Flirting with Disaster
When strong emotions keep us from eating the right things
Hippocrates said, "Let thy food be thy medicine and thy medicine be thy food." Good advice, surely, but Hippocrates didn't have to contend with three McDonald's, two Starbucks, and a Cinnabun within a five-mile radius. Overwhelming temptation is one reason it's hard to stay on a restricted diet — but there are plenty of others.
What Problem?
"When I found out I have reactive hypoglycemia (a few hours after eating refined sugar, I feel nauseated, exhausted, faint, weepy and depressed), rather than changing my eating patterns to accommodate my condition, I continued to eat the way I always had. I told myself that the sugar I'd just eaten probably wouldn't make me feel like I was going to pass out and throw up like it usually did.
The word "probably" is one of the most overworked words in the language of denial. Others are "little" and "maybe." String them together — "It's probably not that bad. How much could a little hurt? Maybe it'll be different this time." —and you can bet you're in denial country.
Knowing you're in denial may help kick you out of it — but not necessarily. Powerful emotions, such as fear and anxiety, can conspire to keep you immobile.
Matt Larkin, a licensed marriage and family therapist in San Jose, California, who counsels many diabetics says his clients often deny the consequences of unhealthy food choices because they're scared.
"The potential consequences of mismanaging diabetes — kidney failure, heart disease, blindness, sexual dysfunction, etc. — are frightening," he says. He notes that food restrictions are difficult for everyone, even in the short term, with over 95 percent of people who diet to lose weight giving up within a year. "The anxiety related to the idea that dietary restrictions will be life long can be overwhelming," he says.
I eventually changed my eating habits but not before running through the gamut of strong emotions that I now know are commonly associated with food restrictions.
The Downside of Anger
One of these emotions is anger. Red-flag words for anger are "but" followed by "should." As in, "But it's a special occasion and I should be able to eat it because everyone else can eat it. Other aspects of anger include assigning blame to anyone who crosses your path, or asking, "Why me"" or even, "Why not them"?
Denial and anger are bad enough when you're sabotaging yourself but it's worse when you're facing — or not facing — your child's food issues. Denial allows you to keep feeding your child things that make him or her sick because you're pretending nothing's wrong and sometimes anger can provoke you to do it. I was guilty of this on a trip to the Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. My son had been on the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD) for about a year, which means he couldn't (and still can't) have any starch, sucrose or lactose. After exploring the museum, I unpacked the lunch I'd brought. Unfortunately, eating with hundreds of people who didn't bring their own picnic meant my son had to watch while other kids enjoyed one of his favorite forbidden foods: French fries. Instead of going through the whole explanation of why he couldn't have any, when he asked, I let him have some. In my defense, after a year on the SCD, you're allowed to start slowly adding previously restricted foods to see how they're tolerated. But impulsively giving him both potatoes and probably gluten (French fries and battered foods are frequently prepared in the same oil) at the same time didn't make any sense. After thinking it through, I realized the reason for my lapse: I was mad that my son was deprived of something that most kids can eat. And as a parent, I felt deprived that my child couldn't eat normally. |
