Dear Food Letters

[hexi2]

Hi All

Me again....I thought I would share my 'dear food' letter...gee looking back I have learnt so much about myself and food in the last 3 months since finishing refeed. I really thought once I got to goal I would just slip into my new life - god who was I kidding!

Anyway...I feel invigorated with all that I have learnt about myself and my relationship with food and hope this helps someone to 'accept' the new way of looking at foods....

Dear Food,

I love you and hate you…you have been an addiction to me for many years. For too long I have been a prisoner to over eating, seeing you and giving in has been a normal part of my life. For the most parts I ate whenever I saw you…grazing and ultimately overeating. It didn’t matter that I ate what I wanted when I wanted as I was obese so there was nothing holding me back. Things have changed for six months I was able to successfully deal with my addiction to you, I was controlled and ate out of hunger in most cases…life became smooth and calm. I no longer felt out of control or that it didn’t matter what I ate. I felt great, you gave me life and health…and as the weight came off from many years of overeating and abuse I regained my confidence and happiness in myself that I was winning this battle against you.

I never thought I was an emotional eater other than eating out of habit and boredom but one of the things I have learnt is that my relationship with you needs to change. If I adopt my old eating habits once again you will win and I will be out of control. You are my addiction and I will not allow that to happen. I worked too hard to get my weight and you under control. I accept that my relationship with you will never be the same again and I didn’t realise how many self sabotaging thoughts I would have about you. I just expected that I would move into maintenance without any issues – who was I fooling?. No longer am I a prisoner to you, you are not my reward – only a punishment when I spin out of control…rewards come from elsewhere. I eat to live only, I eat when I am hungry, I plan what and when I am going to eat…I am learning to get in touch with my body and eat when I need to rather than when I want to…undoing many years of bad habits that were adopted since childhood.

Hunger isn’t an emergency…I can deal with it – food is always there when I need it and if not a couple of hours won’t kill me. I will no longer obsess about you…there is more to life than an addiction to food. I also understand the ‘just a little’ doesn’t work for me…I have learnt the hard way…

I now understand that there is hunger, desire and cravings and the last 2 come only from my mind…I have new techniques to deal with you and my thoughts and am well on my way to living as a thin person and thinking like a thin person….It is not about ‘being good or eating good’ that language perpetuates the belief that I am being deprived…I am not being ‘good’ I just accept that this is the way I live…like driving the kids to school – it’s something that has to be done I don’t fuss about it, I don’t battle with it or think about it I just do it and that’s how my life is with you now…I just do it.

So here’s to our new relationship…cheers!