Self-denial.

This morning for breakfast I had a fried egg on top of leftover polenta, along with a glass of tomato juice.  Then one of the kids asked for some of the whole-wheat coconut banana bread I made yesterday.  And before I really thought about it, I had had a second breakfast of two slices of banana bread.   Which tasted really good at the time.  

But now I am aware that it was a mistake.  Not because of guilt, not because "now I'll have to eat less at lunch to make up for it," not because I've incrementally slowed the rate at which I approach my prepregnancy weight -- but because my stomach feels uncomfortably full.  

I don't like overeating anymore.  I mean, I really don't like doing it.  Not because of its effects.  Just for what it is.  I don't like to do it.   I get a sort of hangover from it.

* * *

If you'd told me before I changed my eating style that I would feel this way,  I wouldn't have believed you.  Just look at this post from July 2008:

Will I keep getting hungry between meals, ever?  Will I never eat an entire pizza?  Will I always ask for the half portion?  Will I forget about ever filling up on bread, ever again?  Will I roll over in bed when my stomach growls at 3 a.m., saving that appetite for breakfast?  Will I throw out the kids' sandwich crusts?  Will it start to feel wonderful, instead of worrying, to believe that the eating-till-I'm-stuffed is over? 

That is the writing of someone who is frightened by the idea of never eating an entire pizza again.  I write now as someone who is relieved by the idea of never eating an entire pizza again.  Even by the idea of never having more than, say, a quarter of a pizza at a sitting.

Not only would I not have believed it about myself, frankly, I didn't believe it about other people.  If some other person had told me that she felt better when she ate lightly and didn't really want to "splurge" now and again, I would have thought she was either (a) lying or (b) mentally ill, possibly anorexic.  

And yet here I am.

Let me give you a measure of how much I mean this.  My mom, when she was dying of lung cancer, once told me, "I'm never going to deny myself anything ever again."   My mom, she loved her some Coca-Cola and Baby Ruth candy bars.  I hope she enjoyed every last one of them.  One of the last things I ever did for her was to hold the straw for her while she sipped Coke from a can around her oxygen masks.

But I've been thinking of that comment -- "I'm never going to deny myself anything ever again."   If I learned I only had a few months to live ... I still wouldn't want to eat an entire pizza.   I wouldn't want to stuff myself with food, even really tasty food.  I guess I might eat a higher proportion of my food from the Deep-Fried Group, but ... "not stuffing myself" doesn't feel like a sacrifice, like any kind of self-denial.  It's what I want to do now and for the rest of my life.  I feel so much more free about it than I did when I ate whatever I "wanted."

Comments

[Sara]

Oh, I so wish I were there! I love how you express yourself in terms of diet. You really have thought it all out.

[RealMom4Life]

I, too, love the way you express yourself. I am somewhere in the middle - closer to where you used to be. I am finally at the point where I realize I don't feel good after eating so much or eating junk. You've truely given me encouragement that I too can get to the "normal" point if I keep trying. THANK YOU

[Wendy]

I've been really encouraged and inspired by your weight loss story. Thank you so much for blogging about it!

I think I'm ready to give it a try, but I have one question. I get bad hunger headaches when I get hungry. After reading your stuff, I actually kind of wonder if they are stress headaches from being worried about being hungry. Did you get hunger headaches? Are they safe to ignore?

Thanks so much!

[bearing]

Wendy, re: headaches, I really don't know. Back when I was heavy, I used to get light-headed when I went more than a couple of hours without eating, and that got better as I shifted away from the refined carbs. But the theory that they're from being worried has merit.

I guess I wouldn't ignore the headaches, but it might be wise to try carrying small healthful snacks and having them on schedule, and experiment with reducing the size and frequency to see what happens. If you think that you have a fear of hunger, then it's worth taking steps to prove to yourself that being hungry won't hurt you and isn't as unpleasant as you may fear. There are some gudelines for this in a decent book called the Beck Diet by Judith Beck.

[MrsDarwin]

I struggle with this, being pregnant, because (odd as it may sound) at six months pregnant I can't reliably tell when I'm full at mealtime. Though I can tell later if I've overeaten...

I don't have any fears of being hungry, but man, I just love me the taste of good food! Sometimes I think it would help me stay in my pregnancy weight goals if I ate only stuff I didn't like -- that way I could be sure I'd never inadvertently exceed my full-o-meter. :)

[bearing]

MrsD, there's always the "one-plate-and-you're-done" strategy at mealtimes. It's fairly easy to put into practice because you just can't lie to yourself about whether you're done or not. I find "eat when you're hungry, stop when you're full" to be singularly bad advice for me, because (a) my hunger signals aren't great, although they're better now than they used to be and (b) it's really easy to lie to myself about whether I still "have room." I tend to slip into the notion that "if I'm not painfully stuffed, I must still be hungry."

[Colleen C]

Hello, fellow Minnesotan. We have a lot in common. I read about your blog when I visited Minnesota Mom's blog. I am older than you, but I am SHORT too! I look like you! And I'm trying to lose some weight. Loved your blog. I would like to lose 15 lbs., but I can't seem to get anywhere! You are my goal! BTW, I really hate to change my well-laid plans, I homeschool (in the past I did co-schooling) and I don't like large parties with people I DON'T know. Colleen