Day 61

This is a post I don't want to make.  Having said that here I go....

When I started this whole process, the initial idea was surrounding diet and exercise.  I was tired of people telling me how I should eat and I  wanted to quit hearing them and listen to what I know is right.  I wanted to live a year the way I know I should without the slavery to others comments and opinions.  Well I am sure if you have been reading this at all you know I have said so little about the diet and exercise.  Truth be told, I have just not been able, willing, not sure what to really focus on that.  I think all this other (C) is also important and perhaps what needs to be worked on.  Maybe I needed to work on all the other (C) so that I can dig deep enough to face or get to the food and exercise issue... frankly not sure. 

I know yesterday, as I was driving in to Pisgah, I was starving.  I couldn't find anyone to eat with so decided to stop and eat at PF Changs.  I ate a dish there a week or so ago and I have been thinking about it ever since.  So I stopped and ate.  I literally inhaled that dish. (Garlic Noodles).   I mean  I ate it like a person who hasn't eaten in a month. It was sad.  I justified my choice saying it was quality...... but really.  There are so many things I could have gotten there that would have fit my belief about food and what I should be doing.  Yet I eat, or inhale a dish of noodles, oil, and spices.  (Wow I made that sound terrible).   As I was sitting there inhaling, I knew I was not eating for any of the right reasons.  This wasn't even for pleasure.  I was getting my drug.

I have never enjoyed salads.  It is not the taste, it is the fact that I feel nothing when eating a salad.  It is not a drug.  So much of what I eat is.  I know yesterday, I needed a drug to cover up.  Cover up the (C).  In some ways as I'm writing I'm wondering if the reason the food and exercise has been so hard to face is because I feel so raw and vulnerable, so outside my comfort zone, (dancing, twirling on a hill, just being completely open to so many about my personal daily thoughts) that I feel the need, even desperate need to have the comfort or the security blanket of food.  I don't know, but I have to figure it out or this year experiment is going to end with me weighing 100 extra pounds.  If I eat like I did yesterday at lunch every time I am eating alone I will be huge. 

This post is late because after working till 12, I couldn't find anything to write about....LOL....seriously.  I knew all day... I have known for days, that the real issue, the thing I need to deal with is this.  I just hate facing it.  I don't even know what I am facing.   I guess, I will make a list of what I think is getting in the way...


Fear (I will fail)
Letting go of my security blanket or drug terrifies me
Afraid of what I MIGHT have to give up if I start choosing food with a healthy mind.
I feel like I might loose a friend. (this statement is so true it brought tears to my eyes)
Comfort
Leaving experience and joy behind.  (if I eat salad, I miss out on the joy and delight I would gain from eating the pasta)

Wow I sound like a full blown addict.   I heard a man recently make the claim that there is no such thing as addiction, it is all a spiritual strong hold... that all addiction is sin.   I don't agree, however right now his comments are haunting me, how much of this is simple sin.  I guess you could say I'm not surrendering to Him if I am cripped with fear.  I didn't want to write this blog because I have no idea what to do with all this.  I don't know what is (C).  I don't know where to go, or if I can.  I know how I should eat, I am getting over worrying about what everyone else thinks.  I don't want to be eating for anyone else, but I don't know how to let go of the comfort that food is for me.  I don't think food should be just fuel. I don't think it should just be about nutrition, pleasure should be involved, but that is different than using it as a drug.  I need to figure out how to do that.  Do I just have to first get rid of the need for a drug?  Perhaps, I like the sound of that.  Keep working on getting rid of the (C) in my life and magically, I will stop needing the comfort and will start embracing salad?  I don't really believe that is the way to go.  I just am not sure!  PLEASE.... IF YOU THINK YOU know the perfect combination of food that will cure me, that will fix this.... I don't want to know right now.  I will welcome you prayers and love, but this I need to struggle with. 

I think I need to struggle with it because, I need to understand so much more than the food.  I am realizing as I am writing how much I need to discover and work out in myself, first. 

Well this is the most unorganized post ever.  It is like brainstorm writing.  I have no conclusion today, except that I am a mess, and perhaps there is so much (C) surrounding this issue that I can't even begin to uncover it all.  I am sure for some of you, reading this you know you have the answer, it is glaring, obvious and simple.  I am sure it is and perhaps I will discover it, but please please, just love me in this.  Don't try to fix me.  I have spent a life of everyone trying to fix this issue in me and it doesn't work.  It may be that I am hopelessly stubborn, but whatever it is I need your support in this discovery not your direction.  I need to work through this.  Perhaps that is one of the reasons it is so hard for me to blog about because I don't have it figured out.  I know if I have it figured out it is harder for you to tell me the magic cure. 

I can't tell you how many times random strangers have told me what I needed to be doing to stop being fat.  It started when I was 10 years old.  I was a healthy 110 pounds and 5'4" tall. (my current height) I had already gone through puberty, I was a very healthy weight for the womanly body I already had. A gorgeous woman who was traveling through  Ethiopia told me, "You need to make sure you start right now being careful of what you eat or it will get out of control.  You don't want to get fat."  I heard, " you better start eating better, because you ARE getting fat."  I was already having a hard time adjusting to the woman's body I had all of a sudden been given.  I had grown a huge amount in height in one year and I had breasts.  I was so much taller than all my little 10 year old friends who were Philippine and still had ten year old bodies.  I know she didn't mean what I heard, but it was traumatic enough that I still remember what I was wearing, where we were, and what she looked like. 

Once after speaking at a women's retreat I received a letter in the mail from a former Pisgah classmate.  It contained some magic potion for loosing weight.  She wrote a long letter about how much happier I would be etc.  I was 45 pounds less than I am now.  Not skinning but a healthy weight. 

Grandparents, on a regular basis tell me what I need to do.  And many others.

I can't write this without crying..... (CCCCCCCC!!!!!)  ERG!!!! Why is this so emotional an issue for me.  What a week to think about this issue :).... Well I guess I will stop rambling on, wipe my tears and go start my day.  I will simply pray about it.  I'm going to breakfast with Beth! Excited about seeing her, it has been too long.

It just dawned on me, when writing about breakfast with Beth, if I am with friends I am not using it as a drug!  Yesterday I was all alone and my food became my companion. I am not saying I eat healthy with friends, but the relationship to the food is different when I'm with friends. (No conclusion just a little insight.)

So today, I am looking forward to breakfast with Beth.  Will pray that God will give me an extra portion of comfort, strength and insight today.

Yes this post was late, less about the late night and more about working up the courage to just let it all hang out... so to speak.