What am I trying to tell you?
Diets do not work. What I mean is that technically they do work; in the short term. But when it comes to long term, lifelong change they do not work. Even the most dedicated, diligent person cannot keep up a strict regime of eating rules for the rest of their lives. Don’t misunderstand me: There are some people with some disease or other that forces them to eat a specific way or suffer pain and discomfort. They learn to eat a certain way or they suffer. They are kept in line by punishment: not because they are bad people but because they are ill and they learn to avoid the pain by eating a certain way. For the rest of us diets do not work because we are not suffering that way. Yes, in the long term, we are slowly killing ourselves, we can’t run down the street, we don’t fit on the bus seat, we can’t squeeze into the roller coaster, we can’t shop for clothes at the ‘regular’ store, and we don’t want to look at ourselves, naked, in the mirror. So, yes, we do suffer and it is that very suffering that we are ‘medicating’ with food. Every time we feel bad or scared or bored or tired, or angry or embarrassed or whatever our trigger is, the medicine we take is food.
Diets are short term eating plans. Diets offer people an eating plan to achieve a simple goal: losing weight. Diets technically do work. That is to say if you eat less calories than you burn you will lose weight. The problem is that diets do not address our relationship with food. Diets just address the mechanics, the process of eating. Imagine for a moment that you have a friend in a physically abusive relationship and the best advice she (or he) is getting is “Learn Karate”, “Fight Back”. That is like telling a morbidly obese person “Just go on a diet”. It does not solve the problem. The better advice to that friend is “Get out of the Relationship”, “Break it off” or better yet: “Figure out why you keep choosing these bad partners.”. In other words: become aware of your motivations in continuing this damaging relationship. This is the key. This is what I want you to take away from all the words in this book: you must understand and then change your relationship with food.
You need to end the bad relationship and grieve for it. You need to have gratitude to food, to all the food you have ever eaten. You need to thank it for nourishing you and protecting you and comforting you and calming you and consoling you and distracting you and getting you through all those uncomfortable moments: “Thank you food. You helped me when I needed help. I got to go: this is not working anymore.” This is the goal you and I need to achieve: we need to let go of our unhealthy relationship with food and be sad and miss all those foods we used to love. We need to recognize the relationship for what it was: a dependent relationship where food was killing us.
I know that this is hard. I have been struggling with this relationship for over forty years and it is just in the past few years that I am figuring this out. I have learned that food comforted me when I was suffering. As my self-image eroded food never failed to comfort me. When I was depressed food helped me to forget.
I do not know what triggered your bad relationship with food. What I do know is that it is time to deal with it. It is time to grow up and be responsible for your actions. This is a difficult, painful process. Whatever happened way back when needs to be aired out and cleansed and admitted and food needs to be put in the place it belongs: in a proper relationship to your self[1]. You may need to find a counselor or therapist or someone that can help you figure out how to clean the particular wound you suffer from. If you do not then you might be able to change your relationship to food but the dysfunction will surface somewhere else: sex, pornography, cutting, depression, pills, drinking, drugs, or dangerous driving. Somewhere the pressure, the pain, the discomfort will need to be released. You might succeed by sheer force of will in eating better but the core problem that drove you into that bad relationship will surface somewhere in your life. You must face your demon and advance on it and excise it. You will need help. You cannot do it alone. Find help. Do not be ashamed to need help. Do not be ashamed that you were used or abused or beaten or raped or tossed aside.
Do Not Be Ashamed.
I know you will feel hard feelings. You either deal with them or they will rule you and, although you might win the battle with food, you will lose the war. Your life is yours. Own it, live it, accept your past and make your future. Do not be ruled by “Toxic Shame” [2].
What I am offering you in the rest of this book is really very simple: it is what works for me. I used the same ideas when I got sober in the mid 1990’s. I used these same ideas when I stopped smoking in the late 1990,s. I have finally figured out that I need to do the same thing with food. I changed my thinking. I’ve conjured a set of mantras. I began to rewrite the script in my head. We all have dialogs in our own heads. Most of the time we are not aware of the internal conversations that drive us from moment to moment. I knew that I needed to change the conversation. I found positive statements that I repeated endlessly, mostly in my head and occasionally out loud until the new ideas became the core of the internal conversations. I rewrote the script in my head. Think of it like this: you are the director of the movie that is your life. You are the writer and editor and producer: rewrite the dialog to your benefit. Get rid of the words that others put in your head. The words that say “eat; you’ll feel better”, “you suck”, “you’re no good”, “your opinion doesn’t matter”, “you’re stupid”, “you’re ugly” you’re fat”, etc.
Our heads are full of these little snippets. They are how we are socialized. They are a necessary part of learning how to function in society. Not all the words are bad or dark. Some are very mundane like “cross at the green not in between” or “look both ways before crossing”. Others are meant to diminish our selves and keep us controlled: “what will you father think”, “when I want you opinion I’ll give it to you”, “don’t tell you mother about this. It’s our secret.”
What needs to be done, for the purposes of being healthier and living longer is to take control of the dialog around food. Changing that script requires many rehearsals. This is why I say “repeat this phrase or that snippet over and over and over till you are sick of it.” Then say it a few more times. You need to overwhelm the old dialog with the new dialog. You need to force the voices in your head to say what you want them to say by sheer repetition. Every time the old dialog begins: force the new dialog over it. When your mind says “some chocolate ice cream would be nice” You need to interrupt that idea and start repeating “FOOD IS FUEL” until the old idea shuts up. Don’t be fooled when the old snippet goes quiet for a bit. It is just waiting for an opportunity, when you are tired or angry or depressed, to pop its head up again. You need to be ready with the replacement dialog.
As you change this dialog; as you put effort into writing a new script, you need to search for the root cause. You need to get help and figure out why the dialog in your head is pushing you to self-medicate. In truth, this is the same task you must undertake if you want to heal yourself of any addictive behavior. Whatever your choice for self-medication; food, drug, sex, alcohol, gambling, etc., this is the three part task: change the dialog, clean out the original wounds, and learn to live a new way.
Helping you to face the root cause of your suffering is beyond the scope of what I am qualified to speak on. It is a task best undertaken with a therapist or pastor or friend. I can only suggest that it must be done and hope that you find the courage to do it. If you do not then there is no amount of diets, mantras, rage or desperation that will produce lifelong change. You must face this task. As you do that hard work I am here offering you a tool to help change the dialog in your head. I am offering you a tool you can use to rewrite the script.
The specific words I choose to use work for me. They fit the language that I use and make sense to me. Take the idea that the words represent and find your own words to say the same thing. The key is that the phrases are short, easy to remember, repeatable and make sense to you. You are welcome to use my words or choose you own. In either case you need to own this and do it and repeat it for a long, long time. I have been at this for years and I still repeat these mantras as needed. As time goes on you will repeat them less and less. Not because you don’t need to but because the old dialog is slowly replaced by the new dialog. The old dialog never really dies it just gets weaker and weaker until it holds no sway. But it will pop its head up in unexpected moments and you need to remember the new dialog you wrote.
[1] “Your” and “Self” are intentionally separated. You have a self. It is yours.
[2] Healing The Shame That Binds You by John Bradshaw ISBN: 978-0757303234