Imagine this for me....
You go to your favourite restaurant and you order up the pudding (or even the starter or main course) that you really fancied and wanted.
When the pudding arrives you are about to start eating it when the person you are having dinner with decides to share it with you, they grab a spoon and start eating their way through half of it.
How would that make you feel?
Would you eat quicker to make sure you had your fair share?
Would you tell them it was yours?
Would you order another pudding for them?
The point of this is to make you realise that you have feelings and emotions not just related to the food itself, but the relationship you have with it. It is very common for overweight people to feel "hard done by" if others are eating and they aren't, or they aren't getting what they feel is actually theirs.
Now I was very much like this. I used to either order the biggest thing on the menu or the most expensive. I would always have a starter and a dessert and it would have been totally alien to me to share my pudding, in fact I would eat my own pudding quicker so that I could have some of Jo's...
The reason was that I wanted to be in control, it was my right to have what I wanted and when I wanted, and by ordering what I wanted I could have the control I so needed. The reality, to me, was by allowing anyone else to share my pudding I would lose that control and therefore, it would not happen.
Now though, I see a pudding as something for Jo and I to share. I have changed the way I feel about puddings as a shared experience and even romantic experience. And the reality is that as I walk back to the car from the restaurant I am not "stuffed" anymore as I didn't put the whole pudding down my throat just so I felt like I had had enough.
So turning this to you...do you ever feel this way?
Imagine you are on a diet, in the office and everyone else is eating cake. Would you be happy to stand and chat to them? Be friendly and joke and laugh, as surely life is more about interaction with other people than food? Or would you be moody with everyone, or even avoid the situation totally and walk away? Or, of course, would you break your diet and eat the cake?
The reality of all this comes down to how you "feel" about food. I am currently in my office while everyone is eating red nose cake next door but it is more important for me to write this newsletter for you than it is for me to go and have some cake and a chat. I value you more than the food.Therefore, do you value yourself more than food? Or, is food more important to you than your health and happiness?
Food for thought I hope...
I hope you have a great week
Mike :-)
The Missing Guidebook?
