Bill Phillip's | Transformation

I'm NOT a trash can!

I've been working a lot with this lesson #7. I've also thought a lot about finish eating when I'm full. It's hard. This week it has been harder than ever, because when I have anxiety I use food to comfort me. And this Transformation I'm working with letting go of my fears, which for me is very difficult and it releases a lot of anxiety and anguish. So I really want to eat anything I can find right now, even if I'm not hungry.

I know what this is coming from, and I know I just have to change the way I think about it, it's a pattern I was taught early in life. I was taught never ever to throw away any food. Especially if it was expensive food or if I ate at a restaurant, then I was supposed to eat everything no matter what (we don't have doggybags here in Sweden :)
Today, I have a way of thinking when I eat out. Already when I look at the meny I think: ok, so this is what I will pay for the amount of this food that makes me satisfied today. This is not the price for all of the food on the plate, but for the amount that makes me satisfied (and it's a huge difference between being satisfied and happy and energized, than stuffed and too full and tired). So then when I gets the plate, even if it is too much food for me, I already agreed with my self that I bought the amount that is right for me, and I on't feel bad throwing away the excess that I don't need. Of course I eat sometimes more just because it taste so delicious, but I try to think like this and it helps me a lot from these old thoughts "I paid for it all, I should eat it all".

I also remember at school, from I started until I was 13 years old we always started the lunch brake by eating together with our teacher in the dininghall, and after we finished our plates we were allowed go out and play. I was a small eater so I never finished, which meant I could never go out and play. I had to sit for an hour seeing the other kids playing outside, then when the bell rung and the class started again, it was finally ok for me to throw it out. I know they thought they were doing me a favor learning me to eat right, but when I look back, I think my body was already eating right, my body wanted small meals about every third hour :)


READ ABOUT THIS BELOW, An experience I had about 20 years ago, I really want to share it with you because it was a turning point for me:

This was 1988 and I was backpacking by myself through Asia. In Beijing I hooked up with two other Swedish girls and we travelled through China by train for a few weeks together and we learned to know each other quite well. We got to Hong Kong just in time for christmas, and one of the other girls father sent her a box full of Swedish christmas food. We stayed at a hostel and celebrated christmas day, she shared the food with us and some other backpackers. We were eating like crazy, when we were full we waited for like ten minutes and then had some more, over and over. At the same time we were all complaining "I'm so full" or "my stomach hurts" and so on. So this Swiss girl looks at us with surprise in her eyes and asks us, WHY?? Why do you eat when you are full?? And we answered her: "this food will be wasted if we don't eat it, because the packages is opened and we don't have a refrigerator, so we must eat it. It's sent all the way from Sweden and it's really good food". And we also mentioned (we said it a little bit ironic, because we knew we were doing the wrong thing) "that we Swedish people are taught that never throw away food".
She looked at us like we were totally stupid and said (with her strong german accent): But what you are doing is WORSE than throwing it away!! You ARE throwing it away, and then you are also using yourself as trash cans!!
She was so right! This is what overeating is about, using ourself as trash cans! We never thought of it that way before! Now that I know, I will try to think of it every time I want to overeat. How about you?