Cookies And The Art of Imbalanced Eating

My new intuitive chiropractor gave me a diet to follow just before Thanksgiving when I had gone to see her about my recurring acne. The diet – if followed – would eliminate all sugar and wheat.

No bread? No pasta? No problem! But no cookies?! The thought made me miserable.

She added compassionately "this may be hard over the holidays - but try."

I eat pretty well overall. My normal eating regime is liberally doused with fresh vegetables. I don’t eat beef. I eat lots of fish. I don’t even like pasta. My problem is cookies.

For me, just the smell of fresh baked cookies would lead me to give up any secrets into unauthorized hands. I would make a really bad spy if someone was armed with gingersnaps.

I tried her recommended diet for a while. Okay I tried it for a day. I gave up when someone brought Mrs. Fields’ cookies into the office. Oh well, I reasoned, after New Year’s I could try again.

After that initial attempt before Thanksgiving, I tried another approach right before Christmas. I created a “permission diet”. I thought my issue might be the guilt I attach to what I eat. I tend to label foods as “good” or “bad” – where anything that isn’t in it’s natural state is “bad”. So any time I eat something “bad” I get a helping of guilt as well.

On this “diet” I attempted to give myself permission to eat whatever and whenever I wanted. I tried. It worked for a week, but I wasn't very good at getting around the guilt. When you’ve been taught since birth that foods are bad enough to be labeled “junk” it’s really hard to fight off that thought when you put that kind of something in your mouth. And those kinds of somethings are unavoidable during the holidays.

New Year’s Day, I adopted another approach – I focused on the results I wanted. I visualized myself already having perfect skin. I knew that to have beautiful skin I would have to follow the prescribed diet. I was okay with that. Every time something tempted me, I would say aloud (if I was alone) or silently: I want beautiful skin. Every time I looked in the mirror, I told myself: “I want beautiful skin.” I was able to stay on the diet for eight days by doing this. I made beautiful skin more of a priority than what I ate. But day nine brought catastrophes that led me back to the sugar train.

I’ve also tried the no-carb diet, 12-Step meetings, herbs, and various other methods. Each time I meet with limited success.

Now, I'm doing the best I can. I don't know what balanced eating would look like for me and if it really would be a diet of no processed foods. Maybe it would be a diet full of mostly nutritional foods my body craves while occasionally feeding my sweet tooth. Maybe it would it be a way of eating that didn't lead me to the cookie store at the onset of stress. Maybe there is a way of eating that serves to feed my body and my soul.

I know that I’m not ready to eliminate cookies from my life. There is something within me that is comforted, ever…so…slightly, by them. Until I’m ready to accept other forms of comfort under stress, or find ways to minimize the causes of stress, I can’t fight the cookie cravings. I wonder if I’m supposed to fight them – or if I need to accept that in some way, they are nourishing me.

Perhaps, it’s acceptance of my unbalanced way of eating that I need to master and then the cookies will stay and cause me no problems, or just wander off on their own accord.