safe' foods with me.

However, more than my mom, brother, dad, ex-husband and CD, I DEPRIVED MYSELF. I feared I would lose control and binge if I ate between meals. My belief that between meal snacks were wrong and would make me `fat' motivated me to binge after between meal snacks to numb my guilt and purge to `get rid of binge calories'.

However, my `no between meal snacks' rule perpetuated overeating at meals. I loaded my plate at meals and `cleaned my plate' no matter how uncomfortably full I felt.

Even when I tried to stop overeating when I felt satisfied or full at meals, my fear that I would get hungry before the next meal motivated me to keep eating past full. I realized I had to confront and change my opposing fears about getting hungry between meals and not allowing myself between meal snacks.

So I tried some techniques to motivate myself to STOP at satisfaction:

First I tried eating alone at least once a day without distractions to stay aware of my stomach hunger/fullness sensations. I hoped to recognize the exact point I felt satisfied. That also allowed me to hear what I said to myself when I felt satisfied but wanted to kept eating.

Then I confronted my `keep eating' self-talk by using the `3 minute refutations' technique which I read in Three Minute Therapy by Michael Edelstein. I listed my excuses for eating past satisfaction at meals, which began with physical hunger: Then I wrote `refutations' or arguments to oppose each of those rationalizations. Here are some of my excuses and refutations (in all caps):

(1) I'm not hungry any more, but I waited so long for this meal, that I DESERVE to enjoy more of this food. I worked so hard to prepare this that I don't want to stop enjoying it because it tastes so good. I don't care if I AM full.

I CAN WRAP UP LEFTOVERS AND EAT THEM AT ANOTHER MEAL. I'LL ENJOY THOSE SO MUCH MORE WHEN I'M HUNGRY WITH SHARPER TASTE BUDS.

(2) I'm satisfied, but I don't have enough food left for another meal. I don't want to throw away this food. If I throw it away, my husband will see how greedy I was when I put more than I needed on my plate. I should have taken less. If I just eat it, he'll never know that I took too much. I only have a few bites left. That's too little to save for another serving. I might just as well eat it.

I CAN THROW AWAY FOOD IN FRONT OF MY HUSBAND. HE IS NOT MY MOTHER. HE SUPPORTS ME WHEN I STOP AND THROW OUT FOOD.

(3) OH NO!! I can't be full. I wanted to eat some dessert. I'm full, but I'm not satisfied. I didn't eat what I really wanted. I still need something sweet. Even if I'm full, if I don't eat some dessert, I'll feel deprived and probably binge on that dessert tomorrow.

I DIDN'T CHOOSE WHAT I REALLY WANTED AT THIS MEAL, BUT I CAN INCLUDE THAT DESSERT IN MY VERY NEXT MEAL. THE NEXT TIME I FEEL HUNGRY I WILL CAREFULLY ASK MY BODY WHAT IT REALLY WANTS, RATHER THAN DECIDING WITH MY MIND WHAT I THINK I SHOULD EAT.

(4) I'm not hungry anymore, but dinner is many hours from now. What if I get low blood sugar or light headed before my next meal? I need to eat more to last that long.

I HAVE MANY FOODS WHICH I CAN EAT IN SMALL AMOUNTS BETWEEN MEALS TO STABILIZE MY BLOOD SUGAR. I CAN CARRY SAFE SNACKS IN MY BACKPACK OR PURSE WHEREEVER I GO BETWEEN MEALS.

After using the 3 minute refutation process on my overeating excuses, I thought I could just talk myself into stopping when I felt satisfied at meals. So I tried eating slowly so I could stop eating when I recognized satisfaction. I also tried watching how my stomach sensations changed during a meal to notice the exact moment I felt satisfied--not hungry, but not full However at the moment of decision, when I was no longer hungry but not full, I stopped eating
only half the time. I realized I needed to reinforce my refutation arguments by actively changing how I approached food and eating between and during meals. So I decided to:

(1) Carry a variety of snacks with me whenever I left the house

(2) Eat 4 small meals or 3 normal plus a snack or 2 each day

(3) Leave something on my plate at every meal. If the remainder was a small amount I committed to throw it away. If the remainder was a larger amount, I wrapped it up for another meal. Even if the remainder was too perishable for another meal or snack, I felt more comfortable saving it than throwing it away.

(4) Allow myself to eat whatever I crave when I'm hungry and wait until I feel hungry to decide what would feel best in my stomach, rather than try to predict what I will want at the next meal.

All of those techniques helped me identify the exact moment I felt satisfied and could stop eating. However, I chose to continue eating more often than I chose to stop. I knew that my irrational beliefs about getting hungry later and not letting myself eat motivated me to keep eating, but even challenging those beliefs and allowing myself
between meal snacks did not help me stop me consistently when I felt satisfied. I needed a simple technique to use at that choice point to make me risk stopping if only for a few minutes to distance myself from the food.

Then I read in When Women Stop Hating Their Bodies about `voting for the inside'. That concept told me to value the sensations in my stomach or physical comfort MORE than what I saw on my plate. I realized I needed to make my stomach, not the food my plate, the final authority on how much I would eat at any occasion. Those 4
words "vote for the inside" gave me something to say to myself when I was satisfied, before I started the internal struggle between my body cues to stop and my rationalizations to keep eating. That gave me a way to jump over my fears and rationalizations about starving between meals or losing control and bingeing and just STOP EATING.

"When Women Stop Hating Their Bodies" also suggests that large supplies of foods can deemphasize portions. Thanksgiving leftovers allowed me to eat out of large serving dishes without putting ANYTHING on a plate. After years of portion control, eating from large serving bowls previously frightened me, because I feared I would lose control and binge.. However deemphasizing portions was exactly what I needed to eat according to my stomach, not the portion on my plate.

When I ate bites of leftover turkey and dressing from larger containers, I ate much less by stopping when my stomach had enough, than when I dished out portions. After a few successful experiences using that technique I finally realized I can't always predict exactly how much will be a comfortable amount. So I'm FORCED to rely on my stomach to tell me when I'm not hungry anymore. My stomach signal is the only true measure of 'enough'.

The processes of observing when my body felt satisfied at meals, listening to me self-talk when I tried to stop eating at satisfaction, challenging my fears about getting hungry if I didn't stuff myself at meals, putting away leftovers, throwing food away, carrying between meal snacks, allowing myself to eat what I craved and deemphasizing portions all helped me to stop eating when I felt satisfied. However, the realization that I can't always accurately predict what I will crave or when I'll be hungry nor exactly how much food will satisfy that hunger taught me to use my mind to merely fulfill the wishes of my stomach.

The fear that I won't be able to eat when I'm hungry was only in my mind. I CAN feed my body whatever it wants, whenever it is hungry and only as much as it wants to satisfy hunger.

Find out more about Linda Moran's book, How to Survive Your Diet.