Update:1 (compulsive eating)

This is a meal I had prepared once for my late father's birthday dinner.I was inspired by the late Julia Child. I love eating meals that are colorful, have a little variety and is healthy along with being tasty.  I don't want to live forever by eating cucumbers and watermelons. 

Its been three days since I decided to discipline myself with my eating routine and so far I have failed quite miserably. I cannot seem to get myself active enough in the morning to eat at appropriate times. When I start eating I  stop long after I'm full, I have this compulsion to keep on eating.

Control it , one would say. But, if you zone out and eat like I do, you don't really realise what you have done till its done. Sometimes when you catch yourself in the act, or your body starts rejecting the food, you shut it down and keep on eating because you don't want to waste it.
Its like  a high, you don't feel like getting off. You wanna ride it till the end. Eating should not be like taking a drug. It should be a moment of meditation and peace and happiness. 

With that in mind, I turn to Buddhism. In Buddhism, the monks practice a technique called mindful eating.If you've ever seen monks eat, you'll see that they eat quietly. They try not to converse with each other during mealtimes. What they do is, they eat mindfully, consciously, they focus on just the act of eating for that time being. They have a lot of very particular eating etiquettes which I don't want to go into right now because there's a lot of it and I just want to focus on the mindful eating part.


 I've read a lot of articles about how consciously eating helps with the feeling of satiety. So,in order to do that, I have to adopt a few practices-

1) stop eating in front of the television.

2) start eating with a spoon or  a fork instead of my hands(Indian custom)  in order to reduce the size of my mouthfuls and eat more slowly.

3) Really taste my food. Eating should be an experience.(although our maid is a terrible cook and eating becomes a very boring and painful experience at times)

4)Not hurry myself between mouthfuls.

5) take at least twenty minutes for each meal. Therefore, eat slowly.Not too slow though ( ain't nobody got time for that)

6)Prepare my mind and body before each meal. I love how Christians say grace before  a meal and I've seen anime where the characters say something like "I humbly accept" with folded hands before digging into their food. I think that's a good idea, a little ritual before meals to alert you body that it is about to receive nourishment. Maybe the ritual could be simply drinking a little water or three deep breaths.

Let's keep it to these six points for now. Lets see how it goes. Tomorrow is a new day and a new chance. 

The Plan to overcome my habit of "Compulsive Eating"

I absolutely adore what people call
"Junk Food" and can never give it up.
I just hope I can come up with a plan
where I don't have to give them up in
order to be healthy. 

 Right now, I'm sitting at my desk, right after lunch, munching on some coco puffs, pondering what the best solution is. There are a lot of solutions out there that deal with my present condition. The common denominator in all the solutions is of course will power and self discipline. Now, these are two more things I struggle with.

My height is 5ft 3" and my ideal body weight is around 56 kilos or 123 pounds. But, my current weight is 83 kilos or 182 lbs. Even though I don't believe body weight is a measure of good health, I can understand why being so grossly over the line is bad. Its because I am experiencing a lot of physical and psychological discomfort from being overweight. I am just not happy and I do believe we should all try to be happy. Now I don't care if I look like a Victoria's Secret model , they are beautiful in their own way, and I want to be beautiful and healthy in my own way. Whatever weight and whatever size that is.

With that in mind, I guess the way to go would be to stick to a simple eating schedule and a doable workout routine.

for now, this is the eating schedule I planned to stick to:
(all the meals are at a 2 hour gap)


1) Breakfast: 1 cup of cereal (usually Kellog's Chocos) with a cup of milk/ 2 slices of white or brown bread with a fried egg

2) Noon time snack:  tea or coffee with 3 biscuits / a bowl of ice cream/ 2 slices of fruit cake/ a bowl of whatever seasonal fruit is available

3) Lunch: 1 cup of rice with four small pieces of chicken, fried veggies, a small cup of yogurt.

4) If hungry at around 4 pm: have some Chocos without milk or a few spoons of condensed milk (am I the only one who loves to eat dry condensed milk straight from the packet?)

5)Evening snack:  something yummy if  I'm going out like a roll maybe or tea and biscuits like in the afternoon or a bowl of "Muri" or puffed rice and "Chanachur" or Bombay mix.

6)Dinner:2 chapatis with a bowl of chicken curry and fried veggies

7) A glass of milk to help me sleep better


I know it doesn't seem that healthy but my priority right now is to control the over eating and not eat clean. Once my eating is regulated I will start looking into a more nutritious diet.


1 thing I do right is staying hydrated. I drink a lot of water. That whole 8 glasses a day is a myth and you must drink water whenever you are thirsty.

I plan on training my body to eat correct amounts of food at correct times of the day using this plan as a guide. After two weeks I will write an update on the success and failure of the method.

My Experience with "Compulsive Eating"

Look at me eating a small salad because I'm out in
public LOL

Lets get straight to it. I have a two main habits which I believe contribute to all my compulsive eating. Apart from that, I also have Borderline Personality Disorder which causes anxiety and a chronic feeling of emptiness that I try to mitigate with food.

The first habit is one that I believe a lot of people will be able to relate to. I have a bad habit of eating in front of the television. I watch mindless television,  zone out and  gorge. Not surprisingly, I have developed a  Pavlovian reaction where watching television makes me want to eat. Now, I watch a  lot of television, and end up eating a lot of food. 

The second habit started kind of because of my family. Growing up , family dinners meant dinner in front of the tv. The shows we watched together were  Hindi and Bengali soaps and I hated them. Soon, I could not sit and eat while those were playing on tv so I started eating alone in my room in front of my computer watching shows that I prefer. Therefore, this is the root cause. 

      
 Nowadays, if I eat a meal with my family at the dining table without the tv on, you know, the way it should be, I don't feel satiated. I feel empty. I have to come to my room , watch a rerun of  Friends or something and eat another meal all by myself. I frequently eat two lunches and dinners. 


Eating alone has developed in me a sense shame about the whole act of eating. When I eat with people , I eat neatly and appropriately. Most of the time, I stay conscious and careful and put up a front decent eating habits so that nobody feels gross while eating with me. But when I'm alone, the innate desire to gorge comes into play and I pig out on large quantities of food. The end result is me feeling worn out, bloated, sick, dizzy, stuffy, short of breath, craving more food, nauseous, sometimes I even vomit simply because my stomach can't take it anymore(most of my binge eating happens at night when the stomach is supposed to be resting). Its a very ugly cycle.

WHAT DO I EAT

My main diet comprises of rice, chicken curry, fried vegetables, sweets, aerated drinks , deep fried dough snacks and biscuits. 

Basically, I eat whatever I can get my hands on and these are the things I get my hands on most often. I eat a lot of protien in the form of various chicken preparations and I eat a lot of white rice and white bread through out the day. Bengali cooking uses a lot of mustard oil, sugar and salt. The food is usually fried and then boiled with spices like chilly powder, turmeric powder, bay leafs, mustard seeds, cumin seeds and so on. 

When I go out or I order in food, I mostly eat chicken rolls, momos, chicken pakodas, noodles, fried rice, cakes and ice cream. 

But I drink a crazy amount of aerated drinks. Way more than I should. 

I do however stay properly hydrated. I drink a lot of water, sometimes fresh juices and teas, one way or another I manage to keep myself hydrated. 

There's not much wrong what I eat. Its more about how much I eat and when I eat . I don't believe in avoiding food groups or not eating the food I love. Its  about eating the appropriate amount for your body.

EXERCISE:

I hate working out. I've tried gyms, swimming, dance classes, yoga, zumba, strength training and working out at home from YouTube videos, but nothing sticks.
I like walking but Kolkata is going through  a heat wave and I prefer staying indoors. 
I spend most of my time sitting or lying down in front of my computer. Occasionally, when I hear a catchy song,  I get up and dance around to it  and that usually works up a sweat. 


As you can see, I have created quite a vicious cycle for myself and it will take a lot of work to get out of it. If any of you are struggling with similar eating related problems, I hope this article showed you that you are not alone. Let me know in the comments how you feel about this article and what problems you have with your eating habits.
In my next post I will discuss how I plan on coping with this problem of mine.