Peace Brings Power!

Week 3 - Step 3: Make Peace with Food

From Intuitive Eating: 

"3. Make Peace with Food Call a truce, stop the food fight! Give yourself unconditional permission to eat. If you tell yourself that you can't or shouldn't have a particular food, it can lead to intense feelings of deprivation that build into uncontrollable cravings and, often, binging When you finally “give-in” to your forbidden food, eating will be experienced with such intensity, it usually results in Last Supper overeating, and overwhelming guilt."

Make peace with food huh? Well, I'm getting there. I still have a ways to go, but I feel like I've made a lot of progress in the last three months. I'm not binging near as often as I was when I started. I'm only overeating about 1/2 to 1/4 the time. I still struggle quite a bit with the emotional eating, but... I'm not giving up. I have a feeling when I get to that step I will probably work on it longer than a week. Maybe a month. I think of all these steps, that is truly what I struggle with the most.  

I think that I am actually at peace with the play foods. I honestly and truly believe they are no longer off limits and that I can eat them when ever I want. It's almost like they have traded places with healthy food. I have been hesitant about healthy food or diet food. Thinking about it, I think it's because I'm afraid of it. Afraid that if I eat it I will start sliding back in my thinking. But... I know what the next step in making peace with food is. I need to give that fear to God and let go. And then accept healthy food the way I have the play food, and fall in love with it!

In all the diets I've ever been on, I don't think I've really ever LOVED the food! I think most times I tolerated it, sometimes I liked it or didn't mind it. Sometimes I found things that I actually did love! I wrote the first part of this paragraph, but as I read over it, I realized it isn't true! I mean sure, there was some food I didn't love and will never eat again because I don't have to. But really, I did love a lot of the food. It tasted good and I made great meals! I think what tainted the food though was the restriction. Feeling like I had to eat it to get what I wanted. That was what I didn't love. It was like the food took my power away from me, and for that, I hated it! 

This time it's different, because I have the power! I can make the choice to eat healthy - when I want to. And I can make the choice to eat a play food and NOT feel guilty about it.

I was just looking through all my pictures from this year, and man, I smiled a lot! I sweat a lot! It was a good year. I was in LOVE with how I felt! I was in LOVE with the energy I had! I was in LOVE with myself! And while I realize I feel at peace with food, I also realize that eating only play foods has taken away some thing that I LOVE, cherish, and crave...

Energy! 

While I have been making peace with play foods, and I do believe that has been a very important process for me, they are not very nutritious. They do not give me energy. So even though I have wanted to move my body, I'm usually too tired. 

I have been thinking about this all weekend, and I feel like.... I mean I'm ready... I mean I need... I mean I want to eat healthy foods this week! And what I LOVE about that, is that it's truly a want! I want to have the energy I know they'll bring! I want to have the energy to really start moving my body again! I mean I really felt good when I did that! I felt so alive! And what I also love is that I KNOW that even though that's what I want, it doesn't mean I have to start depriving myself of the play foods I have been devouring. It just means that I don't really feel like or want them all the time any more. I know that I can have them when I want, and that is so freeing! But even more freeing is knowing that I don't NEED them all the time! I no longer dream about them, drool over them, or obsess about them. I am at peace with the play foods.

I found this picture, and I don't know if I had ever shared it, maybe I did. But I just love it! I love the HUGE grin I have! And I love how you can see this delight and pride in my eyes of knowing how hard I had worked to earn that bright pink glow! I want that glow back. I want to sweat again! And the best part is that I know I can have it all! I can have the healthy food, I can have the play food, I can have the sweat! It's mine for the taking, and don't mind if I do!