I expect WAAAY TOO MUCH out of my food

I expect way too much out of my food.  Many many times, I’ve expected food to extinguish my hunger or ease my pain…satisfy my cravings or sooth my sorrows…tantalize my taste buds or be my punching bag…keep me company or keep me entertained.  I’ve thought of food as my friend and as my reward.

It’s time for a change.  For me to eat the way I should, I need to get into the habit of looking at food simply for what it is…fuel for my body.  It’s the stuff that can give me energy and pump up my immune system. Or it CAN be…if I make the right choices.

I find mental pictures helpful, so I’m trying to think of my heart as this little furnace and the food I eat as fuel going into that furnace.  Now if I eat something really healthy, say raw broccoli, I try to picture that broccoli  as little chunks of hard coal going into that furnace.  And while that broccoli won’t satisfy any of my cravings and isn’t very entertaining to eat, it is helping to stoke up that fire!  Using the same analogy, if I succumb to that piece of tres leche cake from the other night  (and I did succumb that night), it will satisfy my craving for sugar and feels like a wonderful reward.  However, it’s like throwing fat, sloshy goop into that furnace.  Not very helpful for building a fire, now is it Diana ????

So as I’m modifying my eating, step by step, I’m going to try to modify my way of thinking of food as seeing it more as fuel and less as a comfort, friend, reward, etc.  I’m sure this will be a continual process and I’m not shooting for 100%.  I know that I will still turn to certain foods as “comfort foods” and “rewards” once in a while.  But hopefully, that way of thinking will the exception and not the rule.