Dining Alone

Note: For information about the Am I Hungry?® program, please visit www.AmIHungry.com or go to my website.

Last week I saw an article about the “solution” to dining solo: a website for women who are traveling by themselves to connect, so they can eat together in restaurant and thereby avoid the dreaded prospect of eating alone.

Why is this idea so horrible that it needs a “solution”? According to one woman, she worries that others will judge her on her presumed status, thinking that she’s a “sad, lonely spinster” or someone out to “pick up a man”. Another woman said she overheard others commenting on the fact that it was too bad she was on vacation alone.

But what particularly caught me is that some women simply won’t eat if they don’t have company.

It makes me wonder what relationship these women have with food, and with themselves. As Dr. May pointed out in a recent “Am I Hungry?” newsletter, “Whether eating by yourself conjures up boredom, embarrassment, anticipation, or fear, it gives you a little hint about the state of your relationship with food.”

That’s certainly true for me. The only times that I’ve been worried about what other people think of how I’m eating, or didn’t eat because I was afraid of what they’d think, was when I was heavy. I was so ashamed of myself that I didn’t want to put myself in a position where others would see me.

In an odd way, perhaps that gives me an advantage. I now realize that most people are far too concerned about themselves to worry about what’s going on with me as a complete stranger. And if for some reason they want to notice what I’m doing, it doesn’t bother me. I’m happy with myself - why should I worry what some random person in a restaurant thinks? I suspect I would laugh if I overheard someone talking about me. Are their own lives so dull that they have to pick apart others? And why aren’t they focusing on enjoying their own food and company?

What the article also made me realize is that in all my travels by myself, both for work and vacation, I’ve never hesitated to go to a fancy restaurant to eat alone. In fact, often I prefer it to going out with other business people and having to be “on” and talk shop.

What I like about it is that when I’m alone, I can be completely absorbed in the experience. I admire the table settings, the presentation of the food, the atmosphere, the aromas. I can eat at my own pace, not waiting for anyone else or making anyone wait for me. Without having to keep a conversation going, I can focus on the food itself, the tastes and textures, and how (hopefully) delicious it is. As Dr. May recommends, I try to have a date with my food.

That being said, it can sometimes be nice to have company if you are traveling alone, and this might be a good option, even offering the possibility of making a new friend, which isn’t a bad thing. My only concern is that if a woman is so afraid of eating alone that she would rather go hungry, there’s much more to worry about than what others are thinking of her.

When Food Becomes the Enemy

Note: For information about the Am I Hungry? program, please visit www.AmIHungry.com or go to my website.

When leading the Am I Hungry? program, I talk about the fact that it’s an “all foods fit” approach. That means that the program itself does not classify foods as good or bad. You can eat anything you want using the principles of balance, variety, and moderation, as long as you’re paying attention to what your body is telling you about your hunger and fullness levels.

That’s fine for some people, but what about those who have to be restrictive in what they eat? What happens if you find out that you can’t necessarily eat what you love, or at least when you want it, for medical reasons? In those cases it may feel like food has become the enemy.

I was thinking about this recently when talking to a woman whose husband was diagnosed with celiac disease about 10 years ago. They’ve adjusted their lifestyle accordingly, and in fact their two young boys don’t know what it’s like to eat a diet that includes gluten.

For most people, that diagnosis alone would be a nightmare, but for this couple it has gotten much worse. Because of the damage to his gut, the husband now has intolerance to about 20 of the foods they eat most regularly – lentils, eggs, tomatoes, etc. The painful irony is that this is because he ate those foods – what he loved – often, which resulted in it getting too much in his bloodstream.

It would be easy to feel despair about this. The woman I spoke with said, “How do you change what two boys under 10 eat overnight?” She also commented that her husband has to follow a strict cycle of the foods he can eat, so that he doesn’t overdo it on any one of them and become intolerant to that, which has made their life “less spontaneous” and quite restrictive.

How, then, do you reconcile this with eating what you love, when doing so is harmful to your body? How do you resist the urge to “cheat”?

For someone with this particular situation, that is certainly a challenge. But it’s helpful to remember that if you follow the correct eating plan and avoid those foods, in many cases it is possible to recover to the point that you can eat them again – with moderation. As for cheating, during the period that you need to avoid a food, like gluten, remind yourself that eating it causes damage to your body; this may help you avoid having it when you shouldn’t. In the meantime, it is becoming easier and easier to find gluten-free options, and restaurants that provide flexibility around food restrictions. The internet also has a wealth of information on preparing foods at home for any situation.

If you have a more mild intolerance, it is easier to avoid certain foods most of the time, but perhaps still treat yourself on occasion. And for those with diabetes (a growing population), Dr. May recently released Eat What You Love, Love What You Eat with Diabetes, to show that you can still eat delicious food and support you health with this diagnosis.

If you find yourself in this situation, I recommend getting the support of an experienced nutritionist who can assist you in determining what your meals can include.

The real trick, though, is to be open to trying new things, not to despair that if you can’t follow your normal eating patterns, that you have to forsake good food. You may still be able to eat what you love – but you may discover that what you love to eat isn’t what you’ve always eaten.

Getting Out of the Yo-Yo Cycle

Note: For information about the Am I Hungry? program, please visit www.AmIHungry.com or go to my website.

As a facilitator for the Am I Hungry? (AIH) program, I talk about different eating cycles (instinctive, restrictive, and overeating), and how it’s possible to go between them. Many people know this as yo-yo dieting, where they overeat until they feel guilty or uncomfortable enough that they go on a diet and into a restrictive eating cycle. But eventually they leave that, too, because it’s too restrictive and they feel deprived, and they end up overeating again. This can happen over months or even within a meal.

When I experienced this myself before I finally lost weight, the cycles usually lasted at least a week, sometimes months. I never experienced going back and forth within a shorter timeframe until, ironically, after I had lost weight and was just maintaining.

The most recent example of this was a couple of weeks ago when I deliberately overate in preparation for a fasting cholesterol test. I knew from experience that if I didn’t eat more than I needed the night before, I wouldn’t make it to the test without feeling ravenous and then nauseous all day, even if I ate right afterward.

The problem was that I went a little too far on the overeating. As we talk about in AIH, if you start eating when you’re not hungry, you have no clear signals of when to stop. Furthermore, if you’re eating out of fear of getting hungry, how do you know you’ve had enough?

While I successfully got through my appointment and the day feeling okay, I started bouncing back and forth between restrictive and overeating cycles. Even though I know better, my initial reaction is to severely restrict my intake to recover from the overeating. Except I was too careful and got very hungry in the evening. That meant when I started eating, I ate too fast and too much. Then I did the same thing the next day.

This doesn’t happen to me often, and maybe that’s why it always takes me a few days to remember that this is not the best way to get back into my instinctive eating cycle. Instead of cutting back drastically on food, I need to pay attention while I’m eating and stop when I’m not hungry (rather than full). Or I may stop while I’m still a little hungry, knowing that once the food settles I won’t feel hungry anymore. If I do this, it results in gradually tapering down my food, and then after another few days I’m fine.

While this isn’t something I particularly enjoy, it does have benefits. For one, it reminds me in a small way of what life was like before, and helps me relate to those I’m working with from more direct experience instead of just memory.

It also clarifies for me just how wonderful it is to eat only what I need. When I’m in the overeating part of the cycle, I don’t tend to sleep well, I’m more lethargic, and my mood fluctuates more dramatically. Once I get back to the instinctive eating cycle, I feel lighter, happier, energized, and just generally healthier and able to enjoy my life. It’s something I can take for granted too often, so I consider this experience a useful reminder to appreciate it anew.

Cadbury Creme Eggs

When I was growing up, our Easter celebrations were more secular than religious. We had an Easter egg tree (well, branch), egg hunts involving cryptic clues, Easter baskets, cute bunnies running around, and a big dinner at my aunt's house. I was always very excited about it because I loved Easter candy. Nor am I alone in this - Americans spend 2.1 billion each year on Easter candy, second only to Halloween. Jelly beans, robin's eggs, peeps, various types of chocolates in the shape of eggs, chocolate bunnies, and more.

But my favorite were the Cadbury Creme Eggs. I never got enough of those. I felt I could eat dozens, but I only ever got one or two. Then when I entered my dieting phase, I was lucky if I got any; more often I found sugar-free candy in my basket, or more natural sweets like carob eggs.

Which is why I was excited when I went to Cadbury World in Birmingham, England. Even though it was November, almost as far from Easter as possible, they had bins of the creme eggs! I was ecstatic. I greedily stocked up, albeit surreptitiously, since I was a little embarrassed about my host seeing me with all that candy.

As I lost weight, though, I found that eating an entire Cadbury egg was a little too much because they were so rich. When they introduced the mini crème eggs, I felt like they read my mind – one of those tiny eggs was perfect for me. It gave me the taste without being overwhelming.

This year, though, something changed. I went to the store and looked at the mini eggs, planning to buy them out of habit. Except - I realized I didn't want them. I could still remember loving them when I was younger, a very tactile memory including the intense sweet burst of chocolate shell and gooey, sugary caramel interior. I appreciated the memory, but I had no desire to eat one again, knowing my stomach would not like it.

Walking out of the store empty-handed felt strange, even a little sad, almost like losing that connection to my childhood. Then I realized it wasn't a loss, not truly. I will always remember how much I loved them, but perhaps now on Easter I can focus on the themes of rebirth and renewal represented by the eggs, instead of only thinking about the Cadbury Creme ones. 

Pieces of Me

When I recently read Women Food and God by Geneen Roth, one image particularly stuck with me because it made me shudder. She wrote that she “dreamed about slicing off pieces of [her] thighs and arms the way you carve a turkey….” (p. 77)

It horrified me that she would hate her body that much, to treat it like so much meat. Then I realized with a sinking feeling that I had dreamed of the same type of thing when I considered having cosmetic surgery on my legs. And in fact I did have part of my arms cut away (though not quite like carving a turkey).

Why do we dream about this, and in some cases follow through? According to Roth, it is because we think changing our bodies will change our lives. She was “certain that if [she] could cut away what was wrong, only the good parts – the pretty parts, the thin parts – would be left.” (p. 77)

But it is not just that we hate our bodies and how they feel. Rather, we use them as a scapegoat for what we dislike about our lives, which may be everything. We may think, as she writes, “If I fix myself so that I am no longer myself, then everything will be fine.” (p. 31)

For me, personally, my desire for cosmetic surgery was a little different. I had already lost weight and changed my life in so many ways, and I was much happier. But I had discovered that weight alone does not equal a perfect body, despite what diets generally promise. (When have you ever seen a diet ad featuring someone who looks plain or even a bit homely, or still has areas they dislike, despite being thin?) I was embarrassed by the evidence of my former life because I didn’t want to claim that younger self. I wanted to wipe the slate clean, pretend that I had never been heavy.

Yet Roth reminded me that thinness is not “inherently life-affirming or lovable or healthy” (p. 176) I have known that for years, but mostly intellectually, or as it applied to other people. I hadn’t previously considered it in relation to myself, or acknowledged that wanting to cut away pieces of me may not be particularly healthy.

Then I remembered with some relief that while I wasn’t entirely satisfied with my body, I did have limits to what I would do. I had made a conscious decision not to have work done on my legs, knowing that doing so would risk crippling injury.

More than that, I have finally (if only recently) come to a place of acceptance with my body as it is. I am no longer ashamed of who I was before. And while my legs will never win any fashion awards, I claim them happily because they are part of me, and they carry me wherever I want and need to go – what more can I ask?

Which brings me to one more quote that I loved. “Your body is the piece of the universe you’ve been given.” (p. 122) All of these pieces of me, thin or otherwise, are made of stardust, of atoms that were part of my ancestors and the earth and so much more. I cannot help but cherish what I have, and hope that when I am gone and those pieces disperse once more through the universe, they will find homes where they are loved.