In the beginning

My daughter and I have already played tickle monster, Sorry, and are about a quarter of the way through High School Musical 3 before she finally begins to whine, "Mommy, I'm hungry."  After eating most of a tomato and a few bites of black beans, she pushes her plate away and maker her way onto her bedroom floor to create towers and castles out of building blocks.

Eating is that simple for her.

I don't remember it ever being that simple for me.

My preoccupation with my weight started long ago.  I must've spent my entire 7th grade year with a jacket tied around my waist in the vain attempt to hide my developing hips and ass from leering classmates.  In high school, I had an after school job, a new group of friends and the disposable income with which to buy whatever food I liked.  Given my propensity towards Popeye's and Pringles I soon reached 150 pounds.  By the time I got to college I'd already had a brief and dangerous (though ineffective) stint with diet pills.  Determined never to go that route again, instead, I alternated between serious binge eating and days on end of near starvation to keep my weight in check.  I wasn't an anorexic or bulimic, but like most of the young women I knew, I was willing to try virtually anything to lose the weight.

Nothing worked.

And two years late, by the time I dropped out of college, I weighed a whopping 200 pounds.

After many years of depression and therapy, I would eventually lose the weight.

I joined a gym, fell in love with exercise, and began to really pay attention to what I put into my body.

Now, at 39 years old, I'm a vegetarian who exercises at least 5 times a week.  I weigh 165 pounds and wear a size 10 jeans.  Though I'm still 30 pounds heavier than my goal of 135 pounds (the number I need to reach in order to achieve a healthy bmi) it's still a far cry from my once size 18 life.

I should be thrilled with my results and once upon a time I was but these days I'm just plain miserable.

And I'm not exactly sure why.

I hate my still poochy, post-pregnancy belly.

I hate my limited wardrobe choices.

But most of all I hate that for the past year and a half I've reverted back to my old binge eating behaviors.

Wolfing down chips and guacamole after my family's gone to bed and promising to "get back on track tomorrow".

Counting calories religiously and then "blowing it" for the day with one unplanned dinner out.

Subsisting on nothing more than hot water with lemon juice in an attempt to drop extra pounds before my self-appointed weigh in days.


In her groundbreaking work, "Women, Food, and God" Geneeth Roth writes, "Our relationship to food is an exact microcosm of our relationship to life itself."

This is 100% true for me.

And I'm so sick of the whole goddamn charade.

Sick of hating my life and trying to convince myself that the problem lies within my body and not my soul.

Sick of telling myself that if I could just "lose the weight" everything else would fall into place and be perfect.

I'm too smart for that.

In this blog I plan to explore all of my eating issues and attempt to make sense of my life, my body, my self.

I don't pretend that this will be easy as I've been on an emotional roller coaster ride with dieting and self-hatred for the past 20 + years but...my goal is to put an end to the inevitably fruitless journey that is dieting. 

Once and for all.