M&Ms

Time has gotten the better of me!  I haven't been putting as much thought into my food issues lately as I focus on trying to get ahead in my studies so I my vacation can be relaxing.  I do think about things from time to time, and sometimes I start a blog and get interrupted and just erase it.  That's life, I guess.  I'm happy my 10 year old son still wants so much attention and hasn't reached the eye-rolling and heavy sighs stage.  

I have been battling a head cold this week, and I am not letting it ruin my spirits.  I am grateful it came this week, we leave for our California vacation in s little more than a week.  I am really hoping we can all be healthy for this trip.  I can't wait to be reminded what 70• feels like!  One thing my head cold has done for me is kill my appetite.  I can't taste very well and that's a huge part of the draw of eating for me.  I have been drinking so much that I constantly feel waterlogged.  It's really a good tip to not eating as much.  Not that I'm trying to restrict, I am just forcing fluids to combat all the OTC medicine I'm taking.  So, taste is part of it for me (a huge part of day). 

Tonight on my way home from work I fell into a zone-out and imagined myself thin, jamming to some music in my car on the way home, having an internal battle about food and making the smart choice not to eat crap.  It was so bittersweet in my image, in a way I felt really in control and proud, but as the other emotion arose in me it was so clear and loud that I said it out aloud as if I were watching a movie, "Empty". Like something was missing.  It surprised me when it happened because I have tried thinking through being thin and how it really makes me feel.  Yes, it feels great to have reached a goal, but without the option to eat something that brings me pleasure when I get the urge?  That part sounds sad and empty.  It doesn't have to be a trade-off, though thats how things are always told to us.  

Two weeks ago I got up and worked out 4 days in a row.  I was starting to see the familiar collar bone I used to know, I was eating better too.  But by Friday of that week I was starting to feel run-down and as I was getting dressed I realized that the constant obsessing over my body, my outter shell and what that means about me as a person is just such a blinder to real life.  I thought about my friend who was diagnosed with cancer last month and just got the news that she won't live to see 2016.  I thought about the crazy amount of effort I would have to exert daily to make a huge change and it suddenly clicked for me that this really isn't worth all the obsession and self-loathing.  I am worth more than getting caught up in society's drama over this thing that is so meaningless in the scope of humanity.  I see what Geneen Roth is saying now.  Stopping dieting is a really huge step toward showing yourself some love.  Diets teach us that we have to fit someone's standards or we are wrong/bad/ugly/lazy/weak.  What a load of bull!  We are here to enrich and be enriched.  We are here to be a part of the human experience, to take and to leave behind, to share ideas and further ourselves.  Fat is like the crunchy candy she'll on the outside of the M&M, everyone notices how it looks, but the awesome stuff is what's waiting inside.