My diet

My diet has suffered since getting to the city, and especially since beginning work at the immersion camps regularly.  Part of the problem is not having a kitchen shelf on which to accumulate good food choices for later.  Another part is the patterned conditioning of being paid in food for five months while we worked on farms through WWOOF.  At camp, there are three meals and three desserts a day, plus a suitcase of candy for selling to the children, all free to me.  And I feel like I should eat it all because I can, like I'm getting away with something, even though it makes me feel like shit.  There is the ever-looming spectre of camp ending in one or two days, and the false notion that after that, who knows?  This is silly, because I actually have plenty of money to buy food.

I have also been eating at camp for the anesthetic effect of sat fat and sugar.  This is obviously bad; it's a habit that I picked up the first summer I worked in education in Newton, where I would duck into the camp office for a handful of chocolate chips every day, sometimes several times.  I did it sometimes as a youth advisor too.  I am terrified of leadership I guess, and numbing myself out can keep me from showing that terror to the group.  One thing I have learned about leading is that if people know you are scared and unsure, they don't want to do what you suggest; but obviously this isn't a good way to fix that.

Recently, eating, or not eating, because I'm scared has spilled over into the rest of my life.  Somehow right before this sharing today I was eating a fast food combo meal, complete with caffinated soda, all of which numbed me out alot, but seems to have awakened me as well (to the depths of my depravity, I don't know).  I am sure that I had already consumed sufficient calories for the day prior to this meal.  Last night for dinner I had two packs of alfajors and a chocolate bar, and that just made me feel terrible and alone, so, go figure.

Sometimes when I'm walking around the city feeling like I would rather not exist, buying food, even if I'm not hungry, makes me feel empowered.  The problem is that buying food implies eating it immediately or carrying it around indefinitely, neither of which is usually that great.  Sometimes I fast for up to 24 hours at a time, which makes me feel righteous and tired, but I don't think this is too healthy either.  Note for concerned parents:  I'm not going to start 12-step work because of comments on this post.