I like to eat. It's fortunate that I like to do what I need to do, which is to eat. However, this also creates a situation where I can confuse necessity, usefulness, and abundance with good, better, and best. Sensing that I'm not alone in this misfiring thinking, I thought I'd share some of my thoughts.
Necessity - Exactly what I need to survive, be fit, do my job, reproduce, contribute to the communities that I serve with none to spare.
Usefulness - The middle ground between necessity and abundance.
Abundance - More than I could ever need or want, with extra left over beyond all perceive need to either share or waste. The luxury of excess.
I have, a few times, taken the pledge to treat food solely as fuel. This has never worked out mainly because food is more than fuel.
Food is traditionally part of the social glue that binds families and friendships together. We romance one another with food. We strengthen friendships with food. We signal empathy to mourners with food. None of this is necessary, but it is useful as our social strength helps with our survival and food helps build social strength. Food plays a part in finding our own sense of belonging among people.
Food is also artistic, such as the tasty difference between a tenderloin straight from the meat-department's plastic and one that has been rubbed or marinated properly. It can also be visually artistic. Art is a foundation upon which we can find our individual expression. We are unlikely to practice art if our physical needs and safety are not assured -- art is a signal that these things are okay, but art is less than pure luxury. We use art to make unspoken statements one to another, and perhaps to ourselves. Maybe that statement is: you are worth this gift of effort.
I am needing to pull myself back from the Abundance category into the Usefulness category. There are several reasons for this.
One big reason is that I was taught to eat what I am served: do not waste food. Clean my plate. However, there's a logic problem here. If I'm going to eat three square meals a day, have snacks and drinks with friends, and dessert with the spouse -- I'm already eating more than I could ever use and my body is storing this energy for the future as bodyfat. And here we have one of the reasons for my post today.
The traditional way of looking at this is to find the way that has the least amount of calories in the highest volume of food. But I've found that, in my life, it's been better to not worry about the calories so much and to want less volume. Perhaps lunch with friends is a mug of soup and half of a sandwich at a coffee shop.
I also need to work on being pulled by food like a puppet on a string. I'm not hungry, so why am I eating this apple? Because it's healthy and it's in my calories? Or because I'm quickly acting on the impulse to eat that I wouldn't have even felt except that I happen to see the apple there available to me. (All economy food seems to do this to me to a greater degree, whether that cost is in dollars or calories.)
It is better to want what you need and have, and truly enjoy that. In so much as more can be useful, I need to wait until life brings it around to me. I shouldn't yearn for it to come my way or seek to put myself in the path for it -- I'm already well fed. When fortune and only fortune brings it my way, I should enjoy that too but limited to its useful purpose and not to excess or waste. This is not a math challenge of maximum volume at minimum calories.
And, finally, I need to be amused and fascinated by my human foibles. I'm struggling and it's okay to struggle; it means that I am trying and learning. Avoiding pain prevents us from learning its lessons so I'm welcoming the struggle.
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source https://www.reddit.com/r/loseit/comments/f0xq41/the_key_isnt_in_making_the_most_volume_or/
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