There is a stranger in my house.
Okay, maybe not a stranger, but a former acquaintance I've phased out of my life in favor of a more preferable companion.

Hello again, jar of peanut butter.
Peanut butter is, by all accounts, incredibly delicious. My afternoon snack for most of the school year was peanut butter and Teddy Grahams - I would buy single-serve containers of Jif because even though they were a little more expensive than buying a jar, something about the individual cups made me less likely to binge on them.

I stopped bringing them for my snack in the last few weeks because each container was 250 calories, and I wanted to get the most out of my calories, so I'd bring fresh fruit instead.
Now that I am transitioning to veganism for a month, nuts and nut butters are on my recommended eating list. Though packed with protein, vitamins, and minerals, they're also really high in calories. I'm hoping that with this jar, I can have my peanut butter and eat it too - one tablespoon in my oatmeal, for example, for 100 calories gets me the health benefits without blowing nearly a quarter of my daily calories like the little containers would.
Could I still get the individual cups and just use half or less as I see fit? Of course. But I want to try this. This is a test of my resolve, of my progress, a true NSV I could really be proud of. Because despite losing over a hundred pounds and being able to control myself under most conditions, something about a jar of peanut butter makes me want to grab a spoon and just start eating until it's empty.

It brings to mind an amazingly incredible book I read a few weeks ago after hearing so many glowing recommendations from other bloggers: "Women Food and God" by Geneen Roth. She talks about how our relationship with food mirrors our relationships with others, with ourselves, and with however we define a higher power. In one section, she talks about loving food in excess - it ceases to be about the food itself and becomes a quantity fixation. If chocolate was really the answer to the problem, then you could eat one kiss and be fine ... so why then do we feel the need to eat the whole bag?
Sometimes people will say, "But I just like the taste of food. In fact, I love the taste! Why can't it be that simple? I overeat because I like food."
But.
When you like something, you pay attention to it. When you like something - love something - you take time with it. You want to be present for every second of the rapture.
Overeating does not lead to rapture. It leads to burping and farting and being so sick that you can't think of anything but how full you are. That's not love, that's suffering.
p. 53
So much of this book gave me chills. I saw myself reflected in so many of her patient's stories - the Permitters who binge eat in order to numb themselves and thus float through life unaware, the career dieters whose weight loss efforts consistently fail because they see it as a way to become someone different and new instead of realizing that your problems exist no matter what size pants you wear. She talked a lot about using food to soothe past aches, something I most certainly am guilty of:
It's not life in the present that is intolerable; the pain we are avoiding has already happened. We are living in reverse.
p. 40
Physically I'm digging and scraping the peanut butter from the sides of the jar, but emotionally, I'm trying to dig my way away from my problems and my stresses. Peace with my mother is not at the bottom of that jar. A job is not at the bottom of the jar, either. The problems aren't hunger, so the solution shouldn't be food.
Instead, her solution is to make peace with food. Stop seeing it as something you can or cannot have, and stop using it to punish or reward yourself. Obsession with food can be as dangerous as any other addiction, and ought to be dealt with as such.
The obsession will end when you love discovering your true nature more than you love being loyal to your mother or father. The obsession will end because you care enough about yourself to stop damaging yourself with food. Because you love yourself enough to stop hurting yourself. Who doesn't want to take care of what they love?
p. 193-194
She also emphasizes the importance of feelings - as a Permitter, I binge eat to numb myself of my feelings, because who wants to feel sad or stressed or depressed or angry when you could eat yourself numb and then go to sleep? This is something I still struggle with, even three-quarters of a year after I started my journey.
If you don't allow a feeling to begin, you also don't let it end.
p. 123
After I've chewed, swallowed, and napped, I'm still jobless, I still have damaged and broken relationships. If I don't face it in an appropriate way, then it's still there - nothing has been resolved. I need to take time to cry - because that's what people do when they're sad. If I'm mad, I need to scream into a pillow, or write it all out. Face the issues - actually confront and deal with them - and only then can there be progress.
I have to confess that lately, I've been slipping up an awful lot. I'm hurting emotionally for a lot of different reasons, and I haven't taken the time to mindfully process these feelings. Instead, I remember how comforting homemade cookies are - the process of making them, the waiting for them to bake, the taste and the texture. It's painful, but it's familiar, and when I'm stressed or depressed, I crave familiarity and comfort. Lately it's been easy to forget how much of a relief a good, full-body bawling can be, or how much better I feel after a long run than I do after excessive snacking. Today, I'm rereading "Women Food and God," recapturing my motivation, and falling back in love with the girl I've spent the past nine months trying to get to know as I work hard to make her as healthy and happy as possible and look as lovely as she feels - and rightly deserves to feel.
What about you? Have you read any of Geneen Roth's books? What's your favorite non-food way to soothe stress and anxiety?