food response
sorry about slow response... school is the excuse yet again.
thanks everyone for sharing :) it helps me put my own habits in perspective cuz i find i am really disconnected from others on certain aspects of life and personal, interpretive experiences to really gauge normalcy. it's further complicated (and problematized) in the setting of therapy where every behaviour or tendency runs the risk of being interpreted or constructed as maladaptive and pathological.
SO, judging by my lovelies that are you all, it seems i am not excessively fixated on food. good to know. and yes, i'm holding the aggregate "you" to compose a standard of normalcy in which i am measuring myself against :P
i was just feeling self-conscious cuz my mom has been ragging on me for being so regimented about food and exercise (she insistently misuses the term "OCD" when it comes to my thoughts and behaviour surrounding these two things) and the probing questions i was subjected to by my first visit to a u of t psychiatrist. made me feel like maybe there is something wrong.
i'm realizing lately that i'm not that abnormal in any aspect of my life despite what others think. the real issue is that i lack an understanding of what is "normal" and what is "extreme" behaviour - a result of most other people's reluctance (or conditioning/socialization of acceptable topics for discussion with others of certain social distances) to share this kind of information.
i wanna mention i don't really subscribe to a standard of normalcy (as if it could actually be defined, and if it was, to whom's ideals?) and prefer to understand and construct things on my own terms (i realize though that this is highly idealistic, and this can only be taken so far, as i am not independent of my surroundings, and do not socialize in a vacuum - that is inherently contradictory..). however, when i feel like i'm emotionally drained, spiritually exhausted, intellectually impaired, and physically limited i try to improve these conditions.
holy fucking rant batman. lol. i seem to be good at these philosophical, self-reflecting rants these days XD NEED TO TALK TO PEOPLE MORE OFTEN. god knows i can't talk about this stuff in any depth with peter lol. i can visibly see him shutting off and thinking about his own issues/basketball as soon as i approach these kinds of topics of conversation.
in closing, i will share my thoughts around food. it's only fair :P
i think about food at almost every waking moment of my day. the only exception is during spurts of intensive studying (but only for like 10-30 min), or actually writing a test that is particularly stressful or time constrained, or watching a particularly involving movie may take my mind off food for chunks of time. i think about what i'm going to eat, the content of the food (nutrition values - grams and types of fats/carbs/sugars/salts), counting/estimating calories (and back to the above nutrition stuff, the daily value of X i'm expected to get in a day i.e. granola bar has 10% of EDV of carbs), whether it is organic or not and the effects that may manifest in accumulation in my body, whether fruit/veggies have been sufficiently washed (and not just rinsed) before eating, spacing of eating events (i prefer to eat 100-300 cals every 1.5-2 hours. this consumes most of what i think about in relation to food; the anticipation and planning. i also plan weeks in advance times in which i will eat out, that way i can adjust my diet according to the diet change and expected influx of caloric intake), and combine my planning of food with types of food (i.e. will eat wholegrain, slow burning food of low glycemic indexes before and after workouts, and after workout will have some high natural sugar food like strawberries to facilitate and quicken the absorption of protein into my bloodstream. this bit is a bit of a gloss....my structuring of foods around workouts is rather complex and gets worse when i exercise more than once a day). i also constantly "fantasize" about comfort foods, but rarely indulge. or when i do, it's usually pretty restrained. i have, tho, binged :P i'm only human.
i never problematized my eating habits before, probably because it is masked by a healthy lifestyle goal, but maybe this is disordered cognitive-behaviour?? i dunno. still reluctant to think so. i'm not bulemic or anorexic so...ya? i do get quite a LOT of anxiety if i violate my food rules too much and will often "punish" myself by fixating on moments i feel i have overindulged - but have never acted on these fixations by starving myself or purging. there's a very distinct barrier in my mind that prevents me from doing that..
oh and i also think about where my food comes from, and how my consuming of this food plays out on a wider, global stage of exploitation and environmental degradation... y'know, the social, economic, political, environmental, and health implications of my food habits. can't ever seem to have a guilt-free meal it seems! XD
thanks everyone for sharing :) it helps me put my own habits in perspective cuz i find i am really disconnected from others on certain aspects of life and personal, interpretive experiences to really gauge normalcy. it's further complicated (and problematized) in the setting of therapy where every behaviour or tendency runs the risk of being interpreted or constructed as maladaptive and pathological.
SO, judging by my lovelies that are you all, it seems i am not excessively fixated on food. good to know. and yes, i'm holding the aggregate "you" to compose a standard of normalcy in which i am measuring myself against :P
i was just feeling self-conscious cuz my mom has been ragging on me for being so regimented about food and exercise (she insistently misuses the term "OCD" when it comes to my thoughts and behaviour surrounding these two things) and the probing questions i was subjected to by my first visit to a u of t psychiatrist. made me feel like maybe there is something wrong.
i'm realizing lately that i'm not that abnormal in any aspect of my life despite what others think. the real issue is that i lack an understanding of what is "normal" and what is "extreme" behaviour - a result of most other people's reluctance (or conditioning/socialization of acceptable topics for discussion with others of certain social distances) to share this kind of information.
i wanna mention i don't really subscribe to a standard of normalcy (as if it could actually be defined, and if it was, to whom's ideals?) and prefer to understand and construct things on my own terms (i realize though that this is highly idealistic, and this can only be taken so far, as i am not independent of my surroundings, and do not socialize in a vacuum - that is inherently contradictory..). however, when i feel like i'm emotionally drained, spiritually exhausted, intellectually impaired, and physically limited i try to improve these conditions.
holy fucking rant batman. lol. i seem to be good at these philosophical, self-reflecting rants these days XD NEED TO TALK TO PEOPLE MORE OFTEN. god knows i can't talk about this stuff in any depth with peter lol. i can visibly see him shutting off and thinking about his own issues/basketball as soon as i approach these kinds of topics of conversation.
in closing, i will share my thoughts around food. it's only fair :P
i think about food at almost every waking moment of my day. the only exception is during spurts of intensive studying (but only for like 10-30 min), or actually writing a test that is particularly stressful or time constrained, or watching a particularly involving movie may take my mind off food for chunks of time. i think about what i'm going to eat, the content of the food (nutrition values - grams and types of fats/carbs/sugars/salts), counting/estimating calories (and back to the above nutrition stuff, the daily value of X i'm expected to get in a day i.e. granola bar has 10% of EDV of carbs), whether it is organic or not and the effects that may manifest in accumulation in my body, whether fruit/veggies have been sufficiently washed (and not just rinsed) before eating, spacing of eating events (i prefer to eat 100-300 cals every 1.5-2 hours. this consumes most of what i think about in relation to food; the anticipation and planning. i also plan weeks in advance times in which i will eat out, that way i can adjust my diet according to the diet change and expected influx of caloric intake), and combine my planning of food with types of food (i.e. will eat wholegrain, slow burning food of low glycemic indexes before and after workouts, and after workout will have some high natural sugar food like strawberries to facilitate and quicken the absorption of protein into my bloodstream. this bit is a bit of a gloss....my structuring of foods around workouts is rather complex and gets worse when i exercise more than once a day). i also constantly "fantasize" about comfort foods, but rarely indulge. or when i do, it's usually pretty restrained. i have, tho, binged :P i'm only human.
i never problematized my eating habits before, probably because it is masked by a healthy lifestyle goal, but maybe this is disordered cognitive-behaviour?? i dunno. still reluctant to think so. i'm not bulemic or anorexic so...ya? i do get quite a LOT of anxiety if i violate my food rules too much and will often "punish" myself by fixating on moments i feel i have overindulged - but have never acted on these fixations by starving myself or purging. there's a very distinct barrier in my mind that prevents me from doing that..
oh and i also think about where my food comes from, and how my consuming of this food plays out on a wider, global stage of exploitation and environmental degradation... y'know, the social, economic, political, environmental, and health implications of my food habits. can't ever seem to have a guilt-free meal it seems! XD