Dis-comfort eating?

[Atropos]

BeI had a serious wobble last night and coping with it helped me to a major revelation.

I suddenly realised that "comfort eating" should really be called "dis-comfort eating" - trying to make an uncomfortable situation comfortable by eating, and that sometimes it would help to concentrate on the discomfort, not to the food.

What happened is that at 5 oclock I started to get flashing lights in one eye, visited the optician next to the office who bundled me straight into a taxi to the A&E department of an Eye Hospital, and I spent the next 4 hours all alone having things poked into my face and preparing myself for the possible surgery and sight loss. Crumbs!

Finally the verdict was in - there was a small area of damage, but it probably wouldn't get any worse and I could go home. Phew!

And then, on the way home (unable to focus because of the drops) I needed to sit down, smelt chips frying and decided I was off Dukan for the night. I mean, who could blame me? How could I have the motivation to walk past. I felt awful and I wanted to feel better.

This is when something else kicked in, that saved me. I remembered that I was uncomfortable because of the shock about my eyes, not because of the diet.

As soon as I realised that it was not the diet/my fat that was making me uncomfortable but something very different the urge to eat started ebbing away.

I had transfered genuinely horrible feelings about one set of circumstance (fear that I was going blind) to another more familiar one ("I'm fat and I hate not eating what I want").

As soon as the horrible feelings were back where they belonged (on the events of the evening) I had just enough will power to walk past the chips and do what I would for a friend who had had a similar shock. I sat down and had a cup of tea instead.

I don't know if this will work every time, but next time I have a wobble I'm going try to concentrate on the real problems (money, work, neighbours, my mother!) instead of letting myself make it all about not being allowed chips and chocolate.

Sorry for the ramble. It's nice to have someone to talk to about it!

 

[anjuschka]

Wow well DONE dealing with your near-shock!! and thanks for sharing.

And phew regarding your eyesight too! Mine is pretty crap but properly losing it is in another league altogether! Well done on gathering your thoughts and focusing on what's important!

 

[Supertonic]

Hope your eye is OK now and you're not in any pain. Must have been a tremendous fright - did they get to the bottom of what was causing it? Going blind is one of my worst nightmares!

I'm sure you're right about eating to relieve discomfort but its so difficult to take a long term view when every fibre of your being is screaming 'help me please, I'm in trouble here!' and the one thing you absolutely know makes you feel a bit better is a chocolate/cream cake/chips (insert name of tempting fattening stuff)!

Even if you realise that it doesn't help at all on one level of your brain, and you will seriously regret it later, right down in the instinct department all the emotional bits are still shouting 'more cake, more cake!'

So much is habit as well - if we reach for the biscuit tin every time we run into a problem, we'll still have an issue even if we get down to our desired weight.

Thats why I think this diet stands a reasonable chance of succeeding with most people who commit properly to the principles because it re-trains us to look at food in a different way - not as a way of providing comfort in our difficult moments, but simply as sustenance, and that can be achieved more savvy choices about what we actually do eat. And the beauty is Dukan doesn't rule out enjoying the food - in fact encourages it. Hence the long conso period and the gala meals etc. Very clever really.

(and yes you guessed I had some cake recently but it was a controlled lapse- even if not planned! Actually, it was way too sweet for me after muffins for months and whilst I enjoyed it, I'm not in any hurry to repeat too often)

 

[trudyc]

Well done Atropos that was a true eureka moment!!!

 

[CaledoniaDreaming]

Well done you, be very proud of your strength of character. You must have had a truly awful evening worrying, I'm very glad the news was good and I think your thoughts re dis-comfort eating are spot on. I try to have a cup of tea at bad moments these days, it does help just as much as a chocolate eclair - we just need to get our heads round to believing this. Hope your eye getting better.

 

[Joydriven]

Atropos, glad the damage was minimal. And so glad about your revelation about dis-comfort eating. My new fav phrase because it is so much a discomfort wrapped up in a comfort facade. Glad you straightened it out. Eureka moment for sure!

 

[Maintainer]

A thought provoking post indeed Atropos, and I'm so relieved for you re your sight (and hope you get the answers you need in that regard).

I often wonder, when I get the urge to eat my own arm, whether a cigarette might help At the end of a meal, when I've eaten well and am nicely full, why else would I still want more food? I've also noticed that, if others are still eating, I too want to be still eating... hmmm... aaah this food stuff is such a drag.
(don't worry - my smoking days are over five years behind me and I was a fat smoker for 30 years anyway!)

 

[Atropos]

Update on the eye - looks like there will be no permanent loss or symptoms, and it's a relief to know excatly where to go if the episode every recurs.

On the subject of emotional eating - I think one of this ways this diet can help is that it deals so effectively with the physiological cravings that carbs can cause, so we can recognise the difference between "physical hunger" and "emotional hunger".

What I think happens is that at a very early age we confuse the two, and can't tell if we need the biscuits because we have a carb fuelled craving or because we need cheering up.

Of course, whatever reason we have for eating that first biscuit, 30 minutes later the blood sugar spike has caused more physical craving, we feel hungry/sad again and we eat again, and suddenly we are in a vicious spiral of eat-crave-misery- binging.

Dukan is not a cure for emotional eating. But it can help us in the difficult struggle to understand our own triggers and at least to try to find other ways of coping that aren't so destructive. (Like tea!)