Food

Weight- like so many things in life, creeps up on you. I was looking at photos of me a year ago, two years ago, three years ago and wondered how I had put on weight. Very gradually, imperceptibly, tiny tiny additions…then before I know it- BAM! Many Kgs more than I realised. There is a saying that ‘life is lived forwards and understood backwards’- if you know the source of this, please let me know! So I have been reflecting on my relationship with food. It is deep and far. In chinese culture, or, at least, my family’s chinese culture, food is the source of communion with each other. Relationships are built around meals. Birthdays, celebrations, marriages, deaths- all centred round what we will eat together. In fact, what I have just written ‘centred, round…’ sums it all up. At the core is what the meal represented- it has always been a means to connecting with family. Now, with family somewhat scattered- aunts and uncles becoming grandparents, immediate family scattered across continents- food has become a surrogate for ‘specialness’- for me, it has become a substitute for lots of things. Realising this, I have, over the last few months, become more aware of why I eat, when I eat and how I eat. It was shocking to me how my eating patterns reveal so much about my state of mental well-being. For instance, I became aware of how my eating was disconnected with how I actually felt- i.e. the feeling of hunger/ no feeling of hunger. I was shocked at how much I ate ‘for love’- to be sociable or for the sake of others and how much I ate even when I was not hungry. For example, tonight, I had a main meal when I was not hungry at all. Had I not been in the company of others, I may not have eaten at all. Interesting. Recently, I started to notice how thin people eat- well, they don’t- or, very little. I noticed how they are very slow in eating their food, how they are quite fussy about what they eat, how they never seem to be able to finish their food on the plate and how s---l----o……..wl-----------………………..y they ate. The only times when I lost a lot of weight were times when I was extremely unhappy- when I physically felt that nothing was wanted and nothing was absorbed. Interesting. I also noticed how, when I was unhappy, but not extremely so, I ate more than I physically needed. Interesting. God knows I need to change the relationship I have with food. But how? How will this happen in a way that comes from within? How will I coach myself in reframing a more balanced relationship between me and food- perhaps more to the point- how and when will I stop using food and really start to eat? Looking at me from a Gestalt perspective, I am wondering whether I have a problem with ingestion, digestion and assimilation. Hmmm, food for thought!