"People change and forget to tell each other." - Lillian Hellman
As part of my personal training - (or maybe I'm just vain and everyone has to) I provide Jo with a food journal indicating what I eat on a daily basis. The first day that I met Jo, she asked what I had eaten and I could with all sorts of confidence tell her that I had 6 Werther's caramels and half can of zero.
Today, only a couple of weeks later, I am keeping a journal that includes actual food. I find this part of my change fascinating, only because I have ridiculous food issues. When I was little I used to have rinse my plate off inbetween each food item, potatoes, rinse, veggies, rinse, meat, rinse, and I always ate my food in the order of what I liked least to what I liked best (I still do that part). As I got older (and ostensibly smarter - or lazier), I began to mentally section my plate so that food wouldn't touch. Now, even though food items can touch each other from time to time, there are some rules that I have made for myself:
1. Melted cheese is only for pizza.
2. Food shall not be covered in gravy, syrup or other liquid topping. (the exception to this rule of course is raspberries with whipped cream).
3. Each food item must be completed before moving on to the next.
4. Under no circumstances will you eat a banana.
The list goes on. What wound up happening, was to live within the rules I created, I became very linear in my food choices, so that they were always the same. It was safe, easy, I could discern my calories easily and it was ...boring.
My point, however is that even these rules, which were so important on some psychological level (some underlying need for control I'm sure), can be changed. It's not an easy process I can assure you but with enough want you can do anything. Heck, I ate cookies with bananas and nuts!
Just don't ask me about my alphabetized pantry.
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