Why the shift? Well, my weight is in the low end of my range
right now. Being lighter always reduces my worries about regaining. I suspect
it may also have something to do with the fact that I’m approaching the
five-year anniversary of maintaining my goal weight. In all of my past attempts
to manage my considerable tonnage, I’ve never kept it off this long. My usual
pattern has been to lose big and then gain it all back in a year or two. But
this time, I’ve somehow beaten the abysmal odds that a newly slender person
faces. So perhaps I feel a bit more confidence in my ability to keep Inner Fat
Girl at bay, knowing of course that the trick is to avoid over-confidence.
Yet I don’t think any of that completely explains my lack of
angst. There’s something else going on inside my head. I’ve talked a lot in
this blog about the food culture that surrounds us. What I haven’t talked about
as much is the food culture that lives inside us. By this I don’t mean food
neuroses or anxieties, or family food traditions, but rather the beliefs we
hold about food as it applies to each of us individually. Like my past conviction
that I could not resist York Peppermint Patties – or anything with a name that
began “Ben and Jerry’s…” And my current view that high-carb fare is a deadly
foe. Perhaps those notions are fading away, replaced by a new belief system
that holds among its articles of faith that food is not a Lorelei, beautiful,
seductive, enticing me towards certain destruction, but rather that eating is a
way to take care of myself. Something to be savored and enjoyed. Maybe even (ya
think?) that I’m in charge, not the chocolate.
Could it be that everything I’ve held true about eating is
not so much false as it is merely the way I’ve chosen to understand food?
If I get to choose, then there is hope for the future.
Ooh, I like the tone of this post. Don't you think that your recent victory at re-losing a few pounds has given you an added bit of confidence?
ReplyDeleteIts a fine line, making peace with food. Sounds like you are on the way.
I think it's a process and you have to work through the difficult stuff before you get to something better. I also think there's a bit of two-steps-forward, one-step-back going on. But, hey, I feel good now so I'm not going to psychoanalyze it too much.
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