April 2022 – Life According to TJ

Food and drink, Healthy living, reflection, Well-being

Lent 2022

April 17, 2022 Steph TJ

So, Easter has arrived and Lent has come to an end. And I have largely given up cake and chocolate for 47 days. I say largely because there were some special occasions when I did have cake:

For example:

A friend came to visit me in Albufeira and we always celebrate with a visit to the fabulous Riviera cake shop.
Another friend came to visit and we also met up for a walking tour around Faro followed with a coffee and a Portuguese tart
We went fo a couple of nice meals which came with dessert included
My sister came for a visit. I’ve not seen her in person yet this year and we went for a walk with a cake stop.

What has gone by the wayside is the following:

a daily biscuit, chocolate bar or piece of cake at around 11.00 am
a nightly bit of chocolate watching TV
having a cake every time I go to a coffee shop to meet a friendIt meant that I was usually having chocolate and / or cake at least once a day. That was what I wanted to stop. And I have.
Sneaking a bit of chocolate out of the fridge

What I am learning about giving things up is it comes with a raft of questions surrounding the behaviour in the first place, which I do find quite fascinating. Why do I drink wine when I know it will make me feel awful? Why I feel the need to eat chocolate and cake every day? What need was it fulfilling? What factors are affecting the choices that I make? Thinking about my childhood I can’t really identify any connection with comfort eating, or chocolate as a reward. We did always get a finger of fudge and another bar of chocolate on Tuesday and Thursday when our Grandparents came to visit. But beyond that, I can’t really say that there was ever any emotional attachment to cake or chocolate that I was aware of. I just liked it. Better than anything else – or so I thought!

I also can’t really say that anything ever triggered a real desire or need to eat chocolate or cake once I’d left home. I suspect that more than anything there have just been ‘things’ that came up over time that created habits that then became ingrained.

I do know that there was an association between break time and eating a snack when I was teaching. I do quite genuinely struggle to get timings of food right sometimes. This has always been a feature of my life. I remember sometimes at school as a child I’d ask to go to the toilet during lessons, when in actual fact, I was going to get a biscuit off my mum in the office because I was having the shakes through hunger. When I went in to teaching I became conscious of the fact I could only eat at specific times of the day and if I didn’t eat then, there was potential for it to go wrong later in the day. The only problem was I got caught up in a habit of eating something with a cup of tea at 11:00am. That something was usually a chocolate bar. Everyone in my last school knew I had a latte and twin during morning break – to the extent that sometimes a kind student would buy them and deliver them just as be bell for break was sounding. Unfortunately, when I was working in a school where I was unhappy, I did start the habit of a sneaky bag of Haribo Tangfastics in the car on my way home.

Then, I do also know that our nightly habit of eating chocolate in front of the TV was a consequence of lockdown. We lived very close to an M&S food hall and they had some seriously cheap chocolates during the first lock down. We had the mother of a chocolate stash! Unfortunately, once lockdown was over we carried on the habit of eating chocolate every night.

So. Back to Lent. I have managed to break these two habits and can see now that they were primarily habits. There is no real emotional attachment, just habit. I make a cup of tea at 11:00 (ish) and reach for a chocolate biscuit or three. I sit down to watch TV after dinner, and my brain equates that with chocolate time. During lent husband has also cut down on his chocolate consumption. Not because I asked him to join me in lent, but because he’s realised he too is bored of chocolate every night. It’s no longer a treat. Eating chocolate and cake to this degree cannot be good for you.

I have, however, discovered that there is a emotional element to my eating habits – even though I hadn’t thought there was one. At the beginning of lent it was really hard. At those habitual times I struggled not to eat chocolate or cake. But the emotional eating was hard too. I realised just how much I did turn to chocolate, cake and biscuits for every emotion. If I was happy, sad, irritated, cross, tired, bored, if my hormones were raging – every time my first instinct was to reach for a sweet treat. But there wasn’t one to be had. There was no sneaky pieces of chocolate, no sneaky jelly babies. The options available were few and unappetising! I found that most often I reverted to:

A walk
Sitting and meditating for a while
Sitting and watching the feelings and letting them subside
Having a cup of tea
Doing another activity I do enjoy, like writing or knitting.
The occasional meltdown!

All of which worked. All of which made me realise how much of an emotional eater I was. Never did I eat something else instead. You see, I wasn’t really hungry, I just wanted the emotion to go away. I wanted to feel better and I was forced to find alternative ways to achieve that. I realised that the chocolate and cake was never making things better, it was just putting them off for another day.

Sadly, I have not lost one pound in weight as a consequence of giving up chocolate and cake, on top of the wine I had already given up. Husband says that I have been eating far more than I usually do at meal time – which I hadn’t realised – and which provided another opportunity for pondering and reflection.

With each passing thing that I’m giving up, it brings other behaviours and habits into the spotlight that I hadn’t appreciated were there. I realised I don’t enjoy wine and prefer being able to do other activities instead of drinking and that I don’t need the wine to enjoy socialising. I have also realised that I don’t need cake or chocolate. When we have been out for dinner during Lent I’ve not actually wanted desserts that have been offered and it’s made me consider why it was I always ordered one. I’ve registered that I am full. Previously, I would always have managed three courses. It turns out I don’t have a pudding stomach after all. This has gone a bit further when I realised that I am never hungry. I rarely wake up hungry, I rarely eat a meal because I’m hungry. I certainly don’t eat snacks because I’m hungry. Most of the time I eat because a meal has been placed in front of me. Because it’s time to eat.

I realised I no longer recognise hunger signals. I am so used to just eating that I don’t know what a hunger signal feels like. Sometimes I skip straight from not hungry to too hungry and so then have to eat something relatively quickly. Between the two is a point at which I must be hungry and I need to recognise that. I realise that I rarely stop eating when I am full, I eat the plate of food in front of me – not because I have to – not even because I want to much of the time, but because it’s there. I went out with my husband for our wedding anniversary earlier this week, and it’s the first time in a long time that I registered that I was too full – and that I wasn’t actually happy with the amount of food I had eaten. The food was beautiful and we’d go back to the same restaurant again, but the portions were just too big and I really didn’t enjoy the over full feeling I came home with. In the past I would have carried on regardless and eaten dessert as well, and repented at leisure the following day!

So. Over the last 3 months or so I have cut out wine, cut out chocolate and cake – to the extent that I don’t actually want to rush out and eat cake and now I am starting to recognise that I over eat and am starting to be more mindful of portion sizes and when I am actually full. I have become aware of the emotions and habits that lead to me choosing to eat chocolate and cake – it’s habits that have been formed over the years that I hadn’t realised were happening. I can understand more fully how it is that people can turn down cake, or how my sister can just eat a few squares from a chocolate bar. It’s just chocolate.

For the foreseeable future I will continue as I am, and pay closer attention to what I’m eating, why and when. Am I hungry? What does that feel like? It’s actually quite exciting to learn to understand my habits and find ways to improve them, or in some cases get rid of them completely. This is a very welcome side effect of Lent that I had really not anticipated and I look forward to finding out more about myself and enjoying food again.

Photo by George Dolgikh @ Giftpundits.com on Pexels.com

Exercise, Healthy living, Well-being

It’s not OK, I’m not ‘just fit’

April 13, 2022 Steph TJ

Recently, whilst at a Nordic Walking class a fellow walker was commenting on how much the Nordic Walking was hurting their arms. So we discussed why that might be. Then they said ‘It’s OK for you, you’re fit’.

I suppose compared to the average person I am quite fit. On the scale of fit people, I’d put myself towards the lower end. But that’s not the bit that struck me. It was the whole ‘It’s OK for you, you’re fit’. Is that generally what people think – that fitter people are just fit? Do they not realise the level of effort involved in being ‘just fit’? Do they not understand the choices that fit people make on a daily basis? There is no fit person I know that is ‘just fit’. I can’t imagine that there are many people who are and is this generally a myth that people believe, that some people find being fit and healthy an easy choice.

Taking myself as an example. Everyday I try to complete some form of exercise. Even if it’s a short walk and a bit of stretching, a short fitness class, or doing exercises from the physiotherapist. Because that’s what I need to do to keep the pain at bay, to manage a prolapse, to keep my body moving as best it can as I mature. I am (hopefully) doing the best that I can to enable me to continue to be fit and active for the next 20 years. This does not come easy to me and it never has, I am not a natural athlete. I would very much like to be able to sit all day and not have to bother with exercise. But I must. How I would love not to. I also make choices everyday about what to eat and drink. Again, these are not easy choices. How I would love to eat as many crisps, chocolate, cake as I liked. Or drink as much alcohol as I liked. But I can’t. It’s not good for my physical and mental health and impedes the exercise I need to do to keep me moving freely and keep my brain sane. These are not easy choices. They do not ‘just’ happen. I am not ‘just fit’. This is a daily commitment to my health and well-being.

During the past week I have carried out some very low-scale market research to find out if anyone would consider being fit to be an easy option.

Looking at my husband, he will be the first to admit that he is at the obese end of the weight scale. But what people don’t see is he is currently at the lowest weight he has been for over 20 years. What people also don’t see is the 12,000 steps he takes every day. They don’t see the food choices he makes every day. They don’t see the level of effort he puts in to make sure he doesn’t move further towards the obese end of the scale. They make judgements based on his appearance and assume that he must be fat and lazy – he is neither. He is currently struggling with a problem with his hip which has impeded his ability to complete his steps. This has been devastating for him, both mentally and physically. Not being able to achieve his daily step count has knocked his mental health and he is becoming increasingly frustrated at his inability to maintain what fitness he had. Like me he makes daily choices around food, exercise and drink. This does not ‘just’ happen.

For the last 6 months or so I have been doing online fitness sessions with Fitter Food Lover. Slowly I have increased the weights that I use and am seeing improvements in my strength, fitness and general well-being. I asked the personal trainer and other members of the group if they would consider being fit an easy choice. Not one said that it was. Each one makes a daily choice around diet and exercise and each one has their own reasons for doing so: to maintain fitness and flexibility as they mature, to be fit and active parents to their family, to feel better about themselves generally.

I asked members of the Nordic Walking group that I belong to. I even asked two women who had just finished a run and were heading to the café for a well earned cup of tea if they found being fit easy or enjoyable. It was a resounding ‘no’.

I also asked my sister if she would consider herself just fit. She is a physiotherapist and works alongside Help the Aged running fitness groups for the elderly, enabling them to maintain their mobility, and therefore, their independence as they age. She cited many reasons for maintaining fitness including building core strength and keeping your pelvic floor as healthy as it can be. But no, she agreed that it’s not easy. It’s a choice people make and a commitment they make to themselves – to be the fittest version of themselves they can be – for as long as they can.

I asked each of these people five questions:

Do you consider yourself to be ‘just fit’?
Do you look forward to exercising?
Do you enjoy exercise?
Do you enjoy the benefits of exercise?
Do you find any aspect of diet and fitness easy?

No one really considered themselves to be ‘just fit’.

Some did look forward to exercising. Some less so. Personally, I rarely look forward to exercise. It’s always a challenge for me to drag myself to classes, to the swimming pool, or out for a walk. I would always choose staying at home and doing nothing. It helps me if I know there are other people expecting me to turn up and it also helps if I have paid for the sessions in advance as that forces me to go along.

Most people said did enjoy the exercise once they got going and once they got there and that the biggest battle was getting to the class, or stepping out to run in the first place.

Everyone that I asked said they did enjoy the benefits of exercise. They enjoyed the feeling that being fit and exercising gave them and it’s this that spurs them on. Personally I love that when I have exercised I feel tired in a ‘worked hard’ sort of way and not a ‘lethargic about life’ kind of way. I love the way I can feel my body toning up and that my core is getting stronger. I love that I am able to manage my prolapse through exercise and haven’t, as yet, had to resort to other more invasive methods. I like waking up having enough energy to make it through the day without having to have a ‘Nana Nap’. I really enjoy not being in pain and want to maintain that for as long as I possibly can.

Nobody really found it easy. Some found it easier than others, largely dependent on other commitments that they needed to fit around their exercise. Some found it easier the more consistent they were and if, for whatever reason, they had fallen off the exercise or diet wagon found it hard to get back up again. I know that this is true for me. The more consistent I am, the easier I do find exercising. I also find it easier if I have a specific goal, which is why I tend to like a challenge of some kind. My personal trainer did say something which I found really interesting. ‘If it was easy there wouldn’t be an obesity epidemic. It’s our nature as a species to conserve energy and take the easy route. Our ancestors were fitter and healthier because they had to do things to get food. Now all we need to do is press our phone screens and it’s there’.

I found this really thought provoking and it made me think about my own Grandmother. She didn’t drive. She lived a good 15 minute walk away from the nearest food shops. She walked far more than I have ever had to in order to complete basic chores throughout the day. The diet that she ate was generally healthier then the diets that people eat today and it took time for her to cook a meal every evening. Fast food and convenience food didn’t exist – there was not alternative choice. Even if I think about how things have changed during my life, I can see how much more I sit still every day than I did 20 years ago. There is increasingly no real reason to move and so it’s even more important to create times in the day when you do. This is not an easy choice. I recently listened to an episode of ‘Happy Place‘ podcast where Rangan Chattergee raised the point that people who do choose to make healthy choices are increasingly considered outcasts, the ‘not-normal’, despite the proven benefits of a healthy diet and daily exercise. Where along the line did it become unusual to live a healthy life-style? Or unusual to include exercise in our daily lives? We have more free time than our ancestors, so at which point did we choose to spend that time doing as little as possible? Apparently this is part of our genetic wiring, to conserve energy for when we need it. The problem is that nowadays we are conserving energy for a danger that we are unlikely to face and the consequence is a population that is becoming increasingly sedentary and finding exercise to be something for other, fit, people.

I concluded that being fit is a scale. Some people are naturally more predisposed to exercise and have a natural talent for different types of exercise. Some people do enjoy exercise more than others and find it easier to fit into their daily routine. Some families are more exposed to exercise than others – and an active family will more than likely produce children who enjoy exercising, or taking part in team sports. But I’m not sure than anyone would say that they find exercise easy, whatever their level of sporting prowess, nor would I say that anyone is ‘just fit’, it’s a daily choice they make to include fitness as a part of their lifestyle. The one thing they would all have in common is the benefits and rewards they enjoy in return for the effort spent in exercising.