My Sojourn with Health

Saturday, February 4, 2017

FOOD IS NOT THE ENEMY!




I have come to learn that food is not the enemy in ANYONE's weight journey. NO matter what your issue with your weight, you can't blame food IF you ever want to Heal and get Healthy.
I am constantly reminded of this, number one, mistaken belief when I have a week like this week.
We often put the blame on food when we have weight issues. Food is really the hero in these situations and not the enemy. Food is life giving and life preserving. It is our own personal thought processes and/or emotions that are the enemy.
So this week was rough. The best way to give you a perspective without boring you with the details is to share that on Thursday this week I was sitting at my desk and I started having this weird thing happen with my vision. I was seeing flashing , moving, flickering lights in the periphery of my line of sight. I ignored it at first but when it did not stop I was a little concerned. Of course you start to run through all the things you have heard, it's a stroke , your going to pass out, etc...
Now normally I steer clear of Web MD but I was growing concerned and had to see what I could find. I got to the point that I was trying to decide if I needed to tell someone and seek help before something happened and perhaps I was unable to speak. (yes, it was scary)
SO Web MD quickly verified one option I considered, Ocular Migraine. Yes it is a real thing, look it up. Short version... It wasn't a stroke, basically it was a short lived reaction/symptom of stress. In all of my life I don't think I have been that stress before that I was having physical reactions. I of course have emotional reactions but as a Social Worker with excellent blood pressure I am a unicorn, but you all know that already and I digress.....
So that was my week...  Once I realized what was happening I also started to look at the week as a whole and realized that I had eaten more crap (sorry no other words for it) this week than I had in many , many , many years. Even with my tiny new stomach I still ate crap, just not very much, thank goodness. It was this process that made me realize or more accurately remind me that my issues with my weight are not about food but always about my emotions.
We can try to fool ourselves and say things like," I am just a foodie and love food" , or "I just can't afford to eat healthy", "I don't want to cook two different meals all the time, one for me and one for my family", "I eat how I was raised", there are ENDLESS excuses and/or reasons we can come up with to explain or weight issues. Most of our reasons point the finger at Food or sometimes others but ultimately no one, no thing is responsible for the situation we find ourselves in when dealing with our weight except ourselves!



So while this week sucked...  I am grateful for the reminder that this journey is mine and I AM RESPONSIBLE for it!  My journey is not about food, but about my personal emotional healing and health. So I pick myself up and continue to look at my habits, and look for adding even more tools to deal with my stress because I am choosing to stop using food as my scapegoat.

So all that being said I also have been stressed or concerned about the numbers, same old story I know.... anyway, I wanted to let you know that from my highest recorded weight at the surgeons office (not the pre-op weight they use) I am officially down 100LBS!!! YEAH!!!! Another milestone, I am in the "2's" for the first time since probably high school !  So I am moving forward and getting closer to the hip replacement. Approximately 35 lbs more until I can have hip surgery so I am anxious to get it off and get that done! That is my update for now.






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