I’ve never been what I would call fat but I have always had to watch what I eat. Throughout my life I have been more active some years than others. I have never been able to “eat whatever I want” and retain my desired weight. But the issue of what my desired weight is and what is healthy are two different things. Obesity does run in my family and I have seen what the emotional damage can do to someone overweight.
I have had better luck in dieting even though I know it’s a way of life and not any one particular “diet”. I have used every excuse in the book including the standard long work hours, hormones and thyroid. Now I don’t know if any of that is untrue. To a certain extent I’m sure it may have something to do with it. But if I really think about the times I struggle, it also has a lot to do with how I feel about myself.
Such a revelation, huh? I know when I am unhappy I eat more to show I have control over my life. You would think I would know I am out of control by stopping myself and questioning what exactly is pissing me off. But not so easy in my world. Really not easy.
Because the smart me knows that it is not the anger that is making me eat. It is the fear and hurt that if I am the weight I want to be I won’t be safe. I will not have an excuse for why I can’t be everything I want to be. I will actually have to be responsible for everything that happens in my life. Not just the things I want to acknowledge.
This issue is just the tip of the iceberg. It affects how I work, how I dress, how I feel and how I treat other people. If I don’t feel secure in myself I tend to judge other people in a negative way. I’m not as forgiving or caring as I would like. My anger, if someone behaves in a way I find inappropriate, escalates to a point of attitude. And all the while inside I’m saying I am behaving that way and they are a reminder of what I shouldn’t be doing.
That’s when I reach for the chocolate. I recently received some dark chocolate cherries as a gift from a company that is from my hometown. Can’t find it anywhere else so absolutely love it and know how special it is. You would think I would take my time and revel in how good it is and how long I could enjoy it. But instead I polished off an entire one pound box in two days! That’s a lot of chocolate covered cherries. Did it make me feel great? No. Did I gain weight? Yes. Did I feel guilty? Yes. Was it the fault of the chocolate? Of course not. Do I sound juvenile even writing about this? Absolutely.
But at the time I was going to show whoever it was I thought was mean to me that I had the power! And eating chocolate covered cherries was going to do that? No, but I had the power to choose and that was all the power I needed for the moment. By the way, most of the time I am by myself showing “my power”. I understand why coaches and therapists give you tools to force you to walk away. They want you to tell the psyche you’ve got this and no need to shove food into your mouth. That the voice deep down in me is the one I should be focusing on. The loving one. The one that has my best interest at heart.
That voice is showing up less and especially now that I am older and worried about how hard it is to keep the faith. The faith
that I am trying. Some days it will be good and some days I’ll screw up bad. But the weight of knowing I am still
trying and still aware is much more important then what shows up on the scale.