4/365: "What my body needs now" and "Provisions"

This entry has two titles, because they are in effect two sides of the same coin. Identifying (correctly) my body's needs is the first step, but then adequately provisioning myself is next. It does me no good to know I tend to get hungry around 3 in the afternoon if I've done nothing to prepare for it.

But it's a lot of work, this provisioning. For one thing, my body doesn't need the same thing all the time. Carbs work better at certain times of the day, protein at others. Sometimes a larger quantity is what I need, sometimes a little snack will do. Sometimes, I don't need food at all, and water is what I need, because I'm actually thirsty. Actually, that happens frequently - I'll not drink enough to the point where I think I'm hungry and then eat when really what I need is water. So part of what I'm doing now is just keeping a steady flow of water (and sometimes diet soda - hey, I gotta flex a little on some of these things).

But then that means making sure I have the right groceries and that I've previously transported them to work. I've had pets all my life, and most I've been able to care for well - none of my dogs have ever been chunky, much less really fat. Among the childhood pets that I can remember are birds, squirrels, rabbits, gerbils, and now fish. How come I can manage their diets so effectively and yet fail so miserably on my own nutritional needs?

Which brings me back to what my body needs now. My mom has never paid attention to what her body needs, in terms of sleep, food, drink. For her, her body I think has always been a chore, a pest, a vessel that but for the fact it houses her soul, she would separate herself from in a second, and without a second thought. There is, of course, a word for that: Death. But I don't mean that she has suicidal tendencies. Only that she tolerates her body, and that's it. No quarter. Back to religiosity, old world ideas, etc. Plus, given my parents' religious beliefs, not only was a body a thing to be tolerated, but rather, a thing to be feared. It had needsss, desssiress, dangerousssss immmmpulsesss. In reading that, did the "s" sound dominate in your ear? Like a certain animal, a reptile really, that you could think of? So that's my role model - bad body! Bad body, I say!

And yet, I was raised in what can objectively be called our culture of excess, here in the U.S. There was no hunger (economically speaking) in my home. And to the extent that my emotional needs were not met by me or my caregivers, food was there. Not like I had to figure out who sold it, what dark corner I could buy it on, where I was going to get the means to acquire it, or how to get to it without risking life, limb or liberty. Nope, right there in the fridge.

So it was with the "bad body" model on the one side and the "easy feeling mitigator" on the other that my food issues developed.

So how the f***ing h*ll do I unravel this sh**? How do I unkink it? Some of the patterns were established before I gained consciousness as a human being, for crying out loud. How do I undo dynamics that were set into place during my infancy? And later cemented throughout my childhood? And perpetuated by my own choices as an young adult and even today, sometimes?

Well, I've been trying to teach myself the opposite: My body is not bad, its needs are valid, it is good to take care of myself, and I can do other things to process feelings besides eat. Hah! Take that, ye old dynamics!

Ooooo. Just had an idea. Maybe I'll write that down and post it in a bunch of different places. I'm serious, I need to re-learn how to think about this stuff. I want to get healthier. Period.