FOOD VI – CHEWING AND SPITTING

A phenomenon that is being spoken of with more frequency with the eating disorder community is chewing and spitting (C&S). I started to C&S during the period of time when I was not restricting as much of my intake of food. I was still exercising but had had made some progress with the “restricting” factor. Due to my work in therapy, I had started to understand the links between the restrictive episodes and the emotional incidence that would trigger them. Slowly, but ever progressively, I noticed that I was eating with greater frequency. I did not turn to restricting for modulating and communicating my internal and emotional state. Rather, I started to articulate what I was feeling in words (instead of food). This was a very slow process; whenever there were improvements with food, I would make up the “slack” by increasing my exercise. Therefore, running and weight training became the vehicle for navigating my internal emotional strife. C&S was the natural reaction to my ability to move away from the excessiveness of exercise.

To clarify what I mean by chewing and spitting - I would chew a chocolate bar, allow some of it to be swallowed and then spit out the rest into a napkin. I calculated that this behavior would give me some of the sweets that I craved but not the calories or fat that I was so frightened to gain. I wanted to swallow some of the sweet food because I thought it was important for the maintenance of my endocrine system. I reasoned that the process of chewing a sweet food was already signaling the body to produce insulin. Had I spit out the entirely of the sweet that I was chewing, the body would produce insulin in excess because it would not be utilized in digesting and synthesizing the spit out food. Consequently, by swallowing a bit of it I was allowing the body to function in a somewhat “normal” capacity.

I am painfully aware of how calculated this reasoning is and also how I have difficulty in referring to the body as “mine” - in the possessive tense. That is one of the barriers that I continue to have from time to time – connecting with my own body; a sense of being integrated in body, mind, and emotions. I never chewed and spit out food that I deemed was important or real, such as chicken, vegetables, complex carbohydrates etc. The chewing and spitting was restricted (no pun intended) to the sweets – those foods/snacks that I thought were superfluous to what I really needed, by yet craved. I turned to those foods, as many others do, when I needed comfort or a sense of grounding. Chocolate, cakes, candy bars, ice cream and chips provided (and still do- but to a much smaller extent) a sense of comfort at a time when I despaired about what life was presenting me. These foods were also a connection to the past. They were the food of choice in days of overeating. They gave me some peace in my isolation and confusion. As I lessened the restricting behavior and exercised with greater moderation, I became more anxious about putting on weight from these types of “comfort” foods. They no longer provided me the grounding or consolation they did in the past when other mechanisms such as excessive exercise could buffer the anxiety about eating them in the first place. The only way those foods could continue to maintain their role in providing relief would be to chew (swallow some) and spit out the rest.

More on this tomorrow.

Can anyone relate? I would really like to know.

Stay well, MBI