Let's take a survey; how much energy, mental and emotional would you say, you spend on average, thinking about food/calories/ your body per day? It was brought to my attention today and reminded me of the fact, that I am sure, that if we could harness the amount written and thought about regarding food, that we would have by now cured cancer.
On the other hand women are great multi-taskers, so of course we can be thinking of food, what we did, didn't eat, shouldn't eat, should eat, as well as the other tasks for the day, much more so than men. In fact, Christine Northrop MD says that this is due to the fact that our corpus collosum is bigger than that or men's. (Ours is bigger than yours!) That part of the brain that divides the right and left brain hemispheres and helps us keep track of circular and tengential thought processes!
Well I call it the wallpaper of the mind. The irony for me became that the less I though about the food I had eaten when I was a dancer and my livelihood depended on how many calories I consumed that day or weekend, the more freed up I became to truly connect to what I felt like eating. This for me resulted in taking in fewer calories, not being on a 'diet' half the time in preparation for a show/audition, or that horrible mirror in tights and leotard every morning at ballet class!
But there is no doubt that one diet or way of eating does not fit all. I believe that each person needs to find what works for them; in fact, you may not be failing your diet, your diet may be failing you!
See if you could chew on that. Keep track of your mental energy you spend on food. While conscious eating can help you decrease the calories you consume mindlessly, too much consciousness leads to preoccupation and a decrease of mental energy well spent in other places.
It is all a matter of balance.
Happy eating! www.donnafish.com