Blog #9 Food Demons

Last year at this time!!

 Every time you talk to a fat person about diet and exercise the standard response is often something along the lines of “I didn’t get to be this size overnight”. Truer words... Getting to the point of being morbidly obese (where I was last year at this time) is a result of years of bad habits. These bad habits are not just eating pizza and drinking kool-aid and never setting foot in a gym. More often than not, the bad habits go much deeper. Committing to a healthy lifestyle is not just about doing the research, buying the books or joining the gym. It’s not even about losing the weight. It’s about facing and battling the demons that caused you to gain the weight to begin with. This is a much harder task than anything else in this process.


This is the next step for me as we embark on our new food regime. I always talk about what a healthy eater I used to be. I ate salads all the time (not the kind with cheese and ranch dressing either) and I never ate meat or fast food. I didn’t eat white rice or white bread or white pasta. I didn’t add salt or sugar to my food. To the outsider it looked like I had relatively healthy eating habits. But what I knew and what I hid from others was that I was afraid of food. Because I loved food so much and knew what it could do to me, I tried to convince myself that I didn’t like it and I didn’t want it. This is why it cracks me up when someone puts a picture on Facebook of some scrumptious looking burger loaded with cheddar cheese, bacon, onions, mushrooms, avocados and a side of fries glistening with grease, salt and ketchup (I digress) and people try to say how disgusting and unhealthy it looks. I just have to laugh because in my mind these are people who are trying to convince themselves that they don’t want that burger and fries. I was vegetarian for over 10 years and I would never have tried to say that meal didn’t look amazing. I wanted it, you want it, we all want it! But I didn’t eat it. Not because I didn’t want to; but because I was afraid of it.

Nina - Age 2

 

Nina with mama and big sister Shannon - Age 5

Food is my lifelong nemesis. I know this because of what happens to me when I eat certain foods or when I even think about certain foods. I know this because I have used these last 67 days of juicing to reflect on my relationship with food. What does food mean to me? What kind of mood am I in when I want different types of food? How does it make me feel while I’m eating it? How does it make me feel after I finish? How does it make me feel the next day when I’m at the gym trying to work it off? Sixty-seven days is a long time to think about this stuff. I have felt the gamut of emotions; from happiness, to fear, to anger, to shame. People who have a problem with food don’t just use it as an escape from problems and disappointments. If you are like me you also use it to celebrate. With every emotion comes a different desire for food.

Nina - Age 3

What are your demons? What drives your relationship with food? Is it sadness or depression, is it laziness, is it hanging on to your past, is it fear, is it pain, is it worry or uncertainty, is it a feeling of having no control over your life, is it years of telling yourself you can’t change, are you big-boned, do you have a gland problem, is everyone else in your family fat, do you not want to get too skinny or give in to society forcing its negative ideals on you about beauty, do you have kids to feed that don’t want to eat healthy, do you not have time to cook, is healthy food too expensive? Have I pretty much covered it?

Summer 2011 (b4 our move to Chicago)

SListen, I do not expect this new food regime to make me stop liking food, or stop wanting food that is bad for me, or even to cure my food addiction. I can’t cure my affliction with more food. But what I can do is learn to accept who I am and be honest with myself about how difficult this journey is going to be. I can stop being ashamed of myself which I know just worsens the problem. And most important, I can arm myself with some tools to help me live a healthier life and cope with my desire to eat when I am not hungry or when I want to eat things that will ruin my mental, emotional and physical health, and ultimately shorten my life.

Ask any alcoholic or drug addict; no matter how many years you go without it, you are never cured. But you can be the aggressor and find ways to battle and attack your desire to use your drug of choice. You must make a conscious decision to do this and acknowledge you are an addict and you are going to fight this battle for the rest of your life. And some days will be harder than others.

Chicago Carnaval 2013

Let me tell you something about yourself and I will hold up a mirror and tell myself the same thing right now. You are the problem. You are your own worst enemy. If you do not succeed at what you set out to do, whatever that may be, it is your fault and no one or no thing else’s. There I said it! It’s what we all know to be true but need to believe otherwise in order to function in life. But don’t despair; your brain is a powerful tool. Whatever it has prevented you from doing in the past, it can also enable you to accomplish now and in the future. Whatever limits you think you have are self-imposed. Just like your brain tells you to eat that hamburger and french fries, it can also tell you not to eat it. And as your brain is retrained, and you learn to identify your demons and gain the tools to anticipate their arrival and ward them off, hopefully your brain won’t have to work so hard every time you pass by your favorite Italian restaurant or bakery or ice cream parlor to stop you from walking in.

Also, you have me and a zillion other people to go through this with you. You are not alone and neither am I. But I am ready to recognize the position I’ve given food in my life and admit that I have a problem with food that I will never be cured of. But I also know that my mind is strong enough to fight it; especially if I arm myself with the right tools. We have to start somewhere on our journey to good health and better quality of life. And there is no time like the present!

Go Team Mendoza and Go H.E.a.T.!!!

Still dating, no discussion about marriage and baby YET!!  

A year later, Married and with baby Blakey boy.

Baby is now turning into a little boy and for us, well... feeling healthier and happily married (3-30-2013)