My relationship with food - part 1

Have a look at the photo above. What do you notice about it? The young man there, aged about 23 is me. I probably weighed about 65kg, although I'll never know because I didn't know how much I weighed back then.

Back then two things were different. First, my weight stabilisation mechanism was perfect. P-E-R-F-E-C-T. My weight never changed, or if it did, I never noticed it. My clothes never got looser or tighter. Everything was stable. Second, my relationship with food was different. How was it different? It would be accurate to say that in terms of my relationship with food, we'd just got to first base. Sure, I'd eat a lot on my birthday and on Christmas day, but apart from that, I don't recall overeating, or eating in times of stress, depression, or celebration.

I have one little gem from the past, when I first arrived in the city I live in, I wrote down all of my spending, because I was short of money. It's hidden away in storage, but when I get hold of it, I can see exactly how much money, and more importantly, what I spent my money on. To me back then, food was a source of energy and not much more.

Anyway, back to the present. I plan to go through all the things involved in my relationship with food, starting with one that seems to be a big thing for me:

Self congratulating.

What do I do when I achieve something significant in my life? I buy something tasty to celebrate. What do I do when I buy something expensive? The same. I congratulate myself when I lose weight (some may see this as a bad thing, although I think it's good so long as it's only when I lost weight). There are lots of things I say to myself ("It's time to treat myself with something tasty").

The one thing that I really, really liked (coffee and mochaccino slice) I can't have now because the slice contains flour. That will change, but in the future I'd like to be different about how I treat food. Maybe I can have fruit instead of something fattening or containing flour. When I start eating flour again, I will try to maintain my weight and that means no more treating myself because something good has happened. As an example, back in the days of when I looked like I did in the photo, when I went to a job interview, what did I do when I had done it to relax? I went for a fast drive on a windy uphill part, just outside town. I couldn't afford something fancy to eat. I want to get back to that attitude.