My relationship with food

My relationship with food is a convoluted topic. For so many years I denied being an emotional eater, I told myself that I could stop whenever I wanted to, and I subconsciously numbed myself with sugar. I've never been one to eat much fat, but a couple of years ago I read a book about sugar addiction and kept a food diary for all of a week or so and realized that I really was drugging myself with food. That doesn't mean I stopped doing it, that would be too easy, instead I used it as yet another thing to bludgeon myself with when I failed, when I indulged, and the cycle continued.

Something changed inside of me last weekend. Something shifted, something of the magnitude of a tectonic plate shifting, and I found myself looking at food calmly. It's not that I don't want to eat a dozen dark chocolate covered almonds, it's that I look at them as fuel and realize that they're an impure form, it's like putting chemical additives in my gas tank, which I do very hesitantly and with extreme caution. Why do I treat my car better than I treat myself? I wonder if my perception of food will shift back but I'm not pressuring myself about it. If I feel the old cravings cropping up I'm trying very hard to pull them into the forefront and examine them, then deal with them in a way that reflects my love for myself. I find myself drifting off to sleep whispering, "I love you", to myself, and it's strangely soothing. For so many years I've been incredibly self-absorbed by beating myself up, punishing myself for not being beautiful or being too fat; wanting to be a warm and loving person even as I lost myself in the vicious cycle of self-sabotage that put a thick layer of fat over my female form.

Three years ago I was 61 pounds thinner than I'd been in quite a few years, but even as I shed the weight my inner voice was taunting, "It won't last... you'll fail again, because you're a fat ass", and I had a strong fear reaction and suppressed it instead of looking it in the face and dealing with it. I'm sure there are many reasons I gained most of that weight back, but the moment that felt like the turning point happened when I visited my oldest son at the behavioral modification program we sent him to in Florida. He was away for a year and during that time I shed those pounds slowly and steadily, even as I spent more and more energy suppressing my self-sabotage. I took him to Subway and as we left he said, "Mom, that guy was totally checking you out". I remember it well... my mind skipped like a dull needle over a damaged album and a strange mix of feelings welled up inside of me: apprehension, doubt, fear, alarm... but the doubt wasn't about whether or not he was checking me out, it was about whether or not I deserved such attention. The dam broke, and suddenly I was back to my emotional-eating, self-sabotaging self, after having been the biggest loser on the wall of weight and inches lost in the Curves that I worked out in.

I realized this week that I don't have that niggling voice this time. I'm nurturing myself, loving myself, and if that voice pops up I take it in my arms like a crying child and hold it until it feels better.