I am not going to make my kids eat everything on their plate. I’m going to teach them that it’s ok to listen to their body’s natural hunger cues and that it’s important to listen to their body when they experience a sense of fullness.
As a kid, my food intake was controlled and I have essentially been trained to eat insane quantities of food.
Pudding was at ‘pudding time’ so if I didn’t eat it at that specific time then I would miss out. Therefore I learnt to stuff myself full of pudding even when I was already totally full of the dinner I’d just eaten. I often ate until I was in a lot of physical pain.
I have binge eating issues now and my brother is very obese.
I find it so stressful and so difficult to leave food on my plate. It’s such an enduring problem for me.
Sometimes I force myself to leave food on my plate, just to try and expose myself to the emotion it brings up in me and to process it and try and challenge myself to rise above it. I always save the food and I don’t waste it.
I get angry when I see people flippantly leaving food all over their plate. It fills me with rage and I feel like they are rude and selfish and have no manners- HOWEVER, I know this isn’t true, I’ve just been trained to think that... and I’m sure the rage I feel is actually envy. Because I wish I could be that unbothered and care free around food.
I wish it didn’t consume me the way it does.
I sometimes think it would be easier to never eat again, than have to face this relentless battle with myself every time I eat.
You would never know this about me because I’m not overweight. In fact, I gave birth 4 months ago and have returned to my pre-baby weight and am back to a size 10/ 12.
I’m a functioning food addict. Everyone thinks I’m healthy. I’m not.
I highly recommend the book ‘from
Hunger to wholeness’ to anyone who can relate.