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Meet Your Needs
Article: Food for ThoughtIf you have been on and off diets (any form of restricted eating) in your lifetime, you have probably been damaged by that process. Dieting is a gateway behavior to compulsive overeating and compulsive under eating. If you have dieted, your relationship with food is probably distorted. You can improve your relationship with food. Here are some lessons I learned as I recovered from bulimia and compulsive over eating. Whatever my body size and shape, I am entitled to take care of myself! My body deserves to be fed nutritious foods. My muscles and joints deserve the benefits of regular movement. My basic human needs deserve to be met. When I made small changes in my life with a goal of taking care of myself, those changes were more likely to be permanent. Those small changes added up to a comfortable healthy lifestyle that met my needs and was self sustaining. When I made changes with a goal of weight loss, those changes were temporary. The very words, 'on the program' and 'off the program', implied that there was some 'expert' telling me what to do or how to eat. There is nobody except me who can figure out what I should do and how I should eat in order to meet my unique set of needs. The fact is that food does meet our physical and emotional needs. That is normal for all human beings. Food is supposed to be one way to meet our physical and emotional needs. There is only a problem when we use food as the primary way to meet our needs. The problem is not the food. The problem is that we spend too much time and energy eating (or not eating) instead of improving our lives. I kept asking myself two questions, "What do I need now?" , and "What is the best way for me to meet that need?" I had to find out, through personal experimentation, what was right for me. No book, no program, no 'expert', could tell me. I had to listen to myself and learn what I needed. I wanted to improve my relationship with food, not to loose weight, but because food was not meeting my needs. I used my relationship with food as a tool to learn more about myself. In order to understand what needs I was trying to meet with food, I decided to keep track of how I was feeling. (I had to avoid any behaviors that were similar to dieting behaviors. I would not write down what I ate.) Instead, I would write down what I needed when I ate. I found it most helpful to think and write down the need before I choose to eat. (After I ate, I often could not remember how I felt or what I thought before.) Here are some of the needs I discovered:
This was educational, but it was only part of my question. I wanted to know WHAT my needs were, and I wanted to find better ways to meet those needs, without using food. I discovered many unmet needs that were hidden within my relationship to food. Once I was more aware of my unmet needs, I got creative and found better ways to satisfy my needs. I used problem solving to build a better lifestyle. I chose to improve my relationship with food because I knew I deserved more satisfaction in my life. It had nothing to do with my weight. Don't do anything to lose weight. Do everything to take care of yourself. Don't watch what you eat. Watch what you need. Then, do everything you can to meet your needs more effectively! If your craving is gone after eating something healthy, Yes, that is what I said, eat whatever you want. There is only one catch. It is very important that you REALLY ENJOY WHAT YOU EAT. Savor every bite. Especially since you are eating to satisfy a craving, this is the time to savor your food and NOTICE WHEN YOU ARE SATISFIED. When you are satisfied, why eat anymore? This is a comfortable time to stop eating. There is no wrestling match with your will power, no restriction. You just ate some healthy foods and some 'entertainment' food. That's fine.
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