Conscious and Unconscious
For many years, I would say maybe between 2002 and 2009, and other years too, I lived a life where I chose to eat whatever I wanted. I enjoyed going to Chinese Buffets, Japanese sushi all you can eat restaurants, eating shrimp, salads with lots of olive oil, and having wonderful omelettes with toast and potatoes. It was fun. I didn't and had no interest in thinking about how much I ate. I had no idea how many calories I was eating, and I wanted it that way. I did not want to live like a calculator. I did not want a life like that.
Now that I have been on LS for A YEAR AND A HALF! (WOW!), tracking every day, I realize that I can't go back. I can't.
Its not like you can just say 1 2 3, now I am going back into unconscious oblivion. You can't. The brain knows too much. Not that I want to go back. I don't. But my brain already knows, like: I know that 2 oz of dry pasta is 210 calories, a protein drink is 90 calories and 23 protein. A chicken breast is 110 calories. Two eggs are 140 calories. A Luna bar is about 180-200 calories . A TLC Pumpkin Pecan bar is 120 calories.
A half cup of Fiber One is 60, with Almond Breeze it's 80. But a half cup of Kashi Go Lean is 70, with almond breeze its 90. I have it all memorized. An apple is 80. There are a few types of high fiber tortillas and wraps, some are 60 (the small ones at TJ), some are 80 with 12 grams of Fiber, and some are 100 with 13 grams of Fiber. Yogurt, the kind I like, is about 120 or 130 a cup. I could go on and on.
Most canned soups, teriyaki sauce, soy sauce, frozen dinners, canned beans, and sauces in general are NO because the sodium is outrageously high. I don't do them. Most ice cream is pretty high calorie except some of the sugar free or fat free is about 100 in a 1/2 cup which is not too bad.
Peanut butter is generally 210 for 2 tablespoons, but the Better n Peanut Butter is 100 for 2 tablespoons, thats pretty good. Rye bread is about 80 calories a slice. Some of the thicker breads are 120-140 a slice. The diet breads are more like 45-50 a slice. But for a really really good bread that does not taste like diet, Daves Killer Light Bread at 65 calories is just about the best bet flavor wise.
I can't go back. Its there now imprinted in my brain. Does my body have intuition and is it really able to tell me when I have eaten enough? Or is it that my brain is so programmed now, that it automatically knows how much I ate, which it thinks is intuition? No matter.
And GET THIS! When I am on the Elliptical Trainer, I can close my eyes and I can tell you how fast my heart is beating. I can feel it. I can say 140 or 130 or 136. I can tell. Thats interesting too.
In a way, it must be really difficult, or really hard for people who have been tracking to GO BACK or to STOP TRACKING after they have been tracking for a long time. Because they then consciously know that they have this food information; and they can't simply say "Oh, I had no idea". They DO have an idea.
In order for that person to stop being conscious of food amount and calories, he or she has to go overboard, and make a really big effort to like, put his or her head almost "underwater", to block out the information, I imagine.
Because if you, say, knew calorie amounts, and said, "oh I know this pizza is 1400 calories but I am going to eat it anyway"...well, that seems to involve more responsibility than just eating a pizza and saying "oh, I didn't know it was THAT caloric!"
How do we teach Intuitive Eating to people at a young age? I mean, if we taught young people about counting, they might grow up and eat too much like calculators. I mean, with too much figuring stuff out. Too many figures. But how about teaching people to eat intuitively? To listen to their bodies.
I don't know what people experience who lose some weight and then turn around and try to head back into oblivion. Must be tough.
If things get overwhelming, I think one solution that might work is to set up what some call Safety Meals. If you don't want to be super conscious, if you don't want to count every little thing, couldn't you just put together 3 days of Automatic Eating, of eating for 3 days that would please you, and fall within your caloric parameters? Then you could just do your Safety Weekend, whenever, and get yourself back into gear.
Maybe I'm just rambling.
