Postcards from Equanimity # 007
What does a nosey pepper do?
Gets jalapeno business.
Speaking of getting up in your business, what did you eat for lunch say 3 days ago? Was it healthy? Does it matter?
Do you eat to live? Or live to eat? Are you a foodie?
Enough questions?
Here are my answers in brief.
Hummus and bread sandwich with pickles before leaving for a flight on Thursday afternoon. I definitely live to eat (though I truly admire people who eat to live). As much as I love food, yeah I am probably what you may call a foodie. If taking pictures of your food counts, guilty! Sigh.
While you indulge this beta exercise in fleshing out my method and message, and while I am still learning how to make full on questionnaires that would allow us to quantify Maslow’s hierarchy, let’s enjoy some short term gains.
Food is a cornerstone of Maslow's hierarchy. While there are platters of opinions and smorgasbords of literature about food, we all come to some personal understanding of the matter that is evident in our habits and health. The fact that what we eat often quite directly affects how we feel is evident in good and bad ways. The fact that many of us eat emotionally is mostly maladjusted behavior, though common, and could use some attention.
But why is food a basic level component in the hierarchy? Because regardless of the nuance of quality and composition, one thing that pretty much all experts agree on is that food provides energy as well as building blocks for our physical bodies. What we eat literally becomes us.
I have been overweight most of my adult life. Emotional eating, mindless grazing, and eating for entertainment have been a part of my existence at various times. So recently, when I started some serious reading about food and sleep (courtesy of my excellent doctor) I was contemplating not just the eating but what it leads to… my body.
Despite my weight, I have done some active things. Ran a marathon. Done hiking and attempted mountain climbing. This week I am starting a new experiment with caloric deficit by logging and proactively managing what I eat. Though ultimately I hope to lose weight, my goals in doing so is not aesthetic but functional.
Our physical bodies allow us to interact with the world around us. Depending on our chosen professions and recreational pursuits, we need not all look the Instagram models of fitness. But what we really must ask ourself is a simple question: is my body serving my needs?
My body is currently not serving all my needs. My day job is sedentary but through Pilates and rehab I have overcome back pain to a substantial extent and now want to be more active again. Probably not going to run a marathon but will walk a half marathon before the year is up. Ultimately, I am aiming to lose 3 stones and change; let’s see how long it will take.
Logging what I eat, sitting with perceived need when the mind just focuses on food out of habit not hunger, and re-learning to enjoy the texture and taste through prolonged chewing. Human joy can come from very simple changes. But the multitasking world can sometimes make us go astray.
Most of the readers of these posts are actually quite healthy. But some may still have the same concerns about food as mine. I invite you to think about the questions I posted above. And is your body serving your needs? One of the natural consequences of this Maslow exercise will be that we spend more time than before in exploring and evaluating ourselves, and not just paying attention to all the external information that is directed at us. I’d love to hear from y’all about how food figures into your life.
Have a nourishing week ahead!