Have I learned to think like a thin person?

Comment Munchberry Re: Thinking about food all the time

Since your blog's name is the actual thing we are driving towards - you have far greater insight on such matters. I do wonder how to curb my obsession (I try) and how not to obsess on the curbing (so it won't take over my life - how it might become natural). I wonder if it is possible or if it is just going to be about finding work arounds. Any thoughts?

I replied: 

  

My thinking is changing, the connection and food obsession is loosening its grip on me. So yes, it is possible to change your thinking. In my case, there was no way that I could have gotten here on my own. Cognitive therapy was the key.

I know many people are happy and it works for them to use a work around. I couldn't live with the struggle any longer. Well I could, but the anxiety caused me to eat and eat and I was getting bigger and bigger.

I'll expand more in a blog posting....

I ate relatively normal, healthy, well-balanced meals, but I snacked horribly. This is how I described my eating habits to my doctors, therapist and nutritionists sixteen months ago.

I would overeat and even binge on snack food. Snack time was anytime that was not meal time. My appetite for snacks was insatiable. If ice cream happened to be in the freezer, I would eat a bowl before breakfast. If there was a package of Oreo cookies in the pantry, I would grab two or three or five at a time throughout the day until the package was finished.

At work, I would search the food court searching for the perfect snack to augment the lunch I brought from home. A package of mini Skor bars, mini Reese Peanut butter cups, or Hershey’s milk chocolate usually caught my attention. But I also munched on packages of chocolate wafers, chocolate chip cookies, two-bite brownies. I would plow through a package in a matter of hours, none lasted overnight.

I attempted to make compromises, but that usually meant drinking 500 ml carton of chocolate milk, instead of eating a package of chocolate. Or buying two cookies from Treats or Tim Horton’s instead of buying a package from the grocery store.

Of course, when I was in diet mode – snacking stopped – at least the unhealthy kind. But over the years, dieting had become increasingly more challenging. The amount of time that I could be in diet mode shrank and the time between Weight Watchers’ memberships grew.

Finally, I decided that I couldn’t be live like this any longer. Thankfully, unbeknownst to me, our family had just moved to a house that was located ten minutes away from a cognitive therapy practice. My hope for therapy was to change my negative eating behaviors into positive ones. I hoped to learn to think like a thin person.

So, have I learned to think like a thin person?

The best way to figure out that question is to compare my thinking before and after cognitive behaviour therapy:

Before cognitive behavior therapy:  I craved food all the time.  In particular, I craved snack/junk/fast food.

After:  Junk food cravings have decreased significantly. Instead of craving junk food, I now crave vegetables.

Before: I always ate everything on my plate, even if the food didn’t taste good.

After: I don’t feel the need to eat everything on my plate, including the food that doesn’t taste good.

Before: I would eat second and third portions of the starch/carb section of the meal.

After: I’m usually satisfied by one starchy serving. However, I will have second servings of vegetables.

Before: I was obsessed with taste. If food didn’t taste good, I would overeat other foods to satisfy this need for food to taste good.

After: I’ve accepted that sometimes food just doesn’t taste as good as I want. And that’s OK. If food doesn’t taste as good as I expect, it doesn’t trigger overeating.

Before: I could not keep ice cream in the freezer or cookies in the pantry.

After: I can keep ice cream in the freezer; it does not trigger eating. I actually don’t feel the need to buy ice cream. Cookies in the pantry will go faster than ice cream, but like the ice cream, I don’t feel the need to buy cookies.

Before: If I was out of the house (or away from the office) and I was hungry, I would use that as an opportunity (excuse?) to buy a junk food snack.

After: I prefer healthy snacks from home, so I take food with me. Or, I’ll wait until I get home or back to the office.

Before: At the office, I would hunt for food to satisfy a taste for junk/snack food.

After: I prefer the food from home. I only buy what I need for a healthy lunch (i.e. lettuce for a salad etc.)

Before: It was a struggle to leave any store without buying junk food.

After: It’s not a struggle. The need to buy junk food has vanished.

Before: If I went to a restaurant, I would favor an establishment that served high-fat, deep-fried, and processed food over fresh options.

After: I recently went out to lunch with friends, and I voiced the opinion that I was not interested in going to the pub or Swiss Chalet. We went to the Cora's instead.

Before: I would eat packages of chocolate bars or cookies at my desk in secrecy.

After: No eating in secrecy. I still eat chocolate (usually in the form of chocolate chips), but I have only eaten one chocolate bar (that I bought for myself) in six months.

Before: I preferred to drink hot chocolate for comfort on winter evenings.

After: I prefer peppermint tea that is comforting any time of year.

Before: The only way to stop the constant barrage of cravings was by using willpower, which was in dwindling supply.

After: If I have a craving, I let the craving come and go, I don’t let it turn into an obsession so it doesn’t trigger eating.

Before: Categorize food with "good" and "bad" labels.

After: It’s all food. Some food choices are healthier than others.

Before: Obsessed over the "bad" foods and didn’t want to eat the “good” foods.

After: I prefer to eat healthier foods (real food) now. I see fast food, packaged food, and most restaurants as fake food; food that satisfies your mind but does not fuel your body.

Before: Routinely rewarded good eating with treats.

After: I don’t feel the need to do this.

Before: Followed dieting rules only when I was a Weight Watchers member.

After: I know that following a structured diet program will trigger eating, but I also don’t need the accountability that a structured diet provides.

Before: I had to be a Weight Watchers member to lose weight.

After: I can lose weight without Weight Watchers.

Before: Weighed myself only when dieting, otherwise I avoided the bathroom scale.

After: I’m not freaked out by the scale. I don’t celebrate losses and I don’t freak over gains. It is what it is.

Before: Avoided mirrors.

After: Well, I still do that, but I do look every now and again.

Cognitive behaviour therapy has changed how I think about food and eating. I'm delighted to write that I don't think about food all the time. I crave healthy food, and the interest in junk food has diminished. It is much easier to lose weight with this new mindset. I'm not losing weight quickly - that is a big trade off, but what I am doing is virtually effortless. In time, I know I will be 20, then 40, then 60 (and so on) down to a healthy weight. 

Although I will never be a thin person with a naturally smaller appetite, I am well on my way to becoming a thin person that naturally chooses smaller portion sizes, eats healthy food choices, and indulges in higher fat food choices on occasion. 

Next post: How I learned to think like a thin person

Salad vs. the McChicken combo

I’m at the end of the second week of eating salad and a small bun at lunchtime instead of a sandwich and coleslaw. It’s surprising how satisfying this new lunch choice is. Instead of traditional salad toppings such as carrots and celery, this salad includes baked chicken breast, sliced tomatoes, walnuts and sundried tomatoes (no oil) with Renee’s low fat poppy seed dressing on the side.

But, yesterday my lunchtime routine was disrupted. I booked an eye examination with the optometrist at 11 am at an office across the street from where I work. I haven’t had a check-up in a long time, so I thought I should go. The exam went well until it was time for the eye drops. Apparently I can add eyeballs to my list of body parts that make me queasy. Thankfully, I didn’t pass out, but I was nauseated for at least 15 minutes. While recovering, the optometrist saw other patients, and in the end, I returned to the office just before 1 pm, absolutely famished!

One of my no diet diet rules is to eat every three hours. Yesterday I had a light snack at 9:30 am, but I was unable to eat my lunch at 12:30. After returning from the exam, I reached for convenience food instead of assembling my salad. I gobbled down my bun quickly and met up with my friend and colleague as we had plans to go for a walk (I assumed the eye exam would take only a half hour).

I asked her if she had eaten anything for lunch; I told her I was famished, and I was no longer interested in my salad. We decided to go to a food court down the street and get something there. There were the usual fast food options: Subway, The Teriyaki Experience, a Greek joint, a Taco joint, an Italian joint and of course, McDonald’s. I was close to picking Subway, but we ended up at the golden arches.

It shouldn’t be surprising that I decided to order a McChicken combo instead of my usual order of a cheeseburger, small fries and a diet coke. I need more than a cheeseburger I rationalized.  I need more than a small fries. Need, need, need or is it want, want want?

You know what? I didn’t enjoy eating the McChicken sandwich. I admit, the fries were tasty, but after eating all those calories and all that fat, I wasn’t satisfied at all. What I needed, and actually craving was my walnut, tomato and chicken-topped salad with poppy seed dressing. So when I got back to the office (again) I assembled my salad; and finally I was satisfied.

What did I learn from this experience other than to ensure that I eat every three hours? Now that I’ve removed all the psychological roadblocks associated with salads and highly processed fast food, I know that a big leafy salad with interesting toppings is actually more satisfying than a McChicken combo.

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French fries vs. the Chef's salad

Choices on the menu blur together in a mangled mess of carbohydrates, deep-fried goodness and sweet not-so-nothingness. Fish and chips! Chicken pot pie! Macaroni and cheese! French fries! Sweet potato fries! Beef dip and homemade burgers!

What am I going to eat?

Of course, I should eat the chef’s salad (not the Caesar salad) or the chicken wrap. Yes, the chicken wrap. It’ll be sort of good, not wildly interesting, but it’s fairly healthy. Maybe I’ll get French fries, no, sweet potato fries instead of the side salad. Yum, fries. I love fries. No, I should get the salad. Caesar salad might be tastier than a boring chef salad. I want the Caesar salad, but I should get the chef's salad. But what about the fish and chips? Deep fried battered fish and French fries. I can't make that at home. No, no, no, I should get the chicken wrap with the chef's salad. Yes, I’m going to do it. I’d rather eat the fish and chips, but I’m going to make the healthy choice.

“Yes, I’ll have the fish and chips,” I say to the waiter.

"Why didn't I order the wrap?" I say to myself.

Going to a restaurant and making a healthy choice has always been difficult for me. Most entrees and appetizers are “bad” foods prepared in the unhealthiest manner: deep friend and battered, oiled and fried, sugary and baked. Plus, there is the sheer amount of food and social pressure (directly and indirect) encouraging me to eat.

As you can imagine, the prospect of going out for the night always invokes a variety of thoughts: have fun, but eat something healthy; live a little, eat something bad for you; that looks delicious, I want to eat that too; that looks healthy, I should eat that salad instead.

A year ago, it was a sure bet that despite the best intentions and nutritional knowledge, I would always order an entrée (sometimes healthy, sometimes not) with French fries. I would pass over choices that did not include French fries as a side option. So I was a little worried as to what would happen when I met up with a group of friends for dinner and drinks at an Irish pub in Cabbagetown.

My plan for the evening was to order a pop and something light to eat. The menu was full of high-fat, big-portioned pub food. My final two choices came down to a half-order of the chef's salad with chicken and the chicken caesar wrap with a chef's salad. In the end, I decided to order the wrap with the chef's salad. 

I considered both the caesar salad and the french fries as my side, but I picked the chef's salad because it was the healthier choice. I know that the other choices such as fish and chips or the macaroni and cheese would have been tastier, but for once in my life, I didn't feel like I'm missing out or wishing that I was thin enough to eat something more fattening. For once, I'm happy with the decision I made, which happened to be the healthy choice.

I talked to my therapist shortly after my trip to Newfoundland and she told me that changing my brain and thinking takes practice. I agree. A month and a half ago, I was still choosing french fries over a side salad. Yesterday, I easily picked the chef's salad instead.

And a completely foreign thought popped into my head: am I actually starting to crave vegetables?