Food. It’s my friend, it’s my enemy. A refuge, a demon. Brings me comfort, brings me pain. Fulfills me & depletes me. A puzzle. A contradiction. A constant dilemma. I’ve had a love-hate relationship with food for a long time.
I wouldn’t say managing my intake is one of my strengths. When I like something and it warm-fuzzies my brain, I want more of it. A lot more of it. “Nom nom nom” to me is like “NOMNOMNOMNOMNOMNOMNOMNOM!!!!!!!!” A small scoop of ice cream? Why even bother. That’s a tease. Give me a quart – hell, a gallon – of Moose Tracks with it’s smooth, sultry fudge that melts in your mouth while you crunch on mini peanut butter cups, all with creamy vanilla cool sweetness and my pleasure center EXPLODES. Ahhhhh….just writing about it triggers a Pavolvian mouth-watering response. NOMNOMNOMNOMNOM!!!!!! (beep beep be-de-beep)
Sugar is my thing. Always has been. I remember checking Dad’s pockets for quarters or using my allowance money to surreptiously procure a $100,000 bar or Reese’s Peanut Butter cups while my mom scoured the grocery store aisles for the healthiest, wholest foods around for her family. A treat for me and my sister at home was Fig Newtons (Fiber! Good Fiber!) and when we were allowed to have “Life” Cereal for breakfast – yeah, the “Hey, Mikey, he likes it” cereal (side note: Mikey did NOT die from drinking pop rocks and coca-cola together although I did avoid that combo well into my 20s although why I was contemplating it at all in my 20s is another story) – it was a pretty special day. And – every so often, we got to have a Coca-cola – Usually at my grandmother’s house during the holidays.
But I’ll spare you a full food history for this post…I’m writing today because I have spent the last 4 weeks on a fully-loaded fiber excursion. I mean major league change in daily consumption. It all started because a friend of mine at my new job – who was also at my old job, but we had never spoken (that’s going to be a whole ‘nother story and written on a different blog “workplacecultureisreallyimportant.com”) had shared with me that she had lost a significant amount of weight and reversed a serious cholesterol issue mainly by incorporating significantly more fiber into her diet.
Given my desperation around my weight and health, I actually asked her questions about it when she mentioned it to me. I let my guard down and shared some things about weight and my food stuff with her which is completely out of character for me. This is MY problem, MY secret shame – I can’t talk to someone I just met about it?????
Well I did, and I still am. When I told her that I needed to fix my situation, that I was tired of living like this – trapped in the obese body of someone I never imagined I would be – she said one word. “Oatmeal. Start eating oatmeal.”
She didn’t say “Stop eating sugar, stop eating carbs, try a protein-only diet for 2 weeks, don’t eat anything after 6pm, fruit is the DEVIL, pasta makes you GAIN weight, avoid high-fructose corn syrup at all costs, gluten is a killer, bread is the devil’s work, fat-free salad dressing can be good, spew spew spew spam spam spam…” and all that other crap we are bombarded by on a daily basis, that burrows its way into our food psyche, and makes it nearly impossible to view, much less ENJOY, food in a less-than-phobic way. ‘S’ did NOT subscribe to the Draconian ‘Cult of DEPRIVATION.’
(Side note: just the word ‘deprivation’ initiates a visceral response in my body. My flight or fight response hyperactivates and I begin to feel panicky. Working in the Not the best way to try to rework a relationship with food.)
Yes, my pal S told me to ADD something to my diet if it wasn’t already there. I was ‘allowed’ to continue eating whatever I wanted – no food was forbidden – but she suggested that I just try adding some oatmeal. What a NOVEL, ingenious and completely logical approach to changing years and years of bad habits. Make a small and simple change that is manageable and acheivable.
So, I have added oatmeal. McCann’s Irish Oatmeal Tin (3 x 28 oz.)