I had a mini-breakdown last night, and a revelation this morning.
Last night I was sitting on the couch, ready to cook my pre-made kabobs from Whole Foods, knowing that they were healthy and ready to go and diet-approved… and I lost it. I had what could best be described as a temper tantrum, complete with near-tears. The exchange went something like, “But I don’t want kabobs! I want a cheeseburger!” The idea of eating another diet meal was suddenly revolting and oppressive.
This morning I realized that my tantrum wasn’t really about kabobs and cheeseburgers. In fact, I had a slice of pizza and a Greek salad, so I know that my craving wasn’t really for a burger at all. It was for freedom.
Here’s the deal: before I started this diet, I was a food addict. I had a totally unhealthy view of what food was meant for and how to treat it – essentially, an eating disorder. Now that I am on the diet, I have re-learned a lot of things about how to relate to food and making healthy decisions, but there still has to be a distinction between “good food” and “bad food,” because 1) these rules help me to develop healthy habits, and 2) they provide a buffer for me to ensure that I don’t rely only on my own disordered eating judgement and totally fall off the wagon.
But creating rules about what is “good food” and what is “bad food,” when taken too far, can also lead to disordered eating of a different kind. I think sometimes as dieters we forget that food is not inherently bad for you; it’s too much food, or too much of a certain type of food and not enough of others, that hurts us. I think that the reason a lot of diets (and dieters) fail is that we create this food morality of what is good and what is bad, and then can’t handle the guilt if we eat something off the “bad” list. We feel like failures and we give up.
Yes, restrictions are good; I know what I should and shouldn’t eat according to my diet. But I also know that while my diet happens to be low-carb, that doesn’t mean that all carbs are bad or that if I eat them I will never lose another pound and I am condemning myself to eternal obesity. This is yet another facet of how I feel about self-control: it is I – not the food, not even the diet – who needs to be in control of what I eat. Last night, I made the executive decision to have a slice of pizza, and yesterday morning I had sugar in my coffee.
This morning, I am still at my low of 191 lbs.
My success is not measured by how well I follow the rules of the South Beach Diet. It is measured by the increasing confidence I have in my own ability to eat a healthy, balanced diet in the real world, where people go to restaurants, sometimes order pizza, and occasionally eat fast food. Those are not the staples of my diet simply because I eat them every now and then. I just have to remind myself of this.
My new mantra: It is ok to eat food!
