I’ve just finished the Tao of Eating (Harper, 2004), which I couldn’t quite get through a couple of years ago. I’m paying more attention now, though, so I read it through. This is what I got out of it–if your perceptions vary, lay it on me.
It’s different from Overcoming Overeating in a couple of key ways–Harper considers the directiveto eat only when hungry to be another restricting rule. She also doesn’t like the idea that overeaters and their feelings need to be fixed–unlike Geneen Roth, she doesn’t think overeaters need to fill their heart-holes to be cured–she doens’t think there’s a problem in need of a cure. She thinks we’re just following the wrong path–the path of external rules.
The idea, she says in part, is to be in tune with the needs of the body and mind and spirit whenever you eat, whyever you eat. If you have the urge to eat ice cream when you aren’t hungry, for example, just get a bowl of the best (binging on food that you don’t even like is not soulful), sit down, and allow yourself to taste it in an environment that is comfortable and feeds your senses (ie, not the kitchen floor or locked in the bathroom). Enjoy the ice cream and have more if you need it. However, don’t deny the reason you need to take care of yourself in this way–you are bored, upset, or etc., and eating is a personal way of coping. Coping without guilt is soulful.
When you are soulful about eating, there are no rebound binges or punishing What-the-Hell-I’ve-Ruined-It-Now-Might-As-Well-Eat-Until-I’m-Sick. The goal is a serene relationship with food–she mentions weight once, and only to say that weight should never be the point of anything one does–it should never factor into any decisions.
I’m not sure about some of this–I’m pretty sure I have a couple of holes here and there that I’ve spackled over with creme filling , a couple of painful confrontations I’ve chained to blocks of chocolate and sunk down deep. I might just want to fix them someday. Maybe.
But I like the idea of slowing down (never my strong suit) and making my weight irrelevant to any equations. Losing weight, or not gaining it, should not be the point. Eating and moving to suit my body’s needs is the point. That seems right to me . . .
Take what you need, leave the rest, right?
In other, related, news, I’m not completely through Overcoming Overeating–I keep misplacing it, which isn’t exactly a psychological mystery. I’m stuck at the point where I legalize foods by buying all the foods I have ever wanted and eat as much as I want so I will know they will always be there. This concept is butting heads against my secrecy taboo–I can’t fill the cupboards without my family knowing I’m a) spending all this cash on food; and b) eating it.
I’m compromising by going slowly, buying one package of a formerly forbidden food at a time and trying to convince myself that this isn’t the only opportunity I will have to eat it in my entire life.
I worry that sometimes that this is just half-assing it, but would you believe I still have some gourmet M&Ms left over from last week? And I bought another pack in front of my MIL yesterday and haven’t cracked it open yet. So there is progress of a sort. . .
Tags: eating disorder
