I’ve been trying to reflect more on my eating habits as I think about where I am in my recovery journey. When I think about the joy that I get from food, I realize that I enjoy the anticipation of eating, more than I enjoy eating itself. Rather than feeling satisfied after eating a good meal, I often feel uncomfortable and indulgent. Despite this, when I start eating, I usually don’t want to stop. As I feel more full, I want to fill myself up even more. I’ve compensated for this by exercising a lot and eating a diet of mostly fruits and vegetables and whole grains. Running or walking long distances, along with eating foods that are high in fiber and low in calories, means that no matter how full I get when eating, it won’t be long before I am hungry again. I exercise, at least in part, for the pleasure of feeling hungry and the anticipation of eating.
If I think about my relationship with alcohol, there is a common element. I loved drinking for many years. My favorite thing to drink was wine. And one of my favorite parts of drinking wine was to first admire it - to smell it, to swirl it in the glass, to examine its color, and to learn about its origin and even about the people who made it. Wine is something I studied; I read about it, I listened to people talk about it, I tried to approach it like a professional, and I even fantasized about becoming a wine professional (though for a variety of reasons I never seriously considered it). I might have enjoyed the anticipation of drinking more than I enjoyed the drinking itself. Once I had that first sip, once I felt that feeling of alcohol going down my throat, it was never as satisfying as I’d hoped it would be. My happiest state with alcohol would be in savoring that first glass, thinking about and appreciating the flavors, the smell, and the sensations it created. If I could stop drinking there, I would carry on happily for the rest of my life. But, just like I don’t want to stop eating once I start, I never wanted to stop drinking after that first sip. Soon, the feeling of getting tipsy overtook the feeling of subtle appreciation, and I just wanted another glass, and another.
I came to realize, after many years, and many hard conversations with myself, that the pain and frustration of having to stop drinking after a glass or two outweighed the enjoyment of the anticipation and appreciation of that first glass. I finally acknowledged that my preference for wine was largely because all the pretension, ceremony, and nuance of wine creates the opportunity for building up to the experience of tasting it. It allows for the anticipation period to be extended and luxuriated in (and, of course, all that pretext offers a sophisticated cover for drinking). I really did enjoy all that at some level - it wasn’t all for show. But, once the alcohol was in my system, its effects took over and drove me from there.
The solution I arrived at with alcohol was simple by comparison - to stop drinking it all together. I have found that it is easier and more enjoyable for me to never drink at all than it is to have just one drink and then stop for the evening. With food, of course, this is not an option. I can’t just stop eating because I prefer the anticipation of food more than the feeling of being full (though that is actually what I tried to do when in the extreme phase of my eating disorder at age 21). I recently heard a news story about people who were alive and healthy and over 100 years old. One of these men, he was 104 or 105, said his secret to long life was to stop eating when he was 80% full. This sounds like a wonderful idea, and it's something I’ve heard before. It reminds me of the recommendation to have just one or two drinks at a time. In other words, it is good advice, but it’s very hard to follow. I’m someone who has a reputation for being extremely disciplined. I exercise every day, even if it’s raining or snowing. I can resist having dessert. I am committed to daily routines that many people would struggle to maintain. But, even with this discipline, I can’t stop eating at 80% full. One way I have managed it in the past is by drinking. Instead of having another serving of food, I’d have another glass of wine. That, of course, was not productive.
As I write this, I’m facing the biggest periodic challenge of my exercise routine - I’ve injured myself. With my running routine I somewhat regularly have overuse injuries. Last summer, I visited the orthopedic center three times for pain in my ankles that felt so bad I was sure I broke something. The answer each time was to moderate my exercise, take days off, mix in less stressful forms of exercise. I struggle to take that advice. If my body will let me, I’m going to do my run. I’m obsessed with it. But, the pain I feel right now will not allow me to run. So, I’ve been walking. On my first walk since being injured, I noticed that it allowed me to appreciate my surroundings. I took a photo of the sunrise over the lake, which I usually don’t want to stop and do while running. I heard the wind rustling through the leaves in the trees high above me, which I don’t usually notice at all (it sounded like a river). I smelled the spring blossoms more fully as I was able to breathe in through my nose with slow deliberation. And, perhaps most importantly, I was able to think through some things - something I find doesn’t happen while running.
Thinking about my walk, it sounds wonderful. But at the same time, when I’m done with a walk, even a really long walk, I feel like I didn’t really exercise. Like it didn’t count. Like I should eat a little less than I normally do to compensate for the less intense workout. This is where, I think, things start to get more complicated. I might walk seven miles, my weight (though up a bit) is still well below where my doctor thinks it should be, and yet I feel the need to limit food intake. Why? It’s much harder to describe this part. It brings to mind the years of being teased or insulted about my weight as a child (my nickname in junior high was “baboon”, which still makes me cringe). It recalls the intensity of the fear I felt at the height of my eating disorder in college about the potential to regain the weight I had lost. And it surfaces the physical revulsion I feel at the thought of eating something that I think will be “bad” for me (even as other perfectly healthy people around me enjoy it without issue).
These are complex issues. When I re-read what I wrote above, I can see why the first step in a twelve step program is to admit that you are powerless. One thing I’ve realized since my autism diagnosis is that a lifetime of being told (or just feeling) that “I’m different” than others, or that “something is wrong with me” can be explained not because of how I look, or because of any other single attribute, but because of how my brain works and the impact that has on how I perceive and interact with the world. Before I had that insight, I went through many different phases of trying to figure out what it was that made me “different”, and that resulted in rejection by social groups, friends, or people I was interested in. During high school and college, I questioned my intelligence, I questioned my moral fabric, I questioned my sexuality, and I questioned my appearance (most notably my weight). I was told, and believed, that I was stupid. I was told, and agreed, that I had no conscience. I was told, and could plainly see, that I was overweight (I was also told that I was ugly, which hurt more but which I couldn’t refute). And, I was rejected, quite resoundingly, by every girl I ever expressed an interest in.
I think I developed an eating disorder, initially, because I believed these things that people told me, and I probably amplified them in my mind, making them harsher and more severe than they may have really been. (If one person told me I was ugly, then I assumed every other person also thought I was ugly). In some subconscious way, perhaps I felt that if I lost weight, I would be less “different”, or less “bad”, and that might make me more appealing to others. I think once I started losing weight, I also developed a pride in my ability to do so. I never felt like I was very good at anything when I was growing up. I was bad at sports, bad at math, bad at games. I was good at losing weight, though, and that surprised me. Being good at something that other people struggle with felt nice, and it was a refreshing change.
As I lost weight, I started to demonize people who were overweight. I started to imagine myself as one of the “normal” people and relished the opportunity to label others as “different”. This, despite the fact that my weight loss had no noticeable impact on my social success. I completely bought into, in other words, the narrative that our society espouses (heteronormative, patriarchal, ableist, white supremacist, and so forth) rather than questioning it or rebelling against it. I so admire when I meet a young person today who is proudly different from the “mainstream” and totally unapologetic about it. I tried to do this in high school, by befriending the punk rock kids, but ultimately they, too, rejected me because I was not like them. I felt judged by them, and I think they probably felt judged by me. I didn’t approve of some of the choices they made, and as a result they thought I was not fun, or not cool, or not “punk” enough.
In my twenties, I started to find a middle ground. I learned how to be accepted by different groups despite my differences (by trying to adapt my behavior to match whatever group I was in proximity to). I learned how to convince myself that there was nothing wrong with my body (though I constantly scrutinized and questioned it). I maintained a long term relationship that depended on the fragile balance of me being able to fit in with my girlfriend’s peer group and her expectations of a partner, despite the fact that it wasn’t who I really was. I used alcohol to cope. Alcohol made me more fun to hang out with, and it made all the parties and late nights with my girlfriend’s classmates and colleagues bearable. When my girlfriend suggested I drank too much, I grew defensive and angry. Her mom was a “real” alcoholic, I thought, and she must be projecting that onto me.
I grew distant from my eating disorder as I got older, and I thought it was behind me. I was a healthy weight for years. During this time I always preferred healthy foods, but I didn’t hesitate to try new things. I ate what others served me, or in restaurants, without worrying about all the ingredients I couldn’t see. I weighed myself regularly, but I didn’t care if it was a few pounds lower or higher than “normal”, I was just checking to make sure I was staying within what I learned was my natural weight range. I never grew to really like my body, or the way I looked, but I had developed a kind of acceptance of it. I was able to tell myself that it was fine, that nobody else cared about how I looked, and that I had nothing to worry about.
My disordered eating behavior has come back a couple of times, in each case triggered by a high stress event. A long term relationship ending, an especially stressful period at work, and most recently everything that changed the world in 2020. I’m writing about this now as an acknowledgement that for the past two years, albeit for different reasons than in the past, I’ve once again been using food, eating, and exercise to cope with things. This time I think it probably has more to do with exerting control (of something) in a world that seems to be totally out of control, than it does with finding acceptance in others. Ironically, I don’t think I’m really in control at all. Quite the opposite. As the first step says, “We admitted we were powerless… that our lives had become unmanageable.”
My current behavior, I think, reflects my ongoing challenge with self-acceptance. Not drinking, perhaps, has made self acceptance harder in some ways, even as it has made it easier in other ways. I no longer judge myself for drinking, which is good, but I have more sober time to scrutinize and judge myself for other things, which alcohol used to distract me from. In any case, the fact that I’m writing this I believe is an indication that I’m ready to face it, which is a critical step in the recovery process.
Lots to think about here. I am weird about food, too and also struggle to manage eating in a healthy way. It's just starting to dawn on me that it could be connected to my autism diagnosis, partly through work like yours that considers this. I hate having to stop eating! It feels embarrassing to admit this. So thanks for taking that step for me 😊
I often eat salads so that I can just keep on eating for a longer time. And I too have the disappointment with the actual meal. And yet the incredibly short memory about that preceding the meal.
Lionel Shriver wrote about this in a novel I loved, called Big Brother. The protagonist's bro has a food addiction and is eating himself to death, while she tries to support and understand him. It felt like a powerful portrayal of addiction when I read it tho I had less awareness of addiction then and was far from getting sober myself. I related to her brother though. And to her. To the powerlessness. And the way that the out of control behaviour is a way of coping in the world. That it makes sense, in a way, and has a terrible kind of logic to it.
Yes, much to think about here. So my eating situation could be about sensory sensitivity. And about self-soothing. Because when I eat, as when I drink alcohol, I can stop time. And I can relax. My sweet brain gives me a break from all the thoughts about the past and the future and the meaning of life and how to live best and the injustices and the dying planet etc etc.
Sometimes I think of going to the 12 step food group. I've seen friends have life changing experiences there. But as usual, I feel my problem isn't 'bad enough'.
Anywho, thanks as ever!