Chocolate covered strawberries, cookies, chocolates and goody bags. Gotta love Valentines Day!
Not too long ago, having all of these “unacceptable” foods in my house would make me crazy. I probably would do one of two things. The first would be to get rid of everything. It wouldn’t be enough to just throw everything in the trash though. Oh no. I would literally have to sabotage them so I wouldn’t go back IN the trash to eat them. No, I’m not kidding. This is kind of embarrassing, but it’s true. I remember putting Windex on the peanut butter before throwing it away because I knew that just putting it in the trash wasn’t going to stop me.
Everything I ate was labeled “good” and “bad”. If I ate anything on the “bad” list, it would eventually lead to bingeing on more “bad” foods and the whole “all or nothing” mindset kicked in. “I already ruined my entire day with one chocolate covered strawberry, so I might as well finish the rest of them” right? Which of course made me feel terrible for not being able to control myself, and then I vow to be “better” the next day and not have ANY “bad” foods. I would be so strict that as soon as there were any forbidden foods around, they were all I wanted.
I’ve realized that food was controlling me. I’ve learned the hard way, when we give foods values, they take on motivational buttons… good-bad, fat-lean, sweet-healthy etc. You get the picture. The insanity begins and food is in charge. This mindset is a by-product of years of restrictive diets. It is the reason we don’t stick with any of them, and the reason I no longer advocate diets. I have found, if you follow a healthy, balanced approach to eating, the luring drive of forbidden foods will disappear. What do you think, agree or disagree?