FATNESS, AHOY!
Oy. Well, I’m going to SHARE because I know I’m not the only one who struggles with this and by writing about it I may get some clarity and resolve. Because if I know one thing about my pigeons it is that you’re wise and supportive and will not commit the irritating sin of throwing a lot of well-meaning advice at me that I already KNOW. Geez, I hate that.
When I fell off the treadmill at the end of October I sprained my left foot in a very interesting way that caused my chiropractor to sarcastically congratulate me for my creativity (I adore him, so please don’t feel that I was offended — we make each other laugh). The injury has cost me hundreds of dollars in medical bills in the form of chiropractic adjustments and massage. This is worth the expense to me, as I am just too old to bounce back from this sort of thing using my old technique of Ignoring It Until It Gets Better On It Own.
So the thing is, this wasn’t a huge injury or anything — just bad enough to keep me off balance and in fairly constant mild discomfort. Bad enough to mess with my general alignment and bad enough to keep me out of the gym. Ha ha!! Like I had been anywhere NEAR the gym! Ha ha! But I HAD been walking regularly and I had been dancing and doing some physical activity and I had not been engaged in the sort of competitive-style eating that the holidays tends to encourage both in the form of Festive Occasions and in the form of “I’m So Tired Let Me Just Stuff Bread Into My Face Until I Feel Alive Again.”
I start each day with a super healthy smoothie packed full of things like acai and flax seed oil and a banana and greens and whey protein. Then I am nice and sated and forget to eat again until about 4pm, at which point I am stupidly ravenous and berating myself for missing lunch. So I either stuff my face at that point and feel miserably full until I’m hungry again around 11pm, or I drink a bunch of coffee or tea and then stuff my face a few hours later for dinner.
This isn’t an everyday occurrence but I’m not going to lie to you: it’s way too regular a practice. And it’s really bad. I know that, my nutritionist knows it, you know it and God knows it (well, I’m not sure that God knows it since God is sort of beyond nutritional knowledge in my theology, but you know what I mean).
I realized today that this horrible cycle isn’t just a matter of not being present to my own body, it is about realizing — DUH –that I cannot consume energy in the form of food. Energy comes from general health and well-being, and those things happen from being in balance. If I need to rest, I need to REST, not to eat. If I am exhausted from being in low-grade pain from a sprained foot, I need to take some Advil and get off the foot and rest, not eat my weight in baked beans.
A therapist or nutritionist told me years ago — or maybe I figured this out myself? Or maybe I read it in Geneen Roth — that our bodies can interpret tiredness as hunger. By some messed up process, the tired person’s brain sends signals to the stomach saying, “Oh wow, we are SO hungry right now! In fact, we are so hungry that we are in danger of starving to death! We better go tear into a loaf of bread and a big chunk of cheese immediately before we pass out and die!” And so the tired body stumbles to the fridge and, like a zombie Weight Watchers defector, slaps together a Dagwood and consumes it while standing at the counter. ARGH ARARRARAR NOM NOM NOM Then the zombie lurches back to the study to finish its sermon.
I am going to try this radical plan, my friends. Three meals a day or six snacks. Please don’t feel you need to instruct me on the methods to curtail this madness; I know them. What I need is your compassion and solidarity, as you have mine. All I want to try to do is be more present to my body, to its pain and its need for rest, and not treat it like Balaam treated his ass (Numbers 22: 21-38, one of my fave stories). My body is not just an instrument that keeps me upright and works the fingers so they can type my thoughts, or a thing that I drive around in the car so it can keep company with the suffering or attend meetings. It is not just a preaching machine or a laundry, cooking and grocery shopping robot. It is not just a thing to be enclosed in spandex and adorned with make-up and hot boots in order to be attractive on a date. It is a dwelling place of God’s own spirit, a fearfully and wonderfully made incarnation of divine love and holy purpose. It is a human being and deserves tender and attentive care and courtesy.
As do yours, my doves. Please be kind to yourselves, feed yourselves well and with reverence, and ask for help when you need it. Lots of love from Sister PeaceBang.
Hey Balaam! Quit smiting your ass!
Amen! I especially loved what you said about remembering that your body is not just an instrument.
One of the best books I ever read about appreciating how integrated mind and body are, was “My Stroke of Insight” by Jill Bolte Taylor.
PB, this quote from you nearly made me cry: “My body is not just an instrument that keeps me upright and works the fingers so they can type my thoughts, or a thing that I drive around in the car so it can keep company with the suffering or attend meetings. It is not just a preaching machine or a laundry, cooking and grocery shopping robot. It is not just a thing to be enclosed in spandex and adorned with make-up and hot boots in order to be attractive on a date. It is a dwelling place of God’s own spirit, a fearfully and wonderfully made incarnation of divine love and holy purpose.”
My negative internal dialogue is very loud right now, which makes my outsides grow larger than I would like, and the internal dialogue keeps going. Oh! And it started going in the first place because I had to switch anti-depressants again, so now I’m hating myself and my stupid brain…I could go on.
The long and short of it is that I’m having a difficult time even believing I’m fearfully and wonderfully made. And then God used you to speak to me. Now if I could just get it through my brain…
Anyway, thank you. [Jill, if I was with you right now I would cradle you like a baby and sing a little song to you. Be sweet to yourself, sister dear. Sending you love and compassion. – PB]
What a gorgeous piece! So important for all of us to remember.
More power to you. As always, you’re an inspiration, not just because you are seriously trying to Do Better, but because you are pretty good friends with your body (which is not the case with everyone). Please continue to take good care of yourself; you are precious and valued.
Love you! Judy
I like to say that all too often I think of my body as that convenient device that carries my head from place to place. I need regular reminders that it’s more. Thanks.
Amen! And sweet, restful blessings!
Thank you for this. The reason I’m up reading this wonderful piece in the wee hours is that I just got home from the ER. I’ve got pneumonia! For the last week I’ve just ignored the chills, cough, fever, headache, breathlessness, and numbing fatigue. I had Very Important Things to Do, you know. When my fingers turned blue, however, my daughter piled me in the car and drove me to the hospital. May we learn to love our whole selves as well as those who love us do!
Advent blessings to you: hope, peace, joy, and love! [Oh, Karen!! Bless your heart and get well!! – PB]
Hi PB! Thanks for your wonderful blog. I’m sending lots of supportive thoughts your way. If you have time for a quick reply, I’m curious about your comment that God is beyond nutritional knowledge. What do you mean by that? (I don’t know much about UU folks, and reading your blog has led me to think that some of my previous impressions about your denomination were not accurate.) Obviously one’s beliefs about the nature of God are pretty complex, but if there are a few sentences that could clarify a bit I would be curious to learn more. Have a great day!
YES YES YES
Re bodies interpreting tiredness as hunger, I kind of worked it out a few years back when I realised that I deal with jet-lag (at the time I was doing a bit of international travel for work) by eating bland starch. I was really hard to discipline myself to eat some fruit instead of a cookie – but it definately helped.
A though worth thinking at this time of year when we are starting to run ourselves ragged for the Christmas season.
Thanks, Peacebang. I never made the tired=hungry connection before, and that goes so far toward understanding why my chronic exhaustion is coupled with absurd eating/craving. I’ve been trying to work toward taking better care of myself recently, as I’m at the point that my body is severely complaining (and if it’s complaining this much at 26, I’d better get it turned around now!)… but I hadn’t been able to make much progress, probably primarily because I wasn’t addressing the exhaustion/over-extention. You may have just given me the motivation to move forward.
Thanks for the insight, and I hope you find success and peace in this season… somehow it seems to fit with all the Advent preparations — preparing ourselves to be the best we can be (whatever that may mean in our own circumstances), while being good stewards of the gifts of our bodies… something I truly struggle with.
Excellent post, full of insight and wisdom! I appreciate the corrective you offer here to the false, post-Enlightment mind/body split.
And here’s a study that backs up the fatigue/hunger connection:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/05/health/research/05behavior.html
Thank you. I see myself in this post. I came home from leading worship at the nursing home yesterday and collasped on the sofa for the rest of the day – the not entirely unexpected result of three days of marathon visits (all requiring from 1 hour to 5 in the car), late nights picking up son from play practice and hubby from work because one car is in the garage, and constant pain from a strained (I hope) knee which I haven’t gotten looked at yet. This morning, taking half a day off, these are the words I most needed to hear.
I see myself a couple of nights ago eating turkey gumbo and ice cream at 11pm precisely because I am so tired that I think I am hungry. It’s been such an out of balance week and my fix-it-with-food urges are running rampant.
I think I need to re-read Geneen Roth. And I need to break down and get that knee looked at. And I need to take time to rest and do something I love.
Thank you for sharing your struggles – it really does help to know I’m not alone.
I currently work as a chaplain to the mentally ill, which has really deepened my understanding of the complex interconnection between the body and the spirit. On the mental health wards, meals AND snacks come at regularly scheduled times all day long, every day. Patients are encouraged to ask for what they need outside those times, and it’s considered a sign of improvement when patients know to ask for extra Gatorade or yogurt or whatever. There is also a high value placed on a good night’s sleep (6 hours or more).
All of this has helped me tune into my own self-care, to pay attention to my own mental and spiritual health. I see more clearly now than ever that when we care for our bodies, we ARE caring for our souls and spirits.
There’s a youtube video going around :TEDxIowacity with a Dr. Wahl on “Feeding your Mitochondria” — about nurturing ourselves and the most basic ccellular level. Pretty interesting…
I have found that if I am anticipating a stressful event, it helps to load up on fresh fruit cups from the supermarket so that when I feel a need to comfort it there’s something healthy in the fridge that need not be cut up or cooked. Not to say that I do this all the time but it does help
Sending positive energy to you from Atlanta. One of your best posts. no advice from here, just XXXXXXXXXXX. yes, from my name, need to remember all this too! XXXXXXXXXXX
I can’t resist: Thou Shalt Not Balaam Thy Ass. New motto for remembering to take care of myself. Thanks, PB.
Amen sister…well said and as always, thoughtfully written.
I’m just back from a quick jaunt to the city where my folks live, after my father’s latest health challenge. He’s been discharged home and we have home support in place (finally) but between making calls on my cell phone while in the hospital waiting room and leaving from my doctor’s office to drive to their town 8 hours away, I realised that my diet really is a bad one…and may be more responsible for my incredible tiredness than I originally thought.
So my dear Sister-Friend, do please care for yourself. Know you are loved and supported. Thank you for your ongoing support of our struggles and challenges, helping us to understand women “of a certain age” and “of a certain size” are delightful, flamboyant, awesome individuals.
You remain in my prayers.xoxoxo
Here’s one more person who’d never got the tiredness-hunger connection until reading this. That might help explain why, as the mother of a 2 month old, i.e., a sleep-deprived zombie, I find myself gravitating toward the worst food choices imaginable. Hmm…
Tiredness & hunger absolutely true! I experienced it college being on a scene shifting crew and sleep deprived. Of course, I didn’t pay for it then because I had this GREAT metabolism…
Now that I’m in my 40s, I see that body care requires an investment of time and perhaps money. So if I’m on the road and the nearest kale salad is at Whole Foods for $5/lb., I get some and consider that an investment. The part that’s taking work is investing meditation and daily exercise time.
If you want to change your ways and weight fairly quickly, so a no-carb diet (but with fruit, even some bananas). It will highlight how carbohydrates take the place of more nutritional foods in our diets.
Amen sister