My relationship with food...

...I typed the title and my hands started to shake. Deep breath. Let it go. I'm overweight. My doctor wants to put me on a diet and exercise. I'm willing to do the exercise, and have, but food is not up for discussion. Ever.

Weight loss is all in my head. Really. A few years ago, I was biking ninety miles a week. Yes, you read that correctly, 90 miles a week, and I wasn't losing weight. Well, I had been losing weight, and then my mother mentioned how great I was starting to look. I put on ten pounds in less than two weeks. Within a month, I'd gained twenty pounds. It wasn't long before I hit my highest weight ever. My relationship with my mom isn't healthy.

I used food as a reward. I used food as a punishment. I used food to stuff my feelings and even my thoughts. I've used food to gain attention and praise. At the bottom of it all, I used weight as a shield. People don't look at you if you're fat. They look around you or through you, which suited me fine because if they didn't pay attention that meant I didn't have to worry about unwanted attention. I've had short periods of time when I felt "safe," and I quickly lost weight, without any effort. Brilliant plan! I'll simply lose weight once I feel safe! Then I realized what I was doing. I was putting off what I wanted for someday.

Someday, too often, never comes. So, God and I had a little talk. What could I do to help me make someday today? Especially since safe isn't something I'll be experiencing anytime soon. If a door is closed, God will open a window, and I was asking for that window. The answer came in an unexpected way. I decided to re-invest in my food storage plan. Only this time, I'd be smarter about it. I'd make better choices. I'd actually choose what I wanted, and I would use it. I will rotate my food, which means actually using it, this time! Last time, I ended up throwing most of it out because it was years (more than a few) beyond the use-by-date. I've also learned that I am very happy without a lot of things as long as I have a few specific things. I'm also learning that though I like this, I can make do with that. I'm learning to make and be content with different choices.

Since I've been rebuilding my food storage, I've discovered that I'm not nearly as frantic about food. I eat less, and I actually do eat better because I'm making healthier choices for my storage. I know it isn't what some health fanatics would recommend, but I am never going there. Diet and nutrition have been crammed down my throat and used to shame me my whole life. I like a common sense approach, and I'm discovering it is working for me. I stopped beating myself up and stopped reading all the diet books and articles because they all start with "eat whole grains." I'm allergic to bran. Makes me sick, causes acne, and you should see what it does to my skin if I touch it, or maybe not. If it does that to the outside, can you imagine what it does to the inside? I'm learning how to listen to myself, to recognize when I'm full, to trust that I know what I want, to believe that I'm actually pretty smart and capable. The war with food is no longer a battle; it has become a game, and it's fun to play.