Shifting Perspective

Sometimes in the quiet abyss of an empty house, while everyone is gone to their weekly responsibilities, I'm left.. Alone. 

All chores accomplished, all errands done or on hold. With more than the click of methodically wrapping yarn back and forth between two or more knitting needles.

It is often then that poignant remnants of past conversations echo in my mind. One memory burns with the dimly lit candle of my thoughts.

Gently she placed her hand on my hand, that laid haphazardly on my lap. She waited a very long 10 seconds and simply stated: Alicia. The acknowledgment of my name will always grab my attention, and I promptly stopped gazing into the abyss of my lap. I looked up, directly in her eyes. She softly phrases "this is going to take a long time. You are a recovering bulimic." The words were bricks on my already teetering tower of insecurities. She had placed this title right back on the starting line, and I felt exposed. Ready to bolt towards the bushes on the side of the race track. But no.. This time it was different. She wasn't a teacher, or a guidance counsellor. Nor was she a social worker, a pastor, a boss or a co-worker. She was known by no relation ties at all, I had just met her. And the respect grew as tears danced around the brim of my eyes. A naturopath first. One who would guide me to seek professional help from a therapist.

So began my start and stop process that lasted (now closer to) 16 years. At my lowest weight I was petrified of gaining just 1lb. At my highest weight (after gaining 110lbs) I kept building walls around my emotions. One that only I could hide behind even when help was readily available. I don't know when I realized that food was comfort. Maybe it was so many years past hiding in my closet when arguments escalated. Or when I would come home to an empty home and find home baked bread waiting to be served. Perhaps food had a special place in my heart after returning from Vancouver Island. I had been living with my Grandparents for the Summer of 1987. Any food I could have ever imagined or longed for was right ready for my devouring. 

The summer I was 10. 

And gained 25lbs.

This story is more of an iceberg melting. I've cried through the reality of keeping my closest friends from knowing my deepest struggles. Nightmares actually. 

Last year I decided it was time. 

One day at a time. 

When I started this newfound journey I was easily discouraged and felt all the familiar struggles of taking this all in day by day. I grew up with food anxieties that got worse as I was older (albeit without the childhood eating disorder) and often would go a whole day without eating because I couldn't have something I liked or the food triggered me being too full the night before. Opposite of a food addiction. I wasn't eating enough so my body was always storing. As of today I have lost 115 inches and officially 40lb. The inches lost this year and the pounds over the course of this decade. 

Honesty, transparency and the the fight on all mental battlefields, is a teetering point. What I had fought for behind ironclad emotional walls was none other than:

Freedom!

In the last 28 years, I’ve failed at weight loss no less than.. Ok. 1 million times. 

Sweets and I — we battle often. It’s only in the past year that I’ve found freedom to not avoid what may seem like a titanic sinking. I find myself finding peace, on this slow sailboat to a better port of landing. Wherever that is all I know is I will keep following that way, forward motion to a better place.

Moving on, moving forward, is the way you get unstuck. It’s also the way you lose weight mindfully without losing your mind completely. 

Do you ever feel a desperate sense that " its just right there, right in front of us, we’ve got to eat it all now? (And then, never again.)

Those secrets where you find yourself wondering why there is a still present want. A still unmet want. If you’ve ever convinced yourself that a whole box of chocolate bars is not enough, or even two cupcakes will be better than one. That is when you might finish, realizing you don't remember even starting. In those moments have you ever found yourself, ((wondering why)) feeling a sense of loss & doom that the 'treat' didn’t do what you thought it would?

Because I have. In unrelenting ways. That is; too many times to count, I am ravenous. 

What does it all mean, and what does this really say?

It says that I’m not hungry. Not for food.

I have this wanting. So many wantings. We all do. And I grew up really believing, and still kind of believing to this day, that food is a way, the way, to satisfy desires and cravings. It has nothing to do with my logical, rational brain; it’s so deep within me that undoing it feels at times impossible. And only slowly, I am changing that. I’ve got to. You’ve got to.

Shifting perspective, is a challenge. There will always be food and choices. Let’s keep our healthy intentions in mind all the while, room for life's unexpected celebrations.

Celebrating daily victories and realizing what's truly important is that I am changing from the inside out.