On the cooking show with Nigella Lawson, the end of most episodes shows her furtively tiptoeing to her fridge late at night for a snack, or to eat the leftovers from a feast she created earlier.
Nigella makes this little endeavour seem enticing and tantalising.
Except it isn't.
Not for me at least.
I've made too many of those trips to the fridge to count.
Usually after a "good" day. You know, one of those days where you've counted calories or points. You've written it all down in your food diary.
And then you blow it.
If you've never obsessed over food this will make no sense to you at all.
If birthday parties and celebrations haven't proved to be the equivalent of a total headscrew for you, this won't seem logical.
For YEARS I've dreaded parties in some ways. What will I eat? Can I eat that? Is that a "bad" food? Please waitress can you tell me what's in that? How many calories is in THAT? If I eat that what will the people around me think?
It's EXHAUSTING.
For years I've tracked food, written it down, thought about it constantly.
If I haven't done that, then I've exercised obsessively as a counterbalance to eating whatever the hell I want. Note to self, exercise is great for making me feel better but not a great weight loss tool. At least for me.
I spent alot of time reading Fat Acceptance blogs earlier this year, and whilst I found many of them kind of aggressive in tone, one point that kept coming up over and over. It was that overeating wasn't something that had a quick fix. It is a complex issue. It deserves more attention than buying some diet shakes and hoping they'll be the magic solution.
To me that made sense.
I've been very successful at weight loss in the past so why did I regain it?
Why did food and eating it (or not) take up so much of my thinking time?
So I made the appointment to see a therapist and hypnotherapist.
Since then it's all fallen away.
The weight, the issues, the angst, all of it.
It isn't a quick fix by any means. The hypnotherapy has calmed my anxieties and means that food is no longer a source of stress for me at all.
But I've had to confront other issues as a result.
As my therapist said, once you change a pattern, then other things shift to replace it.
I'm a work in progress.
I still have weight to lose but my attitude towards food has changed.
I liken it to when I first got glasses. I spent a long time marvelling at how the lenses allowed me to see things in focus. I was so damn grateful to be able to see properly. I feel the same about this.
Right now my house is littered with showbags and chocolate from our recent jaunt to the Royal Show. In the past I'd have spent hours thinking about what was in them. Craving it. And if I'm completely truthful in all likelihood, bingeing on it too.
Now I know they are there. That's it. I also know there is cat food in the cupboard and I don't need that either.
I enjoy my 3 healthy meals a day.
That's it.
I haven't eaten any chocolate since I started therapy
For the first time since the age of 12 when I was put on a diet I am at peace.
Food isn't bad.
It isn't good.
It's just food.
