"Eating rice cakes is like chewing on a foam coffee cup,
only less filling."
---Dave Barry
After four weeks of trying to conquer my cravings, I am now of the opinion that the 7-day juice cleanse was easier than kicking my old food habits has been. Each day on the cleanse, there was nothing to think about, no choices to make. It was simply, “Here’s your juice. Drink up!” repeated three times per day for 7 days. Coming off the cleanse, I was ten pounds thinner and full of plans and enthusiasm for a whole new way of eating and being healthy. Words like “vegetarian,” “organic,” and “vegan” as a lifestyle were tossed around as if they were no-brainers and easily achievable. Having not eaten any solid food for 7 days, I didn’t have much of an appetite for the first week or two. “This’ll be a piece of cake!” thought I...so naively. What I failed to realize is that the desire for that piece of cake would soon return...and with a vengeance I was completely unprepared for.
Once my “wants” and cravings started to reemerge, I was inundated by messages coming from inside me for pasta and bread and chocolate and coffee. As I tried to stay steady on the path, I found myself faltering, being pulled in a million directions by old habits and desires for cheese burgers and muffins and french fries. And I fell on my face...or more aptly put, my face fell with a splat into a plate of spaghetti. I felt like an addict, to be quite honest. It was all I could do to make it through the day without cheating a million times. It felt as if I had no control over myself and my appetites. The wanting was overwhelming. I was panicked and stressed and felt like such a loser. I couldn’t even write about what I was going through....because I felt like a failure, like this was just too hard. And in my panic (and daily food cheats), I started to backslide....a pound here and a pound there. I was angry...at myself, at the world (have you ever noticed that food is pushed and pimped EVERYWHERE?!), at my husband (who wasn’t having any effing problem continuing to eat healthily and was still steadily losing weight). This THING I’d undertaken was getting the best of me, clearly.
The only place I felt “safe” during these crazy couple of weeks was in the yoga room. It was a struggle to get myself there, what with that voice in my head telling me to go order a pizza instead...but when I did get there, I was able to start figuring this thing out. As always, I went back to my learning about the ego gleaned from the work of Eckhart Tolle. I applied that knowledge to this situation and began to see that voice encouraging me to eat and cheat and give up as separate from the “real me.” Once again, I tuned into the fact that “my ego is not my friend.” I remember seeing a quote someone posted on Facebook recently: “Don’t believe everything you think.” That’s exactly true in this situation I’ve been struggling with. If I believed everything that voice in my head has been saying, I’d be in big trouble. Instead, I have decided to give this voice it’s own persona. It had to be something reflective of how I envision this voice inside me and what it would look like in real life. So....meet my inner voice!
Isn’t she perfect? This is an actual person (poor dear) that I saw on the street in Galway on my recent trip to Ireland and snuck a few pics of. So now, when I hear that voice in my head telling me I neeeeed a cupcake, this is the face I see. It was either her or Fat Bastard from the Austin Powers movie, but I think he’s so cute and silly that I HAD to pick this lady instead. "Give me a pizza!" coming from HER just seems easier to say NO to, you know?
It’s been a couple of weeks since I freaked out about that addictive appetite of mine that came screaming back to life and demanding cheeseburgers. I was “saved” by my friend Jacqueline who is a co-owner of Mojo Health Bar. While picking up our juice one morning, Mike told Jacqueline that I was in the throes of quite a battle with my cravings and she said, “Peanut butter....tell her to eat peanut butter on apple slices when she’s freaking out.” Sounds quirky, but I’ll tell you what: it worked. I have a crisp, Maine Cortland apple every day at 10:30 and dip to my delight in the good kind of peanut butter from Whole Foods. It’s helped me turn the corner. Jacqueline also told me that I needed to have a list of go-to foods that are “legal” on my new diet that satisfy me...things that taste good and that I actually enjoy eating. The more of these that I can come up with and keep on hand, the easier it will be to say NO when a craving hits. Great advice....and that’s working for me, too.
So, it’s been about five weeks now from the day we started our cleanse. I have returned to the 10-pound weight loss mark after wobbling a bit, and I feel calm and stable most of the time with my ability to choose healthy food for myself. Mike has lost 20 pounds, it's true, but he has other demons he's battling. He refers to my daily pep talks as "the lecture series" today.
I’ve learned a valuable lesson about the ONE thing that was missing for me in this whole “feeding myself better” endeavor: self-love. It makes me tearful to think back to how I was treating myself just a couple of weeks ago...beating up on myself for having cravings, feeling like a total failure because I was succumbing to that voice in my head and then feeling awful after cheating. All of my issues with not trusting myself, low self-esteem and not feeling good about myself came screaming back with a vengeance and I had to figure out how the hell to keep my head above water. I was shocked at how deeply these roots run, and how they permeate so many aspects of my life. This food thing is yet another facet on the diamond that I'm bringing up to the light for closer examination. So, I’m picking myself up, dusting myself off and learning to be both gentle and strong at the same time. I’ve allowed myself to taste the stuff I am missing once in a while, and when I am gentle with myself in this way, I come away stronger and NOT wanting that food again. Instead of being petrified and panicked at my longing for cookies and french fries and pizza, I’m finding that when I do indulge a bit, I bust the craving wide open and expose it to the light....and it goes away. That’s not to say that blueberry pie from Two Fat Cats doesn’t taste delicious (I wanted to lick the plate!!!), but I am learning moderation and I’m learning to set goals and earn something I don’t get to have very often. And I’m learning to savor every bite when I indulge in something delicious. I’m also finding that some of those things I’ve been waxing nostalgic about aren’t really all that attractive to me any longer, that they are losing their power over me. Most of the time when I eat something from my “old way of life,” I get a tummy ache or other symptoms that speak to why I wanted to stop eating those things in the first place.
"Crave for a thing, you will get it. Renounce the craving, the object will follow you by itself."
---Swami Sivananda
I still want to lose 5 more pounds, but today I am happy that I feel a greater sense of self-control, an overriding compassion for myself and what I am attempting to overcome, and a sense of peace and non-attachment to that voice in my head that clearly is NOT my friend. I am feeling stronger in my yoga practice, centered in my daily life and am grateful for this opportunity to challenge myself and learn what I’m made of. Learning to love yourself is a daily practice. Feeding yourself well is just part of that process. Yoga helps. Making art gets me through. I am becoming the person I’ve wanted....inch by inch. Namaste.
Making tortillas in Belize, 2009
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