Fatgrrl Evolution

For years, food has been my life. Love food, love cooking, love expressing my love for others through food. I've even worked as a sous-chef and volunteered in a soup kitchen. Then I realized that if I didn't change things I was going to die sooner rather than later, and likely not in a pleasant manner, developing hypertension and diabetes at age 36.

Fast forward nine years. Right now the food feels manageable. I've got so many good support systems in place, it is working: a plan of eating that is sane, nutritious and not punitive. A support group of people who I meet regularly at OA meetings and socially. A regular routine of exercise. A small group I run with twice weekly. A weekly therapy session. Support of family and friends. So the food is good. For the first time in my life it feels fairly sane.

But I'm at a new stage in my battle with the food. I've been a stable weight right now for a little over two years, and that initial euphoria of losing all that weight has faded. I've struggled with depression since I was in my late teens. And right now, it's the rest of my life that feels unmanageable. Last week I was very depressed, and it felt like it was impossible for me to get my life together, to do for that part of my life what has happened with my food.

This week I have a little more perspective: The other parts of my life are not as out of whack as my eating was. So I may be struggling with handling money, interpersonal relationships, and my career, but face it, who doesn't??? I've got to take it slowly, not keep heaping coals upon my head. It's not as if the rest of it fell apart when I got the food under control, it was always this way.

So, this is what life is when the food sits in its proper place.