Pizza, bad relationships, binge-eating and behavior change…sounds like a recipe for a late night talk show. Yet this can become a lifestyle, when we look at the interconnectedness of eating and emotions.
Every story has a beginning, and my food story starts with pizza…I am going to talk about my ‘true love’… which is pizza. Some of you are probably laughing when I say this, but I am serious. Sometimes the relationship we have with a certain food is like the intense love of that special friend we know is bad for us. We know they are wrong for us, yet we continue to be drawn to them. For me pizza has history. Back in high school I was madly in love with a guy who delivered pizza on the weekends. I would go with him on his rounds. Even the smell of the damp cardboard boxes that contained the pizza has a special place in my heart. It is linked so strongly to the feelings I was experiencing at the time.
Relationships….
I don’t know about anyone else, but there are certain people in my life that I keep going back to, voluntarily. Thinking things like “I will give it one more shot” and I don’t have anything other than optimism going back to these special people.
You know the people I am talking about, right? When you are with them, its fabulous. Perhaps there is a twinkle in the eye, maybe a special way they look at you, or code words you share…perhaps it’s the velvet tone of their voice…whatever it is, it works for you. And you’re hooked. All you want is MORE.
Whether you end up spending a lot of time together or just a little, when that time is over there is an abrupt dropping sensation. For me the feeling is like I have been, literally, dropped. This can happen in all kinds of relationships, including the food relationships I have.
Binge-eating….
Back to pizza. We know from research that the sense of smell is a powerful tether to memory. So many decades later the smell of pizza, and all of its variations, appeals to me. And I want to go back and give pizza another chance. Phrases like “just one slice/bite/taste”, “It’s a different crust”, appear in my mind like rational thoughts, when deep down I know they are false. It’s the “this time it will be different” of a bad relationship rolling out. Inevitably, when I start eating any kind of pizza, something in me changes. I cannot stop eating. Some biochemistry shifts and I continue to over eat. It’s a “binge”. It’s not healthy. It’s eating out-of-control.
Behavior change…
Which is the bottom line of this whole blog…if I do the same things, I am probably going to get the same thing. Unless some crucial piece of the puzzle of eating behavior changes… for example if you are diagnosed with an allergy to some food…the same choices lead to the same outcomes.
Trying to modify parts of my pizza equation (thin crust didn’t work out…but I haven’t tried cauliflower crust yet!), means that I am paying attention to what I am doing and looking at the results. Very different to feeling “out of control”, disappointed and dropped.
The up side of this is that even a slight change in our eating behavior can MAYBE give a new/different/ healthier result. My fall back behavior is the eating binge…
I now watch out for catch phrases that pop into my head like “just one bite/taste/slice…”, or “I can do this”, or “it’s a different crust/cheese/style..”, because they are as compelling as they are false. It’s the whole bad relationship “this time will be different”. Again.
Sound familiar?
Back to the up side…I am noticing these thoughts as they occur and not just automatically acting on them, and I no longer have lengthy debates in my head about how much I have changed. The pizza-love-binge triangle simply exists. It has outlasted the human relationship by many decades. I am not enslaved by this link unless I pretend it isn’t there. So what? Well… start noticing the links in your own thought process…what foods do you like? What foods do you feel you need? What foods are a treat? What foods are linked to love?
When you find the common answers to these questions, you are already on your way to healthier eating. As a bonus there might also be fewer internal debates that take up your time and energy, more self-acceptance, and just feeling better!
Check out the next blog to find out more about how to intervene when things are not going well in your mind when it comes to your eating…