Naturally Curvy

After making a promise to myself and my readers on The New Australian about Blogging Naked – meaning blogging with more honesty and openness – I’m making good on that promise. I’m talking about what is going on instead of disappearing from my blogs.

When I don’t post, it’s not because I have nothing to say.

I stop posting for two reasons: I get busy or I’m struggling with depression. Lately? It’s a lot more about the latter than the former.

Like way too many people, I had a childhood that left me like a particularly large onion: a lot of layers. For a long time, since before I came to Australia, I have worked through these layers. In an effort to become a better person and figure out the reasons for my less pleasant behaviours.

As you can imagine, the process is not easy. Who wants to face the lies they have told, excuses they have made and chances they deliberately missed out of fear/anger/stubbornness/etc? Even so, I’ve kept on.

But with each layer I peel back and discover, feelings come pouring out. Because of the circumstances that made these layers, the old feelings are often negative. Nothing is more heartbreaking than the fear of a little girl, even if the event happened years ago.

Feeling those things over again, exposing the raw wounds, often sends me into depression. I can handle those things better now that I am an adult, but the pain still exists. And when it’s hard to get myself to take a shower, blogging isn’t my highest priority.

I’m dealing with things the best I can, even if it means crying, interrupting my husband at work with a phone call or just plain admitting to myself (and to my husband) that I’m having one of my ‘crazy days’.

I choose not to be medicated because, frankly, I think going for the causes instead of masking the symptoms is the way to go. I know my depression stems from my past. I know that dealing with all the things I have dealt with so far has made me a stronger, happier person.

Sometimes it’s all about saying the words to someone and getting them out of your head. Some days I need a cuddle. And some days I just can’t blog or get out of my pyjamas or face the world because it’s just too much.

On other days, it’s blogging and the friends I have met online that get me through the toughest times of my life.

For that, I thank you more than you will ever know and thank you for your understanding during the quiet times.

It began not as a decision but as a single acknowledgment.

I’m eating because I’m emotional.

The thought didn’t stop me. I still ate. But it did give me pause.

The next time it happened, I thought: I’m eating because I’m bored.

That time, it did stop me. I acknowledged that I wasn’t hungry, just bored. So I didn’t eat. Again, I didn’t think about it much past the acknowledgment and action.

What started out as such a small event has now snowballed into something I think about nearly every time I consider putting something in my mouth. Sometimes the thought stops me from eating, sometimes it doesn’t. The thoughts vary.

I’m eating because I want comfort.
I’m eating to punish myself. (I really dislike feeling full.)
I’m eating because it tears me up when The Bloke is feeling down and I can’t make him feel better.

I’m eating because I’m afraid.

More often than not lately, all of these thoughts have come together in a jelly mass of:

I’m eating because something is missing.

I live in a new country where I am safe, have a home, have enough to eat, have an amazing husband I love with every ounce of me, get to work doing what I love even though I don’t always make much…

What could possibly be missing?

That’s the question I am stuck with as I try to get past all the triggers that make me want to eat. It’s something I’ve had on my mind nearly constantly, sometimes depressing me and sometimes inspiring to get ‘out there’ and ‘do more’.

The more I have been thinking about it, the more I know that fear is what is keeping me from discovering what it is that I need to do to shake my dependence on food to try to fill that gap.

Perhaps I need to get out in the world and take some classes to meet new people.

Perhaps I need to join a club, day-travel more, get lost or do other things that make me nervous.

Or perhaps I need to stop worrying about whether people will believe me or whether I’ll cause trouble and finally do what I have been aching to do ever since I moved to Australia:

Stand on the rooftops and scream, “I left because I was being abused!”

Perhaps.

All I have at the moment is the knowledge that I eat because something is missing – and that missing part is clouded by a whole lotta fear.

We want the best for our bodies. What want to eat what’s right and do what’s right. We want to be hot men and women. We dream of being yummy mummies and delish daddies.

So where does it all go wrong?

There are plenty of reasons why we fall back to old, bad habits. My ‘Achilles heel’? Stress. Something bad happens and I want comfort. I want that pint of ice cream in my comfy pajamas while watching a movie. I spent a lot of time alone growing up (not always a bad thing, trust me), so with my treat of choice in hand, I would do what made me felt good.

Unfortunately, what made me feel good didn’t do good things for my body.

But times have changed. I’m an adult now with adult coping mechanisms so I can handle problems and stresses without turning to food all the time. I know what those refined sugars and processed bits do to my body. Heck, I’ve learned how to handle most cravings with healthier alternatives or by ignoring them completely.

And yet, I still have those old desires. There is still some part of me that is convinced that I really would feel better if I could just have a pint of Ben and Jerry’s while watching a movie.

This is where the stumbles come in. If it were just a matter of making a decision, there would be a lot fewer overweight people than there are now. But it’s not just one decision; it’s a daily decision – maybe even hourly when you’re first getting started.

What many of us have really is an addiction – to food. That’s why even years down the road, you might be taken aback by a sudden want – not even craving, not anywhere close to need – for your comfort foods.

The body doesn’t forget addiction as easily as you would like it to. The key is to realize that, even if you did have it, you’d feel guilty, not comforted.

We just have to keep that in mind.

“Compared to what I used to eat…”

The other day, I noticed that I have been saying that sentence quite a bit lately. As things have been inconvenient sometimes for raw eating, I’ve found myself slipping little bit to little bit into what I used to eat. I haven’t done anything I’m ashamed of or regret…

…but then again, maybe on some level, I do regret. Maybe that’s why I keep saying that.

Compared to what I used to eat, I eat a lot less.

Compare to what I used to eat, I eat less sugar, white flour, cooked food, etc.

Compared to how I used to eat, I think more about what I eat and the affect it will have on my body.

BUT, ‘what I used to eat’ is what I did when I was forty pounds heavier and a chocoholic binge eater.

When it all comes do it, my saying ‘compared to what I used to eat’ is just an excuse to have the extra bit of food I don’t need. An excuse to eat for the pleasure of it rather than because of actual hunger. An excuse to stretch out my stomach little bit by little bit…

Excuses that are a result of our old habits and our fears pop up in ways we often don’t expect, but they do pop up. They do warn us that we’re slipping back into old habits.

If only we’re open to listening to our hearts and the words we say as well as our physical bodies.

Sometimes it amazes me that we can be told things hundreds of times over, but we will only truly *get* things in our own time.

For instance, I have been hearing ‘don’t treat your body as your enemy’ for a long time now, but only now am I really feeling like my body is something I need to love and cherish. Partly that is due to me considering my own mind to be the enemy in getting healthy, but it’s also partly because I needed that time to come to it of my own inner knowledge.

If there is only one other thing I feel I have truly learned at this point, it is that, in the end, we need to do what is right for us.

We cannot forever listen to the diet gurus, the meal plans, the dietitians and the naturopaths. At some time, it comes down to what works for our individual bodies, all of which differ in many amazing ways.

Like nearly everyone who has ever tried to lose weight, I have tried plenty of different things. Many silly things, many dangerous things and many completely safe things that just plain didn’t work. I’ve tried cleanses, pills, plans, replacements, etc. Some… well, some I regret ever putting my body through. While others had their time and place, and I am thankful for giving them a go.

With mostly raw eating, I feel like I have found what is right for me.

You may have recalled me saying the same thing with meal replacements. I don’t despite that. Earlier this year, meal replacements were exactly what I needed to start losing weight, to start taking control of my binging and to start taking control of my life in general. I occasionally have a meal replacement for breakfast still because I have a hard time eating breakfast.

And now I have moved on to what I need now, which is something that gives me peace and happiness.

If you’re struggling right now, feeling like nothing works for you, I encourage you to please keep going. You may not feel like it now, but you really are worth it. You are an amazing, unique individual and you will find what you need to maintain not only a health body but a healthy mind and soul as well.