I ain't even gonna lie y'all.  I came downstairs after a long and HECTIC day.  The kind of day where you are beckoned by fast food and frappacinos because you "deserve" something that feels good.  We ended the day at Chuck E. Cheese, and the social eating reared its head.  The family we were there with were eating and enjoying themselves and so were both of my sons and my husband.  I passed these tests.  Then I put my youngest down.  I felt proud that I had done so well today.  I still was not hungry.  But it is NIGHT.  My husband was nowhere to be seen and this is what I see on the dining room table:

Ohhhhh . . . I felt like I needed those chips.  Like I earned them.  What a rough day, and I don't even know how this is doing.  Besides, I thought, I barely ate ANYTHING the past two days . . .

And then my husband walked in and snapped me back to reality.

And now I sit typing and listening to my stomach.  Is it just growling (peristalsis) or am I hungry?

I will wait.

Social eating is a weird thing.  It is not as cut and dry as either party would preach, in my opinion.  Social eating is natural for humans.  The first meal we have is social, and loaded with associative reinforcement and emotional meaning.  Right after birth, we feel so cold and alone and in such an unfamiliar surrounding, and we hear our mother's voice, her heart, taste the familiar taste of amniotic fluid that comes from the Montgomery glands in the areola.  We gaze into our mother's eyes, and we EAT.  There is an aspect of social eating that builds relationships and creates community, and this is a cross cultural phenomona that is part of the fabric of human society from time immemorial.

What is NOT a universalism is the cultural attachment to gluttony that Robin so eloquently addresses in her book.  And I look at myself in the phase of my transformation in the same way alcoholics look at themselves in rehab.  I cannot eat socially until I learn to coexist with food in a non disordered manner.  I must learn what my body needs and what those senses feel like and that must be my focus.  When I have that down, I will try eating HCG meals (protein and veggie)  rather than splitting them up by food group so that I can tell when I am no longer hungry without having the "finish your food" syndrome.  When I have that down, I will be adding foods (Phase 3).  When I have that down, I will add more foods (Phase 4).  When I have that down, I will experiment with social eating.

I have a long way to go.  But I KNOW it will be worth it.  Then, yes, I will have a slice of pizza with a friend at a predesignated time.  I will be in-tuned to my body by then, and I will know when to stop.

:)



But not with food!!

************UPDATE*************

I ate until I was not hungry.  But I wanted more sooooo bad.  So I decided on Miracle Noodles.  A cheat but not a cheat.  But while I loved Miracle Noodles during my first protocol, I forgot that I HATE them now.  So guess what I did to get that nasty taste out of my system?

You already know, if you in any way relate to this blog.

I inhaled those chips, plus half of a sandwich and a couple of other things laying around.

Why??  Why do I do this?  It does NOT taste good at all . . . I go back to the initial trigger that sent me on this spiral . . . it was wanting more after than first protein serving.  Why did I want more?  I think it was the television.

I have a STRONG association with late eating and television.  Really, with eating alone and television.  I have to break this association.  I think the best way would be to not watch television alone at night.

It is drastic.  But I am tired of living this way, and something has to change.

Let's go (again).