October 11, 2007
Capturing Food Thoughts
About a month ago I began taking two tablespoons of light olive oil each morning upon awakening, before any flavor whatsoever passed my lips, in order to lose some weight. The crucial thing about this strategy that Berkeley psychologist Seth Roberts assures me will eventually adjust my "set point" is that I must not taste ANY flavor for an hour on either side of the oil dose. I have no problem taste-fasting in the hour before I sip my oil at 6AM, since I have generally been sound asleep beforehand, and, at that sudsy/ blow dry time of day, it's not hard to wait an hour for coffee/breakfast, though not using toothpaste does feel like a small sacrifice.
Another dose of oil is recommended sometime later in the day -- it's harder for me to avoid tasting something for the hour on either side. This difficulty simply proves to me how orally challenged I am. I have come to realize that much of what I place upon my tastebuds lands unconsciously.
I am also a third of the way into Martha Beck's new psychologically based undiet book entitled "The Four Day Win" -- I find her very entertaining. Of course, had I been taking notes rather than pictures while I listened to it on tape (resistance?) I may have retained more than two ideas. One is that it takes about four days of conscious concentration to make a change, and, two, it might help to observe my food thoughts with benign curiosity as they float by.
In fact, I'm being hit by a food thought at this very moment in time, which, because I am hanging it up right in front of my consciousness, I can resist. However, I think I will get up and get a glass of water as a substitute for something much more delicious . While filling my glass with water, I remembered that I meant to put some stevia (the only safe sugar substitute, sadly) in my purse. When I opened the cupboard to get it, I caught sight of a container of sprinkles. That stimulated the thought that I might snarf a handful. Now I have sprinkles on the mind. (They are at least a year old and have not been touched since my aborted attempt to join the The Sprinkle Brigade, but, in my world of foodthinking, considering other choices in the cupboard, they were tempting).
The sprinkles did not lure me relentlessly, but there are foods that will call from the recesses of my kitchen in inexplicibly persistant ways. For example, the stale half loaf of cinnamon bread, that sends a seductive signal for m the back of the frig. If I should succumb to its questionable charms, here's what happens in my mouth as a result of the stimulation. Believe me, all that activity is hard to quiet once it gets started.
So I'm just letting my my food thoughts linger for now, trying not to act on more than half, and staying abreast of the latest in dieting news, so that I don't overwhelm myself unnecessarily.
Photo note: Food (Goose neck squash, in this case) captured and hung -- I don't think I ever had a food thought about squash until this very moment