Being Satisfied Even Though the Pleasure Center of the Brain is Not Being Stimulated

This morning I had a wonderful breakfast: roasted root vegetables topped with two poached eggs and a cup of coffee. As I drove to work, I noticed how fully nourished I felt, yet something was different. I dug deep and realized what it was. I'm addicted to the particular combination of sugar, fat and carbohydrate in baked goods. When I eat that, the pleasure or reward center of my brain IS stimulated, and this leads me to seek more of the same. This is the nature of addiction. It feels really different when you eat foods that are satisfying, but do not involve the reward center of the brain being stimulated, and which do not raise your blood sugar. The whole idea of eating foods with a low glycemic index is that you are avoiding wild fluctuations of blood sugar. But the way I feel when I eat a meal that does NOT significant increase in my blood sugar is new to me. I see that I am in a process of redefining what being satisfied and full means to me. I am now completely satisfied without a big increase in my blood sugar and without the reward center of my brain being stimulated. When you start eating to nourish your body instead of trying to fill with food some other longing or craving it really feels different! Don't let that alarm you. It's simply a new and exciting experience. You may temporarily miss the way you used to feel. But living the addict's life is never truly satisfying. I encourage others to really explore the new way your body feels when you eat just for nourishment. This doesn't mean eating cannot be very enjoyable. It just means that it is no longer your fix.

Bringing you up to date

Last spring, I heard Michelle Babb, MS, RD, CD lecture to a group of cyclists on nutrition for cycling. I liked her approach, and as I contemplated yet again tackling the problem of being at the border of "overweight" and "obese," I decided to give a shot at working with her. I've always done well with one-on-one learning and getting that sort of support. I first worked with Michelle from the end of July until the end of October. I learned a lot about food, started eating foods I had not before, starting using a pressure cooker, and was better about food preparation. But exercising enough continued to be a challenge. Another thing I ran into was being a slave to the number on the scale. That number was not going down as I thought it should be, given my "good behavior." Michelle kept encouraging me to use other measures of success -- how I felt, compliments from others on how I looked, etc. Michelle saw me as successful, and even said I was inspiring. Yet -- due to really unrealistic expectations -- when the first 12 sessions were completed and I had not lost what I had wanted to lose, I deemed the effort unsuccessful. And that hit me hard: yet another approach to weight loss that didn't work for me. I stopped following the program and the few pounds I had lost found me again (the holidays capped by a family reunion contributed to that).

But Michelle is a very generous and caring professional. She was willing to continue to dialogue with me and answer my questions. Because of her sincere and substantive answers to my questions in our post-series email exchange, I realized that I did not give the program enough time. I realized that I had had totally unrealistic expectations.

I am a Buddhist, and the founder of the sect of Buddhism I practice wrote in a letter to a follower:

The journey from Kamakura to Kyoto takes twelve days. If you travel for eleven but stop with only one day remaining, how can you admire the moon over the capital?

Nichiren Daishonin
February, 1280

With this in mind, I've changed my time framework from weeks to years - a half year, one year, three years. My first appointment of my "second tour of duty" (this is what I called my various times working with my psychologist as well) was January 20, 2012. Neither slush, snow nor ice kept me from keeping that appointment.

Of course, I'd love to see results sooner than six months. I'm going to work very hard to focus on how I feel, and not on numbers (pounds, percent body fat, and body mass index). If you do not live in and enjoy the process (be here now), you do yourself a disservice and decrease the likelihood that you will reach your goal. I will continue to use this beautiful and poetic quote from Nichiren Daishonin when I start losing sight of this.