My Abundance Factor

For those of us whose relationship with food is less than healthy we often suffer from what I think of as a "skewed abundance factor".  Over the past couple of months I've started to notice that I tend to eat every meal like food is leaving the planet.  The new tactic I'm trying (which I realize is not new to many WW members!) is making a smaller amount of food (because I always eat ALL that I make) and tell myself this is enough but I can have more if I'm still hungry.

I really noticed my skewed abundance factor when a month or so ago I ate all but 8 of my daily SP's by 1:30.  I was in a panic and shared it on our WW FB page.  I think it was Marg who reminded me how low in SP's shrimp is and I was able to come up with a huge honkin' 3 SP salad to fulfill my "abundance factor" needs.   My bowl was the lid from a cake carrier.  It suddenly dawned on me I never use it to cover a cake, it is always my salad bowl.  It holds enough salad for a family of 6 and I always eat the whole thing.  A perfect example of a skewed abundance factor: far more than needed to feel satisfied physically but the perfect amount needed to feel satisfied mentally.

This event gave me valuable insight about my idea of what constitutes a reasonable amount of food and lead me to conclude the following:

-Even zeros can be dangerous for me - Zero points does not mean all you-can-eat.

-I need parameters even for zero point veggies or my salad will always be the size of a cake carrier lid.

-I need to measure out 2 cups of veggies for my stir-fry or I eat 6 cups.

-I need to start with a reasonable amount.  If I get hungry that would be the time to eat more, not eat more to start with.

I now make my salad with about 2 or 3 cups of veggies, still large enough to be satisfied but not enough to feel stuffed.  Surprisingly the result has been feeling less panicky about where or when my next meal will be.  I almost feel like food is not leaving the planet.

Is your "abundance factor" skewed?  

Do you constantly think about your next meal?

Do you worry there will not be enough?

In this instance, what we need to know is:

there will be enough,

we have enough,

we are enough.

Blessed or Deprived?

Although I'm usually okay with not eating sweets because I know the havoc they wreak on my personal peace there are days when I really want an ice cream cone!  Especially when we've taken the dog to Sandbanks and we drive back home through Bloomfield where the Slickers Ice Cream store always has lined up out the door. It's easy to get a little "Oh woe is me" going on.

Some of you may be feeling the same way.  Being on WW doesn't mean that all your favourite high fat, high sugar foods are off the menu, but it does mean they are not on the menu every day and maybe not even every week.  And not being able to have them when ever we want can lead to feeling deprived.

The reason we feel deprived is because we have feelings about food.  Over our lives food has been woven into most of our events and since most events in our lives also bring about certain emotions it's easy to see how we've learned to attach emotion to our food instead of simply having food as fuel.

So once again we're looking at changing our minds.  I've said before that since I've given up sweets that I haven't lost any weight but that's because I have simply substituted high fat carbs for them.  But here's my change in thinking:  I don't feeling deprived (as much!) anymore, I choose to feel blessed because I haven't had a binge in over a year. And for me that is a record by a long shot.

Now because I am a sharer, I am going to share this here, and also if I don't do it here I will most likely blurt it out during a meeting!  This past week has been the most painful and stressful week of my life. My son Glenn's father past away very suddenly, while Glenn was in Greece.  The pain I have felt for my son is like no other I have ever experienced.  If ever there was a time to turn to sugar for comfort this is it, but I didn't.  Why?  For two reasons: I knew without a doubt if I started I would not stop and I knew without a doubt the sugar would not take the pain away.

My point in sharing this?  I want you to know that it is possible to get to a place where you can choose not to turn to junk food to ease your pain.  Even during this time I have chosen to feel blessed for many reasons.  I chose to feel blessed not because I am super enlightened and have all my crap together, I chose to feel blessed because it just feels better.  And that eases the pain.