From Food To Health....

So...I've been reading a lot of weight loss and healthy living blogs lately. Then I started following people who wrote these blogs on Twitter and an addiction was born! Then I started following people that these people would recommend, which led me to discover more people and so on, and so on, and so on.

To make a long story short, I was inspired and cheered on, educated and motivated and finally decided to start a blog of my own. I know a thing or two about weight loss (and gain and more loss and more gain and reaching goal and maintaining, then some more gain). My original name for this blog was Food... The Final Frontier. No, I'm not a Star Trek geek (Yes, yes I am.) but food was my "final frontier". It's the one addiction I could never completely give up or live in that (ever elusive) gray area with, as you can see by my loss/gain ramble up there.


I've been recovering from one addiction or another for 21 years. I'm a recovering alcoholic, drug addict (8 years), recovering bulimic, anorexic, exercise bulimic (7 years).  I've overcome a compulsive spending addiction (3 years).  I was addicted to meaningless relationships (I know what you're thinking..."That's not an addiction."  Yes! Yes it was, I swear!  I couldn't be alone...like ever. My self worth and self-esteem was all wrapped up on having someone, anyone in my life romantically, often to my determent, so I purposefully spent 2 1/2 years by myself.  No dating, no sex, nothing, nada, zip.) Lastly and most recently I've quit smoking again. After a 2 year relapse I am back on track.

I have been actively working on recovery for one or more of these addictions for over 20 years. My recovery for each one was never linear (as I'm sure you can see by the lack of the number 20 in all my "recovering"  time.) There were many fits and starts and  many relapses but somehow, I've managed to put together some real abstinent time with every single one of these compulsions/addictions.

So what's the point with all the navel gazing blather?  Well, the one thing I have NEVER been able to have a period of abstinence or recovery with was food. Yes, even as a recovering anorexic and bulimic I've never been able to fully stop the compulsive overeating or the binge eating, but boy have I tried. For me food is "The Granddaddy" of all my addictions, my final frontier....and it's been that way since I was old enough to steal cookies from the babysitter's pantry. So I wanted this blog to be where I finally came to peace with my food addiction.

As I thought about what that meant for me I realized what I really want is 'the middle way'. I want that ever elusive gray area. I want to finally be healthy in body mind and spirit not just with food, but the way I think about food and the way I think about what food does for my body. While we're at it I also want more body acceptance and self love, and I'd like to be able to rest my body when it's tired and strengthen it through activity without feeling guilty that I skipped a day. I want to be able to make choices that are not so healthy and not worry about fat and calories. I want to be able to truly enjoy what I'm eating. I want to eat when I'm hungry and stop when I'm full without thinking so much about it.  Finally, I want to live each day to it's fullest regardless of what I weigh, how my clothes fit, what I ate or didn't eat or how much more fit I was this past summer

I want true health. Body, mind and spirit kind of health. So it's that journey to health that is my "Final Frontier", The Granddaddy of 'em all, my great white whale. If I've learned anything from years of struggling with addiction, it's never just about the object of my obsession, so my blog and my writing  can't be just about the food, it's got to be about true health.