Your Body's Not a Garbage Can

Mar 06, 2019

Years ago Anna, a new friend, was losing weight.

A lot of weight.

She’d been heavy her whole life and had recently gotten married at her usual size, but something finally shifted and she started a weight loss regimen. She was doing amazingly well.

We had dinner with her while she was working the program. She was actively practicing her new behaviors. She described how and what she was choosing to order. She checked in with herself periodically about her hunger levels and any need to continue eating. I loved it!

We talked about food choices and preparing food for the day. We talked about realizing how many “food pushers” she had in her life. And learning how to tolerate/deal with them.

Then she hit on this nugget:

She said, if she was having a serving of chips, for example, and the serving was 15 chips, she picked only the best looking, unbroken ones.

What?!

Lightbulb!

When you start caring about what’s going in, you only allow the best.

Yes.

We can so easily slip into the notion that we get the leftovers. Let the kids, my husband, my elderly mom have the best, I’ll make do with the rest.

Not that your loved ones shouldn’t have the goods, but so should you!

This idea of accepting second-rate status taps into our feelings about deservedness and self worth. It doesn’t seem that our tendency to eat the discarded ends of our kid’s sandwich means so much, but it can.

After this encounter with Anna, I remember being conscious about counting out Popchips into a Ziplock bag. I was portioning out a serving and gosh darn it I would have 23 whole pristine chips. And I’d throw away the crumbs.

I distinctly remember the first time I did this.

First guilt.

Then wonder.

The wonder was about the guilt.

If I threw away the crumbs, I’d be letting them “go to waste”.

Wasting food felt like a sin.

What’s the alternative?

I could eat the dregs or toss them in the garbage can.

Then I realized . . . ingesting it makes me the garbage can.

My body’s not a garbage can.

Neither is yours.

I’ve had the same experience with grapes going bad.

Mushy fruit in general is no fun. It’s a bummer when the fruit sits around long enough to go bad or when you get it home and it’s a dud, but that doesn’t mean you have to eat it.

You don’t have to pay for your mistake by eating crappy food.

Make note of the issue (bought too many, don’t really like, etc.) and move on.

Raising the bar on the quality of food you accept means you get to enjoy your meals even more with fresh, nice looking, tasty food.

Paying attention to what goes in is a message to yourself that you are worth the good stuff.

Because you are.

And that’s not a load of rubbish.

Your Body's Not a Garbage Can

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