One More Step

Well, I'm just sitting here on my floor listening to the Zac Brown Band and thinking about life. Do you ever do that, imaginary cyberspace friend? Just sit and be. No? Well, you should do it every once in a while. It's something I recommend because how can you be in tune with your own life if you don't sit and listen to it every once in a while? Listening to my life right now, I can tell you that I'm getting stronger physically, but my will to eat better has not gotten stronger. Eating has always been a struggle for me, ever since I've been a small child. Looking back, I don't see how there was any possible way I was going to get out of my childhood without developing a food addiction. And I didn't. Food is both my lover and my enemy. The addiction can take over when I least expect it, and I cannot stop obsessing about some food or another unless I go out and eat it. This is not a normal relationship with food. I can blame it on hormones all I want, but when I really sit down and listen, I know they are not wholly to blame. Yes, I'm a woman, so I will crave carbohydrates right before my period, but what about a week after? While I am eating, I'll feel so satisfied, but very shortly after, if I don't already feel sick from eating whatever, I will be literally racked with guilt because I know better. I've studied this stuff, and I know what I should and shouldn't put in my mouth, at what times of day I should eat certain things, and so on and so forth. Do you know how I knew I probably wouldn't get out of childhood without a food addiction? I was a food sneaker. Not just the occasional cookie or anything like that, I would sneak whenever I could. I obsessed over it. And I had teenage brothers who ate like crazy, so I don't think the food was missed that much. Then, as I got older, this turned into "drives" I took either by myself or with my sisters. We laugh about our "drives" now, but they were just another symptom for me. Unfortunately, and I've said this before, you just can't stop eating food. You need it to survive. I remember times when I was a teenager and I would just wish so much that all I needed to survive was a pill, that food didn't exist. I loved and hated it then, too. How to have a healthy relationship with food? I'm not sure, but I'm hoping to find out. It's like that will all addictions, I think. You just have to find that healthy relationship, either it's to cut it out of your life completely (smoking, alcohol, pornography) or to find a way to bring it back and make it work for your life in a way that is healthy and productive (I'll let you come up with those ones yourself). Now, I don't think I'm a hopeless case. Not at all. I don't think anyone is hopeless, to be completely honest. Within the confines of this food addiction, I have lost 80 lbs. Each of those pounds has been a victory against this addiction, and I want everyone to know how hard fought those 80 lbs have been. I have fought against this addiction every step of the way. Every single friggin' step (ah, Jim). But I think it's time I started asking for help with this thing. So, I ask for your help. If I'm not near you, then you are probably off the hook because I don't break bread with you that often, but if you are near, then I need your help whenever we do eat together. I need your encouragement. I know this is deeper than just eating a cookie, so I'm asking for your prayers to help me with whatever emotional/spiritual things that will come with asking for help and finally facing up to it. Really facing up to it and trying to break it.

This is just one more step down the road I started almost two years ago. A needed step that I've put off for too long. This is just a warning for whoever wants to achieve long lasting weight loss (after being overweight for a long time), you have to, just have to, deal with whatever brought you to gaining weight in the first place or what kept you at a heavy weight for a significant amount of time. It's never just because you're lazy. That's a symptom of what's really going on and if you do not deal with that, you will never, ever be whole.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-7fZJ442_E&feature=fvw