All that time, nothing out here on the prairie.
This past week or two, I've started seeing the discarded shells, though. Maybe half a dozen or so, mostly on the street to my south, or rather the sidewalks. I remember finding these when I was a child, and "painting" them with clear nail polish to preserve them.
I was astonished to be told the insects that left these shells behind only came out every so many years. The news this year has it as seventeen years. When I try to do the math now, I can't get the 17's to come out right with either my age or the calendar years! Clearly my memory of WHEN is wrong, or we are talking about a different species of insect.
Which brings us to the reliability of memory! Anybody else there get "food amnesia"? That's one of the main reasons to track. Or it could be a reason to set distractions aside and eat mindfully, conscious of each bite. Either or both can be a part of living a long-term healthy lifestyle!
This is especially true for those like me. At one point in my journey, I swear, I could not name my emotions. Every emotion was perceived as HUNGER! Well, in a way, it was, to the extent that every unsatisfied need is a form of "hunger". Often what I was hungry for was not food. I would eat anyway. And then discover myself at the bottom of a bag of chips or a carton of ice cream asking "what WAS that emotion?" What was I feeling that I was trying to "stuff down"?
Learning to recognize and sit with emotions, and let them dissipate, or to indulge them in non-food ways... well that was a huge step of progress for me. It took many tries and a lot of practice. Even now, I consider myself "recovering" not recovered from emotional / compulsive eating. By the time you add the emotional trigger to the physiological addictive response... that's how I got to where I got to at my heaviest.
Since retirement, and since the pandemic, I added some "padding" back, but have not crossed the line back into the land of obesity. Still, life was easier a few pounds down from where I sit at the moment, so I joined in the Get Back to Goal challenge.
This is a less structured challenge sponsored by the old "At Goal and Maintaining + Transition to Maintenance Team" from Spark. Home base for the team is moving over to: Google Groups. Look in the messages there for the "Get Back to Goal Challenge" as a topic, if it interests you. Direct link to the entry form is here (edited to add it, thanks to Anja's comment): Get Back to Goal Challenge entry form
That's about all I have to offer to this one and only Tuesday, July 6, 2021 we'll ever get. My trainer is on vacation, visiting the younger generation of his family. I've already done my walk, and I'm debating a light workout with weights. Food is on track. Life is good.
Hope the same is true in your world! ✨👍😍💖
I was in my 40's when I ralized I needed some counseling. That was when I found out that I was not hungry all the time. When the doctor pointe out the times and what I was doing when the hunger struck was when I had my ahaa moment. I guess that is where food journeling, when you note everything surrounding the hunger comes into play.
ReplyDeleteI think anxiety has always been with me, I just needed to islolate what I was anxious about. This was and is a great blog!!
Your story and mine are similar... I found some amazing insights springing from mouth and pen when getting some help from a professional! My quote at the time was to the effect that I was at my happiest when I was "working on" my weight issues. Only by paying attention did I have that "aha! It's not the result, it's the behavior... nutritious food, activity, sleep... that brings both health and contentment!"
DeleteYou might have a whole different set of cicadas where you are; not all of them are on a 17-year cycle. So rest easy, your mind might not be playing tricks on you! If in doubt, call and ask the local county extension agent where to find out what set have hatched in your area this summer 🙂
ReplyDeleteI’m glad you’re enjoying the Get Back to Goal “challenge.” You’re crushing the “competition” so well-done, you! 😁
An easier link for finding it could also be the entry form, here: http://forms.gle/NYrS68bMKttaZcis7
I think a lot of us have experienced dissociating our feelings and thoughts - it’s probably a big reason many of us met on a weight-loss website! Sometimes I wonder if it has also been a coping mechanism for us, to allow us to lead those busy professional pre-retirement lives...
Sorry - cut & paste error. Try this link?
Deletehttp://forms.gle/NYrS68bMKttaZcis7
Thanks, Anja... I edited the blog entry above to include the second comment's link, hopefully save some folks a little fumbling about. On the other hand, some might find the group of interest! I do believe some of us used/abused food the same way an alcoholic or drug addict used/abused their substance of choice: and it generally starts out as a coping mechanism, until it takes over!
Deletebtw: Thank goodness it is NOT a competition! Too many of us have perfectionism to battle as well.
Agreed about the competition. It’s kind of a fine kind between investing enough to make progress, yet not obsessing to the point it’s crowding out the rest of the life it’s meant to support! 😳 Still, I enjoy acknowledging that progress, when I see it! 😁
DeleteShare whichever links you think are most useful; there are myriad options - another one might be the section of the Start Page which mentions challenges...
https://docs.google.com/document/u/1/d/e/2PACX-1vQr9u26kaXjwHP3PRixR3bPMhnlXu26swcpMZk6GXv7EcGOxph6-9ON0ipzp0OXm6SeuzIpxG_3pVml/pub#h.fb5wvag87epe
😉
Such an interesting (and useful) insight into the potential for ALL emotion to be "read" as hunger!! And once again -- I appreciate your work in supporting "transitions"!
ReplyDeleteLOL... well, if I didn't help out, I could find myself out here *all alone*... and I selfishly would like some company!
DeleteI'm remembering the cicadas when I lived in Spearfish. We moved from there in 2006 but it would have been a few years before that, so the 17 sounds about right to me! I still deal with emotional eating from time to time, but can usually overcome the emotion with the truth!! Not real hunger!
ReplyDeleteAmen to combatting emotional triggers with truth!
DeleteFood amnesia, happened today actually!
ReplyDeleteSomething didn’t sit well and I was struggling to figure out what could have possibly went wrong. I stopped tracking on Spark a week or two before the announcement, so I had to rely on my memory, which failed in remembering what I had for dinner last night. I just looked at the Cronometer app and I think I need to start adding some of my usuals to the food list, if only as a solution to the food amnesia.
Adding the usual suspects is a good plan! I've forgotten various things leading to later overeating at times!
DeleteThe comment I just wrote disappeared, so forgive me if I post the same basic thing twice (in different words). Your photo brought back memories of my childhood in the South (Georgia), where I do believe we had cicadas every year, same as we do in Japan. As in your photo, there were empty shells all over the sidewalks and stuck to tree trunks and lots of other things. There must be different species of cicadas that take different lengths of time to hatch. The ones shown online that have invaded the US this year look different from what we see in Japan, where they're extremely noisy. A lot of them hang out in a tall tree in our yard and make us have to raise our voices if we want to hear each other's conversation, sort of like we're at a rock concert. The different species all sound different, and I really love one of them in particular, whose call is beautiful and a little complicated.
ReplyDeleteYou have come a long way from interpreting every emotion as hunger. That's hard to overcome, and in my book a big accomplishment.
Thank you for the kind words about coming a long way. I agree. It took years and several layers of growing self-awareness. It is a lifelong project!
DeleteAnd for now, I'm alert to those shells and the live insects, too, just because there was such a splash when they were congregating (swarming) in New Jersey earlier in the year. I think you're right about different species and different cycles.
If I got the science right, there are certain catalogued "broods". We had Brood X (ten) with the cool orange eyes on the east coast. There are quite a few 13 year broods here as well. There's a typical black-eyed cicada throughout North America that emerges in July and August.
ReplyDeleteWhen the nymphs fall from the trees and burrow into the ground they can go as deep as 8 feet!
Your science for today.
Thank you! A little science is a great way to start a morning!
DeleteYou are right about 'recovered' I'm fighting the fight forever; recovering! There is no "only one piece, one drink, one cigarette".
ReplyDeleteI liken my issues with food like alcoholism or nicotine addiction.
I grew up in a chain-smoking, drinking household with a mother who was an overeater and taught me to overeat.
Fortunately it was a happy household although unhealthy. Both my parents kicked the booze and nicotine habits in their later years. When asked, my dad said he'd take a cigarette over a drink!
And there was always the fight to avoid the temptation.
When I make my meals I fight the 'just one more' or an extra of that. The 'I want" turns into 'I need' and I justify. It's only one.
Fighting the fight one day at a time!
Yep, sisters in spirit!
DeleteWe have annual Cicadas here in Austin TX.
ReplyDeleteA comment I posted on TRIANGLE-WOMAN's SP Blog last week:
I consciously started IF last December and am convinced it helps this experiment-of-one.
Feels odd at times to not have a specific number of, and time for, 3 meals and 2-3 snacks per day. In childhood our meals were at 7A, 12N, 5P sharp.
The scheduled snacks were thrown in later when I was battling low blood sugar in my early adulthood. My meals and snacks morphed into an all-day grazing feast that included much fast food and sugary concoctions.
Before beginning IF, it would feel like I was going to starve having to wait the 20 minutes after my morning probiotic before having breakfast (habit, not hunger). Now, I can go an hour or more before having nutrition which is sometimes two meals per day. An exercise on a SP team to determine true hunger was eye-opening for me as I didn't know how it felt to be truly hungry.
~PHOENIX1949
Looks like it posted OK to me, but I don't know if this was a second attempt! I've noticed that sometimes things are "delayed" showing up over here!
DeleteTotally understand the "habit, not hunger" comment, too. The transition to retirement was "interesting" in this regard, because the workday had a structure that included the clock time for lunch and breaks... and thus both eating and ten minute walks.
Food amnesia ... oh, I wish I could forget how much I have eaten out of emotional / stress induced eating.
ReplyDeleteI'm spirally out of ... control.
You may not be QUITE as out of control as you think, if you start writing it down again. You've got this... and yes, the emotions and stress have to be looked at, and solutions found for them!👀
Delete