I thought it would be a great idea to start a workweek with something that keeps me fuelled and motivated, but my serious procrastination issues pushed my second post to the weekend. Maybe I should keep a schedule for blogging as well, every Saturday morning! Here I am, blogging early in the morning, with my very own salmi and cheese whole-grain sandwich alongside my favourite cup of black americano to my right.
Speaking of breakfast, I think today’s blog can be about mindful eating, some confessions about my eating disorders, the work I put in to break the bad habits over the years, the redemption and back to square one.
I am often notorious for my food habits as a child. I would either need my mom to spoonfeed me, in my case palm-feed or would require a stern palm on the dining table to get me to gulp down the mouthful of breakfast; There were times when I got punished at school for carrying half dosa with honey in my lunch bag. Thanks to my poor metabolism, my daily snack allowance tab at that corner shop, where I get a Good Day cashew cookie packet, day-after-day, month-after-month, and a loaded dinner before retiring to bed. It is too late to notice my being overweight. To keep away from bullies, I had to compensate for my self-esteem by being a curious student in the classroom, and yes, it worked to some extent. I wish I ate better as a child, while it’s never too late to break a bad habit. No regrets! It is the past that makes us what we are. I am grateful for what I am today. So, no regrets!
Having grown up in a small hilly town, access to quality education is always a problem, especially for girls. So my parents had to put my brother and me in a boarding school in a small city during my eighth grade. Our family visits the two of us fortnightly on the visitor’s Sundays. They will bring us home-cooked non-vegetarian food and some snacks and take us out, usually in an old Mahindra commander jeep, to enjoy a picnic lunch next to a lush green grass ground next to a stream. While the departing after we return to the hostel is tears filled with joy and missing home, my memories in the school hostel are not so happy, often due to food.
The rules in the hostel are strict. The wardens monitor the students to make sure they are not wasting their food; There are punishments for the latecomers to the mess; There are monitors for each grade to ensure no student skips the meal, and so on. All this makes things harder at the boarding school – more difficult than tolerating my English teachers addressing students as “all of them” instead of “all of you”. I am soon diagnosed with an ulcer – a result of vomiting anything and everything that I gulp down the throat for weeks; after I found a mosquito in my idly that the caretaker forces me to eat after removing the dead insect. I remember getting a tight slap from my hostel warden for having chicken after my ulcer. Learning this from me, my family decides to transfer me to my old school right during my second mid-term. And next couple of years is just like a fairy tale until my eleventh grade. I did not have any choice then except to stay away from home for school, college and work.
My food habits never got better as I got deputed to a different city, switched companies for work, and went through an emotional breakdown. One a fine day in January 2018, I noticed my weighing scale shook me with a number I could hardly digest. That is my revelation point.
I started taking baby steps in correcting my food habits. I said no to added sugar in coffee, switched to nut-butter and wholemeal bread instead of white flour (Maida) for breakfast, lunch boxes had boiled sweet potato or big banana, soft boiled eggs and mixed beans, and dinner is often fried fish or grilled chicken. It was an intensive diet plan accompanied by some shakes, prebiotics and probiotics, more water, and a consistent workout. Yes, there are moments of impulse! I often indulged in treating myself with food but puked my gut out from guilt. I had to forgive myself and practice portion control eventually during my cravings. It paved a big-time transformation to show a number on the scale when I was in eighth grade. My parents and relatives thought I was doing something unhealthy I had to explain to them the positive impact it has given me, especially the feeling of having control over myself.
I slowly started to give in to my cravings around last year this time. While I worked from home in Chennai, home deliveries replaced home-cooked meals. I was on track with my exercise routine and other habits, so the scale showed a reasonable number. When I was all getting ready to travel to London for work, the date of my brother’s wedding came. So I wanted to enjoy some light and attention during the festivities, I started eating better – it paved.
Two days after the wedding festivities ended, I had to travel to London. Any new city excites me – with a lot of things to see and a lot more to savour and feast upon in London, I indulged my food cravings. Every time I find a tempting french bakery, the smell of coffee, almond croissants and cinnamon rolls invites me. Whenever I locate a below-average South Indian cum Srilankan restaurant, I use the poor taste of food at my paying guest and my nostalgia for home food as an excuse and order a kothu-parotta (made of white flour aka Maida) or a biriyani to indulge. And the list is long before I realise I am not on vacation but on deputation, and I get to spend a few more years enjoying all these delicacies. To me, it is a sin to postpone your happiness. But this is going beyond my control. I now have to buy a weighing scale to scare me away from over-eating before it shakes me again, as in January 2018.
This time with not so intense routine but with a thumb rule – no added sugar whatsoever, no white rice and no white flour on weekdays; and not forgetting enough water intake, protein, veggies and fruits every day. I hope the scale doesn’t scare me once again! I have got my favourite clothes to fit in! Cheers to life!!!
Sharmili unplugged....... 