Jen, a priorfatgirl

Is it possible to just love the taste of food?

by Jen, a priorfatgirl on May 10, 2012

Thank you so much for  your comments on the last post. It’s given me so much to think about – my mind has been going crazy this past week thinking about my therapy session last week. We talked about how I’ve been now that I’ve been on anti-anxiety for about two months. I feel like, for the first time in 2 1/2 years, I am in a good place relating to my anxiety. The question came up… what now?

How do I get my eating under control? It’s not to say I’m out of control but the fact is, I’ve never had a healthy relationship with food. Even though I’ve stabilized my weight into a healthy range, I still have days when I eat way more than I should and other days where I eat less. I want to just eat within moderation. I want to walk past a chocolate cake and not have it trip me so that I accidentally fall face first into it with my mouth open. I want to stop when I’m full at dinner instead of inhaling it all as if it were the first time I’ve seen food in 3 weeks. I want to eat to live, not live to eat.

So what’s my deal? Why can’t I figure out this healthy eating thing? After 4.5 years of fighting. After 2 years of weight loss and 2.5 years of maintenance (eh, most of it anyway), why am I still feeling like I haven’t figured this out? So I asked my therapist:

Is it possible to just love the taste of food?

We’ve talked about it a few times. He has in previous sessions, told me people who struggle with food are often lacking passion, enjoyment or pleasure in their life so they turn to food for what they believe to be what they are looking for. It is a false sense of enjoyment, often only filling the void with immediate yet temporary gratification. I’ve heard him say this but can it be true? Am I missing something in my life? I’ve doubted the idea. Last week, I countered his idea with this:

Let’s say I made an amazing dinner for Carlos and I. An amazing, melt-in-your mouth meal. While eating, we had great conversation, laughter and shared a vibrant energy. I sit back, thinking of how perfect everything was and how amazing dinner was. So good. The best meal I’ve ever made. In fact, it was so good, I consider having seconds. I know I’m not hungry but it was so flippin’ good, I just have to have seconds. So I do.

Or…

Let’s say I go to a friends house for coffee & pie. We sip our coffee and eat the most silky of french silk pies. The crust crumbles into perfect balance of buttered graham cracker chunks. Our conversation transitions from topic to topic without prompt as we alternate between storytelling and laughing. Both of us look down and realize our pie is gone but we still have coffee. We comment at how amazing the pie was. So amazing. In fact, since we both still have some coffee left, and the pie was out-of-this world amazing, we should have another. Neither of us are hungry but we just have to have another piece.

Is it possible to just love the taste of food?

Is it possible that my struggle with healthiness is because I just love the taste of food? Or is it, as my therapist proposes, that I need to find other things in life that give me more pleasure. Is it possible for someone to not be able to lose weight because they love food too much? Can we as a society be overweight because of our love for food?

As I bombarded my amazing therapist with question after question, he calmly listened, allowing me to verbally walk through my thought process. After a few minutes, I stopped, took a breath and was ready to hear his thoughts. I was ready for him to validate my struggles. For him to acknowledge that it is possible to just love the taste of food. I waited to hear him tell me I was right. Instead, what he told me caught my breath.

In that moment, when you are considering a second helping… or a second piece of pie, you are telling yourself you just love the taste of food. But what is really happening, Jen, is that you are saying you cannot think of any other way for that exact moment that can bring you as much happiness or enjoyment as another piece of pie. What you are saying is during that perfect dinner with Carlos, you would rather have a second helping instead of going to sit on the couch and finish the conversation. What you are saying is you don’t think you can enjoy your coffee and conversation with your friend as much as you could without the pie. What you are saying is that food gives you more happiness than anything else you can do.

Whoa. I just stared at my therapist. I didn’t know what to say. I had never heard it explained like that. Why would I give food so much power in my life, to choose it over a simple conversation with a friend and coffee? Why would I need a second piece of pie to make the conversation better? Why is pie so powerful, that it would make or break a conversation? How have I allowed myself to give food so much power over me that I compare everything else in life to the satisfaction I receive from food.

Is it possible to just love the taste of food?

The answer is yes and no. Yes, we can just love the taste of food. But that cannot be the sole reason we are overweight or have food struggles. We would be blindly denying, in fact we’d be fooling ourselves, if we continue to allow ourselves to believe our struggles are just because we love the taste of food.

If we are to let ourselves say we just love food, what we are really saying is that we love food more than anything else in life.

I’m not sure how to break the cycle but I know for a fact that I don’t want to love food then everything else in life. I want to love life and eat to live.

 

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Why do you struggle with food?

by Jen, a priorfatgirl on May 9, 2012

 

I have something on my mind. Something that stems from a conversation I had with my therapist last week about why people struggle with food. Why I still struggle with food, despite the fact that I’ve come to a more ideal, healthy weight. I have a post I want to write about it but first, I want to hear from you.

Why do you struggle with food?

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Final surgery, 1 week post-op

by Jen, a priorfatgirl on May 7, 2012

Back to appropriately cropped photos of me with no clothes on. Oh come on, I was fully dressed last week. Give me a quick minute to give a surgery update and then we can get back to healthiness topics!

Friday marked already 1 week post-op from my last, and final surgery. I had an appointment with my surgeon, Dr. Gervais and he took the tape off the incisions. They put tape on the incisions for a couple of reasons. First, it helps protect the raw incisions. Also, while the skin is beginning to heal back together, the tape holds the skin together on top of the sutures itself. It basically reinforces the sutures.

Now that the tape is off, I felt really sore all weekend. Much more sore than I felt the first week. My left arm feels more sore than my right, which is odd because my right always bothered me more after the 1st surgery. Dr. Gervais advised at least one more week of extra relaxing – he stressed laying low and not trying to be too active when I have to.

Aside from the slightly more prominent pain, I have to tell you I LOVE THE RESULTS. It is absolutely amazing and while it isn’t perfect, remember, that isn’t what I wanted. I just wanted the skin to not hang over and irritate/pinch me. I am beyond elated at the results of this surgery and looking forward to making a full recover from all the surgeries I had.

I know these pictures are slightly booby-ish, hang with me, okay?

In the first photo, you can see Dr. Gervais extended the top incision down further and also extended the bottom incision laterally. They don’t connect but are much closer. In this picture, you can also see how well my scar has healed down my arm from the first surgery. It’s already starting to lighten up.

The next two photos show my arm as I lower it. You’ll notice there is no more excess skin to begin to bulge or, when I wear a bra, to hang over the bra band.

So another week or so of relaxing and then, Dr. Gervais said I can begin to be active. He stressed beginning to be active doesn’t mean jumping right back into working out but I can start being active slowly with walks and stuff, until I work my way back up.

As we finished the appointment, Dr. Gervais and I double high-fived each other, sharing huge smiles and both excited at the results of the three surgeries. I never anticipated having the 2 additional surgeries but each one, individually, were worth it. I love the results and love the imperfect body I have.

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Trees make all the difference.

by Jen, a priorfatgirl on May 5, 2012

Last night, Carlos went to play cards with friends which left Iggy and I to have some quiet time. Carlos and his friends get together once a month so it’s nice to have a night to lay around. Not like I can’t do it when Carlos is here, but it’s just different. At about 9pm, I randomly decided to collect all the pictures in the house and hang them up on a wall upstairs.

I’m not the most creative when it comes to decorating so just act impressed, okay? I love the wall but now have a bunch of small spots throughout the house I need to re-decorate. Always something, isn’t it?

We were suppose to get up and head to Milwaukee Saturday morning for a friends surprise 40th birthday party however I woke up pretty sore and Carlos woke up not wanting to drive 5 hours. I had already made plans for Iggy to have a sleepover at my cousin’s house and since I know he loves spending nights over there, decided to bring him there.

Iggy loves car rides but always wants to sit on my lap and have me hold him so he can see out the window. Although I’ve done it a couple times, I cringe at the thought of getting into a car accident with him like that. I found a little doggy seat on Ebay and while Iggy hates it, it gives him a place to sit and still look out the window.

It doesn’t buckle him in so I’m sure in a really bad accident, he could still get seriously hurt but in the case of a small fender bender, it might keep him from flying. I hung out at my cousins for a few hours and loved catching up. I could get lost in conversation talking to her.

I spent most the afternoon hanging out and relaxing, still trying to relax post-surgery. I watched a little t.v., took a nap and then, decided to pick up a local Minneapolis/St. Paul magazine to read. I flipped through and toward the middle, noticed my street, my house and my neighbors, were pictured in one of the  main stories.

Our street, April 2012 (now)

I remember the day when Carlos and I first turned down the street, to go look at the house. We commented at the trees that lined the boulevard. We pointed out the other houses on the block, noticing a lot that were actually somewhat maintained; considering the neighborhood, anyway. We pulled up to the house and there were huge trees in the front.

I couldn’t help but feel so depressed seeing the picture. That image haunts me every time I turn down my street – it is a constant reminder of what happened one year ago, an image of reality. A reminder that everything you see can change, instantly. Nothing is forever. The above picture is what our street looks like now, one year later.

It’s surprising how much of a difference a few trees make…

Our street, before the North Minneapolis Tornado.

It rained most of the afternoon but is now starting to dry up a bit. Since we are doggy-less, we are going to have date night. We’ll find dinner somewhere and then, Carlos wants to go see Think Like a Man. He likes going to a movie theater in St. Louis Park, MN because they have not just regular popcorn but… wait for it, bacon popcorn. I’m not kidding.

Bacon popcorn is popcorn made in bacon
grease and then, tossed with real bacon pieces.

Bleck. I can’t even stand the thought of it but Carlos loves it. I sometimes worry about his love for bacon. I’m pretty sure if I were upstairs in bed, and there were bacon frying on the stove, he would run to the bacon first…

And, on that awkward note… I better figure out where we are going for dinner!

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