WARNING

Warning: this is REALLY long and rambling.

I finished reading 'Breaking out of Food Jail' last night and something really struck me .. you can be in a quality famine as much as a quantity famine.

I don't think I ever picked up that bit from NT before or if it was even written since I seem to have lost my NT book *again*. Of all the books I own, I spend more time looking for that book than any other book I own.

Anyway, I never really consider what I do on a daily basis as a diet so I never really identified with the quantity famine since I tend to eat a lot all the time. The only times I don’t eat a lot are when I’m officially dieting. Even when I low-carb I still eat plenty of food, just not of all foods. I don’t feel hungry when doing low-carb, only deprived.

What really got me was the quality famine. I'm frequently eating foods that aren't quality foods. I eat plenty of food and yet I don't eat great foods. I never thought that was a problem, I assumed that when I was eating what I term "normal" that I was in what most would consider a feast but I'm beginning to think that isn't the case.

I only saw two sides of the coin: feast or famine.

When I do low-fat or low-carb I end up bingeing (I suppose that’s what it’s called) on sweet fatty foods to compensate for what I’m not getting in my daily eating. I eat what I want for a day or two and then I’m able to get back on the plan. The problem is that I can only stay on plan for 3 months at the most and then I don’t get back on the plan from one of my binges.

I have such negative connotations with the word binge so I don’t like to use it. I don’t feel that I’m like those in the NT books or in Geneen Roth’s books. I don’t feel like what I do is binge. I don’t eat a carton of ice-cream, a box of cookies, a bag of chips etc, in one sitting. I often felt confused about this because how could I have an “eating disorder” when I didn’t DO what those people had done?

A typical day of food for me, when eating normal and in my ‘I don’t care’ phase goes something like this, at least lately:

Cereal with full fat milk – one of the single serve kinds, we have them at work. Sometimes I’ll have a banana with it if have one. I like the raisin bran. Or I’ll make a grilled cheese sandwich and maybe a yogurt.

Lots of mineral water during the day and a couple diet sodas. I have snacks through the day sometimes like a bag of chips, or mini candy bars. Not every day though.

Lunch will be something at the sushi place like california rolls and miso soup, a burrito bowl (about ½ of it), two slices of pizza, or a sandwich depending on what was catered. If there is a dessert offered, I will almost always take one or two.

Dinner lately has been some frozen entrée and then a large amount of ice-cream with magic shell on it. I will go through a quart of ice-cream in three days. If not a frozen meal then I’ll have a combo from a fast food place with French fries and a burger of some sort. I almost always drink diet soda and rarely upsize the combo.

I don’t always eat everything on my place. Sometimes I leave one bite and sometimes I leave ten, it really has no rhyme or reason.

I don’t feel I’m not eating enough. I don’t feel I’m bingeing either. I just feel I’m eating “normal” and similar to what everyone else eats.

I have days when I feel like my eating is out of control and I can’t stop eating but not as often anymore.

I suppose there are levels of bingeing and that what I do is bingeing for me, particularly when I have so much ice-cream on top of a full stomach, even though it makes my stomach hurt and gives me gas. *G*

I would normally consider my everyday eating as ‘feasting’ but I realized that I do still put limits on what I eat, even subconsciously.

I will only take a half sandwich or half a burrito that is offered. I will eat all or most of it but I rarely take another half. I tell myself I don’t need it. I almost always eat all the sweets that I can but limit the good foods. I don’t like to be seen eating a lot of food, that’s something I’ve noticed a lot recently. Another girl at work is my size or larger and she eats 3x what I eat and I wonder how she can do it. She says she’s that hungry and I don’t understand how she can be that hungry.

I think I’m more tied up in servings and portions, right and wrong, that I thought I was.

I’m guessing that I’m more in quality famine than feasting most of the time and I vacillate between quantity and quality with every meal.

If I truly was feasting then I wouldn’t be conscious of what others thought and I would eat as much as I wanted.

-=-

I think one of the hardest things to do is determine if what you are doing is because you want to do it and because you were told it was good to do.