Time for a Personal Food Revolution

My Dear Blog Readers:

I am so happy to tell you that I’M BACK – hopefully for good. I have been on quite the journey for myself. My last posting was a tribute to my biological brother who had committed suicide just after the first of the year. The pure stress of that time in conjunction with other issues that I dealt with shortly thereafter sent me into a whirlwind. In early January I was dealing with personality issues within my marriage, my grief, my husband’s loss of the ability to drive for 2 months, thanks to his epilepsy, and, I thought, my food issues. Something had to give and I needed to start somewhere to get some help, so Mike and I enlisted the assistance of a licensed marriage and family therapist (LMFT) to start the work on our issues in late January. We began sessions as a couple, but it quickly became apparent that we both had our own individual “junk” that we brought to our marriage. If we were to thrive within our relationship, we needed to work on our own stuff as well.

It should come as no surprise that my main issues were around my relationship with food and how it has shaped how I feel about myself and my willingness to be all things to everyone except myself. As I told my life story to Jenny, our LMFT, I began to realize a few things about myself. First, like most people, my life has had some challenges along the way. (I never realized that.) I have always looked at my life as being happy, never realizing that I dealt with my pain by eating it. Over the course of time, food became everything to me – my friend, my confidant, my consoler, my counselor. It made the hurt go away when I had to deal with confrontation. In the beginning of my relationship with food, it was a way to be defiant to my father who was obsessed with thinness. In essence, I developed a food addiction.

I recalled a story of when I was about five years old. My dad was talking with my uncles at a family party. He called me over to him and showed me to my uncles. He grabbed my thigh and said “See, she’s not fat. She’s solid.” I guess that he had been talking about me. I wasn’t fat. I was an average size. You may recall that I have a daughter who is nearly that age now. I had visions of saying the very same thing about Ava and could not even fathom it. I grew up with the connotation of those messages and the idea that I wasn’t good enough “as is” and began eating myself thru life because, after all, that’s who I was, right?

I allowed my opinions about myself to be shaped from these experiences. I dove into “help” mode. I grew up in an atmosphere of commitment to your family, including extended family and to others. It was an atmosphere of service to one another and self-sacrifice to take care of loved ones. I dove into many meaningful relationships and have reaped the benefits of having many good friends – but somehow I still managed to lose myself along the way. I kept myself so busy doing things in general and for others that my needs either came last or ceased to exist in my own world. I guess that maybe I didn’t feel like it was important or I didn’t acknowledge that there was a need to get healthy. The truth is that it WAS important! It was greatly important and now I have to spend time unlearning the way that I am used to living and learning how to give myself grace, forgiveness and, above all else, kindness to myself as I pursue a healthier way of living. I now realize that I sacrificed my own well-being for the sake of all else, primarily because I didn’t think that I was worth it. In the end, I was still hurting those that I loved by not taking care of someone that they love – me. It’s sad, isn’t it? I think so.

I am now realizing that I need to refocus and turn my attention to the treatment of my relationship with food as an addiction. I have recently come to realize that one of the things that I have going for me is a very definite sense of resilience. As I have reflected on my life experience thus far, I have developed a tremendous ability to persevere and survive. The trick will be that my survival sometimes required that I sacrifice myself where now I need to preserve myself and find new ways of coping with my issues. I also realize that I cannot bite off this entire endeavor at once, but take it one day at a time. So, let’s talk about the current state of things for me.

Unfortunately, I had begun to go back thru drive-thrus again so I recently re-instituted my “no drive-thru” rule for myself. In addition, I am determined to kick my Coke Zero habit in order to increase my health. I am drinking water, tea, and Crystal Light during the day and allow myself one Coke Zero at dinner time for now. I have made the commitment not to buy soda for everyday consumption once my existing supply is gone. This is huge for me! I have also formed a team to do the Epilepsy Walk on May 21st, so I need to start walking so that I don’t die trying to walk 5K that morning. I have been dealing with some back problems lately, so I need to start slow. My physical therapist has advised that I start with a few blocks and build up. So to summarize, here is what I’m committing to this week:

1. No drive-thrus – Ever
2. Limit of one can of Coke Zero (diet soda) per day until supply is gone
3. Walk the equivalent of 4 – 8 blocks each day Wednesday thru Sunday of this week

Thank you for your inquiries, your caring and your support. As you can see, this journey has become even more personal, but I’m happy to share it with you.

Until next time,
Carla