Hey all! I’m sitting here eating a breakfast of brown rice and berry cereal with almond milk and a banana. I have been refraining from doing a real post here for a few reasons! First of all, as noted in a previous post, I’ve made some astounding realizations about my eating behavior recently. I basically discovered the root cause (or at least a major one) to my ‘disordered’ eating habits. However, unfortunately awareness alone has not healed the issues. In fact, they have increased since I became aware of them. Which makes sense given the truth that ‘that which we focus on grows’. In the past week I’ve had amazing and beautiful spiritual experiences, including a superconscious mind meditation during my metaphysical class the other night, but for some reason my eating issues have increased. Part of me knows that this is happening so that I can be fully aware of what has gone on in my brain for years so that it can be brought out and healed. But this knowledge doesn’t make anything any easier.

I have gone on wonderful nature walks, connected with my inner spirit and soul, had wonderful conversations with friends of a like mind, etc. But then late in the day – for the past several days – I will suddenly start having VERY strong cravings for ice-cream – and we are talking Ben and Jerry’s full fat ice cream. Or overwhelming cheese cravings. (Nothing new to me unfortunately). I have been unable to say no to the cravings. So I give in then feel terrible afterward. I am really afraid that I’ve gained weight back although I am still fitting into smaller clothing. (No scale for the past few days either). It’s strange – even with all the excess fat and sugar intake, my weight is still coming off, which led me to the realization that I shared in the last post.

Since my alcohol drinking days are over – I now have over 100 clean and sober days! – this food issue seems to be one of my last major hurdles to self-mastery. Well, sort of – I do have a couple of other habitual patterns that I’m planning to transform as well. But the food thing is the major one because of all the angst and suffering that it brings.

One reason I haven’t updated here much lately is because I want to be able to offer a solution to others going through this. I want to actually have a solution and focus on it rather than sit and whine about my problems. At the same time, I don’t want to ignore the issue and pretend it’s not happening, like I’ve done on one or two of my other personal blogs in the past. I feel led to tell the whole truth here. I know that by sharing the truth here openly, many readers will be able to relate.

It is said that true ‘mastery’ of anything comes through practice.

So on that note, today I am going to do two things. First of all, I am going to do something I did before, which is to eat lots of apples and drink green tea through the day. That seems to head off cravings very well. Second, I’m going to work on keeping my mind centered, calm and focused on productive things. If and when the cravings start, I’m going to use the discipline I’ve learned through meditation and concentration exercises and continually bring my mind back to things I do want to think about. In the past few days I already tried questioning where the thoughts/cravings were coming from and have figured that out. The knowledge was and is useful, but knowledge alone is not helping the problem. Now it seems the only thing left to do is practice diverting my attention onto other more productive things. I’m going to use my developing visualization skills to focus my attention on who I am becoming rather than harp about who I don’t want to be. (And of course I will stuff myself with fruit and tea until craving subside ).

I will definitely be updating about this here, especially now that I’ve shared honestly about it.

One of the major revelations I had in the past week is that I have been practicing a form of bulimic behavior for years now. No, I do not purge in the way of throwing up or laxatives. My indulgences aren’t big enough to qualify as official binges either. However, this is my behavior: I will overeat or overindulge. Then I’ll feel really guilty about it and either throw out food, or swear off a food group for the next day, or starve for the next day, or something to that effect. I would ‘overeat’ then ‘under eat’ later to make up for it! It hit me like a ton of bricks this week that this is a form of bulimia (just not in the official and diagnosable sense). This realization was VERY eye-opening, especially once I looked up the mental cause for bulimia in Permanent Healing (one of the most amazing books ever). In the metaphysical world, every ailment and illness is caused by a thought pattern or mental attitude. Bulimia’s has to do with feeling the strong need/urge to please others and prove things to others. The healing suggestion for it is to first figure out what YOU want, then work on making it happen for yourself.

When I read this, it was so eye-opening because I had been practicing that mental attitude – the need to please others – for years! I spent five years trying to prove to everyone in the blog world and in real life that I was/am in control of my weight! I know I said I wanted to lose weight in order to be healthy, but there was always the overwhelming thought of wanting to prove my strength to others. I know it sounds so silly, but once again, I’m sure lots of people can relate!

Anyway, it’s been really interesting to see the many causes for my excess weight. I’ve discovered so much over the past few months. It’s really opened my eyes to see the true reasons that so many people are overweight and struggling. We feel so ashamed and think we are gluttonous and greedy. But it’s not that. It goes so much deeper. And there are so many emotions, thoughts, patterns and fear associated with excess weight. The good news is that we can fix these. I’m working on it and am eager to share my journey with others, which is one reason that I am keeping this blog. I also realized recently that I don’t have it all that bad at all! My highest recorded weight was 182, which is just a couple of pounds into the ‘obese’ category for my height of 5’5. I am nowhere near that number now but have this ridiculous fear that my weight will shoot back up there.

Feel free to leave comments if any of you can relate! I will definitely continue to update about my progress with these issues.

It’s a gorgeous cool day out (in the 70′s – wow!) and I am going to go for a long walk at the park.