In recent years, adult picky eating started getting some attention. Like I mentioned in my introductory post, MSNBC, ABC News, as well as numerous other blogs, news outlets, and medical health professionals have begun to opine and raise awareness of grown ups who never outgrew their childhood staples. It is somewhat of a relief as a picky eater to know that even if I am crazy because of my fussiness over food, I am at least not alone and have plenty of company. Yes, I am one of those who has avoided social events, especially more formal ones, because of fear over what I would eat, or, worse, unwanted over attention from someone who noticed my lack of eating. In college for instance, I attended the equivalent of a college-level prom with a group of friends, only to find nothing on the plate of pork, vegetables, and lumpy potatoes that I could stomach, so I happily ate from the bread basket. But then came the embarrassment of the wait staff asking me why I didn’t eat my food and whether something was wrong with it. I also remember another college occasion where I was invited by my major’s teaching staff to attend a dinner at the college president’s mansion. I happily obliged, only to be served pork (as you can tell, this is on my do-not-like list), green beans, and some form of red potato. Firm in my decision to not again be embarrassed by wait staff asking why I wasn’t eating, especially in the company of my professors and college administration, instead, I tried to hide the gagging as I forced down the repulsive food, trying to hide the tears in my eyes. I managed half of the meal, just enough to avoid any confrontations from servers. When I got married, in fact, there was no chance that particular social event would be stained by attention to what I had not eaten; I ordered chicken fingers and fries for myself while our guests feasted on prime rib or fish.
The links above provide a good starting point for anyone wanting to know more about picky eaters, but while we can establish that adult picky eating is real (whether or not it deserves the title of an eating disorder or mental illness is debatable, at least based on my approved food list), the challenge for me has not been limited to awkwardness during social occasions. Instead, it has been losing weight and getting and staying healthy with such particular taste buds. I am actually quite content with what I will or will not eat. It has become part of my life, something to which I have adjusted and most of my friends and family just accept as part of me. Some of them will even design their menus around me when invited to dinner. No, I don’t really want to “cure” my “eating disorder.” I am fine with it. My body, on the other hand, is not. At 5’0″, I weighed about 112 pounds when I graduated high school — a healthy BMI of 21.9. Since then, I have yo-yo’d between there and my peak of 205 pounds while full-term with my 2nd little girl — a BMI of 40. My problem is that my 2nd little girl is two and a half and I still weigh just under 160 pounds and am thus still clinically obese.
I want to be thin. I want to be healthy. I want to know my great-grandchildren. But I know that things have to change for that to happen. I know what I should be eating: healthy fats, limited grain products, plenty of vegetables, a few fruits, limited if any red meat, modest amounts of fish and/or poultry (again, if any if consuming other protein and fat sources). My problem is I don’t like them. I despise seafood. I can’t stand the smell of it, let alone put it to my lips. I did try shrimp once after a few glasses of wine, and the texture just about did me in. Olive oil… nuts… kale… I just can’t stand them! And that is why I can’t lose weight. Ever trying keeping your caloric intake to about 1400-1600 calories a day while eating things like cheese-flavored crackers and boxed pasta meals? Oh, you get to eat maybe 1.5 cups of food all day long. Basically, it is starving yourself. Who could live like that? Not me. I can do it for a while, but eventually something has to give. It is not a very nutritious way to live. How can I lose weight when I like hardly anything?
That is what this journey will be about. Answering the question, “How can I lose weight when I like hardly anything?” by crossing out “hardly anything” and replacing it with “a variety of foods.” There are so many wonderful lifestyle choices out there for healthy living if only I could put the ingredients to my list. I want to try a Mediterranean diet. I want to try juicing. I want to try vegan dishes. Maybe none of those lifestyles will work for me, but I will never know unless I can get past the fear of the foods and give them a try. I do know for sure that my deep-fried, Western diet is not working. At the age of 31, I am doing myself a disservice by feeling so unhealthy and bloated. I should be in the prime of my life. I will get there. I just need to convince my taste buds that we are going to do it together.
I have taken the first step by committing my goals to writing. Next, I’m going to start researching where to begin. How does a picky eater begin to train themselves to like new things? How long does it take? Will I get physically ill with gagging or vomiting? What if I keep trying new things and still don’t like them? I don’t know what will happen, but I do know the journey will be documented here. Next time, I hope to have a better idea of where to begin. (I’m already feeling the anxiety of someday putting fish to my lips….)
Congratulations on finding the courage to challenge your taste buds to new edible heights. I will be following your journey with much interest. Good luck!!
Thank you! I think I need all the luck I can get.
Your taking a very big step out of your comfort zone for sure and I applaud that! Maybe give some thought into finding new foods to try that are lower on the glycemic index. If your body is used to refined carbs (like crackers and breaded things) then your body is used to getting large dumps of insulin in to bring down your blood sugar. Trying new foods that are lower on the glycemic index might help you with leveling out the blood sugar which is a major trigger for over eating on carbs. There is such a close relationship to the foods that we eat and the way our brain chemistry works! I really wish you incredible amounts of success and I’ll keep you in my thoughts! Be loving to yourself!
http://www.glycemicindex.com/
I really appreciate it and will check out your link. I have “successfully” done low-carb eating before and lost a considerable amount of weight, but it comes right back on as soon as I start on the processed foods again. I am still playing tennis with my own mind on where to begin with this new-food-tasting, but I think pinning down a low-glycemic food is a great place start in figuring out what angle to take. Since I have failed so many times on dieting, I do hope that retraining my taste buds is the ticket to health.
I am a picky eater too with a story similar to yours. My picky eating however has me at 310lbs and diabetic…its only in the last 6 months I have tried to start “new” foods…processed foods, mostly chicken, and bread would be my staples…
In the last 6 months I have lost 25lbs and added 5 new foods to my list..
I put tomatoe ketchup on every dinner and every sandwhich so I reckon my taste buds have a long way to go before really tasting food…
I could happily stay the way I am with the foods I eat, only for my health…it was traumatic growing up but as you settle (I am 38) you fit into a niche that suits you, so I dont actually want to go out for meals and I am rarely in a situation where I am facing embarrassment.
I dont care what label is put on my food habits, so long as it is understood this is not my choice…
I wish you the best of luck and success…I think once the mind is ready to try you are capable of having success and I think that only started to change for me when I stopped wishing to be a “normal” eater. I was trying to leap too far.
You deserve to feel better, keep on trying
Everything you said resonates with me. It is uncanny how similar our viewpoints on food are. Just think how many more of us are out there. I know what you mean about trying to leap too far at once. I do that too. I get myself all revved up to make huge changes, but I am just setting myself up for failure by doing too much too soon. And I absolutely 100% agree that “this is not my choice.” Bravo! YES. I WANT to be able to sit down at a table anywhere in the world and be excited to try whatever is in front of me. I want to be “normal,” I just don’t know how. I don’t willingly gag when I don’t like something. I hate that I do.
To have lost 25 pounds already, you are doing FANTASTIC, I hope you keep it up. I think one of the hardest things for me to keep in mind as I do this is that I’m still going to find foods I don’t like, and that will be okay. But I need to give them an honest try before I throw in the towel. You are inspiring though, already adding 5 new things. That is great progress! Thank you for the moral support, and best of luck to you as well for continued success.
Ive never replied to any blog before but I felt an uncanny resemblance to you too!
I went to so many professionals over the years…diet clubs, hypnotist, neuro-linguist, cognative behaviour therapist….all of them tried to focus on what might have happened me but none could tell me what the next step forward was..
I actually asked one of them…am I supposed to start eating from baby food jars as if starting from scratch???the sarcasm was lost…
As I said, I stopped wishing to be like people around me who can eat everything..if I can learn to tolerate a fraction of their list I will be better off…if Im really lucky I might enjoy some of it too…
One technique I use on myself is the power of persuasion…a particularly bad time is when I arrive home at noon which is the end of my working day (3.30am start) and Im usually starving…in the past I would have 4 slices of bread with ham on one..cheese on the other (never mix) tomatoe sauce on both..and a packet of crisps…it takes less than a minute to prepare..less than a minute to eat! Now during the morning leading close to noon I start thinking about and visualising say banana on toast (the only fruit I eat) and I would say to myself a couple of times “Id love banana on toast now” …..by the time I get home there is nothing else I will eat…I have an almost craving for it!
So there are foods I will never eat. ..some Ive not tried but may be willing….and some I can eat but dont really have a liking for…This last group I now eat a lot more because of trying to convince myself I want it…if you give this a try let me know how you get on?
Baby steps and really wanting this and you WILL do it…you are far from on your own and if I can help in any way by even listening I would be delighted!
As fascinated as I was by another reader’s comment suggesting a speech therapist, I was just as surprised and fascinated to hear how much you have tried! Nobody could ever accuse you of being lazy or just picky. You certainly have put forth a ton of effort.
I love and totally agree with the power of persuasion idea. It is absolutely amazing how powerful the mind can be. If only someone could tell us the magic trick to making “yucky” stuff be absolutely delicious. I do need to break out of the cycle I have been in convincing myself I am craving junk. Or, as it was put in a documentary I recently watched, processed garbage designed to look like food.
I think it is also important for me to keep in mind what you touched on in the end of your comment… that there will still be things I won’t like, but the things I can tolerate is what I need to focus on.
I will definitely keep updating on how it works. I would love to keep in touch with you, and I hope we can make baby steps together. Thank you again for sharing. It is so helpful to know there are those who understand and have been there and maybe even are still right there where I am stuck.
I fully agree with the other person who commented that you need to focus on things that you may not fully like, but can tolerate. For now, leave the things that you really can’t tolerate at all. As you come to tolerate more and more foods, these may become more acceptable to you. The key is to push yourself out of your comfort zone one step at a time. If you can’t tolerate putting something into your mouth, can you tolerate touching it to your lips? If you can’t tolerate chewing and swallowing it, can you tolerate putting it in your mouth and then spitting it out? Can you tolerate chewing it and then spitting it out, etc. Doing these kind of activities should progressively desensitize you. But you have to not push yourself to do this with something that would be completely aversive, as that will only reinforce your negative associations with that food. Good luck to you!
I’m a Speech therapist, trained to work with children with extreme “picky eating”. My training has taught me that 90% of these people are picky eaters due to either sensory or oral motor challenges. The reason that picky eaters tend to prefer junk food is that junk food is designed to be easy from an oral-motor and sensory standpoint. So for a person who struggles with these aspects of food, it is easier for the system to handle junk food than other foods. I’d encourage you to try to find an occupational therapist or speech therapist trained to work with sensory and oral motor feeding issues to help guide you. Good luck
That is very fascinating! I had no idea people could “fix” their picky eating, or address the causes of it anyway, via a speech therapist. It makes total sense, but I never knew that I didn’t know this.
A friend of mine is a speech therapist, and I was surprised to find out that while pursuing her degree, she had to study a cadaver to fully understand how all of that “stuff” works to help her in providing assistance to students she would treat. Now it makes better sense to me why a speech therapist would have to know so much just to help people’s speech; it is because they are doing far more than that, working with an entire system. So cool! Thanks for sharing! It is something I will consider if I can’t make any progress on my own.