30-Day Challenges: Mindful Eating, Part 3

It's not that I hate mindful eating. 

It's that I hate being restricted. And, I love losing control and being "bad." Judgment of being "bad" or "good" is also part of the shame that comes from purity culture.

There is something thrilling and enticing about being “bad” that just makes me want to do it more. It's the archetype origin story of human history: What were Adam and Eve doing if not rebelling? It's part of human nature. 

Experts say that the adrenaline rush that comes from rebellion is one part of heroin addiction. They say that the finding and obtaining of the drug--the chase--is almost more addicting than the drug itself. With studies being conducted in Switzerland of drug addicts having all the access they want to the stuff, the study results show that users found it easier to break the addiction when the thrill of the chase was taken away. 

Play hard to get, they say, and then you’ll really hook them. 

Binge eating provides a feeling of losing control. The loss of control is like a drug, it’s a sweet drug that allows me to totally lose my mind and turn off my brain. In that moment, I am only doing what my body is telling me to do. As someone who is often disembodied from myself as well as often “in my brain” for work and life, to turn off my brain and let my body move with abandon and without thinking is a release, surrender, and numbing all at the same time. It’s intoxicating. 

When this happens, I enjoy my food in huge big bites, swallowing so much and so fast that it actually hurts as it goes down my esophagus. All I want is to feel that comfort and dopamine rush that you get from eating and feeling full.

When I allow my body to take over, it naturally just tells me to eat as fast and as much as possible, to preserve as many calories as possible for the winter or until the next hunt. 

I follow some YouTubers who have had histories with eating disorders and experience “extreme hunger.” Some of them talked about how they had extreme hunger during and after having eating disorders. They talk about how there is a difference between extreme hunger and binge eating. 

They validate that it’s not normal to be thinking about food all the time. 

The first time I heard that, I thought to myself: "It’s not?" 

This was news to me. 

The YouTubers have documented how they actually got themselves back on a more even and healthy eating pattern by letting themselves eat as much as they wanted and gain weight, and eventually—over the course of one or two years—find their body’s healthy weight on its own. They call this "going all in" as a recovery from eating disorders. These videos are validating for me in my journey of listening to my body, eating as much as I want, and finding a body weight that is healthy for me. Listening to my intuition and my body is really new for me. Mindful eating is a part of this journey but I still struggle with it. But it's all part of learning more about myself, what my triggers are, and how I can listen to my body and get my body what it needs. 

Sometimes I am ignoring my body and hurting my stomach. But sometimes, it's because I actually am that hungry. My body actually does need the calories. Do I eat so much because I exercise so much? Or do I exercise so much because I eat so much? Probably a little bit of both. Either way, I am slowly learning to listen to my body and what it needs.