As a solid over-six-feet-tall woman, I can put away a serious amount of food. I always\u00a0could. I currently reside inside a 50-lb overweight body.<\/p>\n
My history with food is tumultuous, at best. I grew up in a small family, on welfare, and\u00a0sometimes if you didn\u2019t eat fast at dinner time one of your siblings would finish the instant\u00a0mashed potatoes before you were full. Other days we would come home from school really\u00a0hungry, and find bare cupboards.<\/p>\n
Enter my adulthood, stage left, and I went to boot camp. Yes–real life boot camp, the\u00a0screamy kind. In boot camp you have about 30 seconds per meal to get \u2153 of your daily calories\u00a0down your gullet before there is a crazy, sweaty drill sergeant spit-yelling at you to get your\u00a0puny butt off his damn chair. All of these things contributed to my scary emotional attachment to\u00a0food later on. Now I find myself sometimes eating incredible amounts of fried, candied, wrapped-in-bacon food.<\/p>\n
For a while I was purging my binges effectively, and even got down to a normal weight. \u00a0Granted, it was the low end of normal. But that kind of lifestyle is not sustainable. Beating the\u00a0purging was a struggle, but I finally did it. However, since I didn\u2019t seek professional help during\u00a0the struggle I\u2019m still binge eating. One of my biggest regrets is not seeking guidance early on.<\/p>\n
Every single day is a battle for me. When I do badly on an exam at school I swing by the\u00a0coffee shop for a cookie, and a croissant, and a bagel, to accompany my latte; even though I\u00a0know they aren\u2019t good for me. I\u2019m an educated woman working in the health sciences, yet I\u00a0engage in this harmful activity every day.<\/p>\n
I found myself recently questioning the reasons for my binging, and asking why\u00a0sometimes it\u2019s easy for me to eat reasonable amounts of food and why sometimes it\u2019s such a\u00a0struggle. Because of this careful introspection, I have identified something in my life that needs\u00a0to be changed. Very shortly I will be making drastic changes to my relationships that will\u00a0dramatically alter my lifestyle, hopefully for the better.<\/p>\n
All of this being said, I take stock of my triumphs nearly every day and am sure to\u00a0celebrate my victories, however small. The hardest part for me is to stop a binge once it starts\u00a0happening, but I find it helpful to move my body in some way. Sometimes I will go for a walk, or\u00a0do some stretching in my living room, or even take a shower–anything to take myself physically\u00a0out of the situation. One thing that I\u2019m certain of is that shame and berating myself for a loss of\u00a0control is not an effective way to feel better.<\/p>\n
So here\u2019s to today, and the next day, where even if I don\u2019t eat perfectly I will still cherish
\nmy body and be thankful for what an amazing job it does for me. I\u2019ll try my hardest today to
\nhonor that contribution by being nice to myself… while accepting that ice cream every day is not\u00a0necessarily a \u201cnice thing\u201d. I encourage you to take inventory of your feelings. I hope you can\u00a0honor your vessel, and have the courage to make those changes necessary to find peace in\u00a0your heart.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Rachel is a full-time student and part-time counselor; full-time friend and ex wife. An addiction to dog-sitting led her to leave her husband and get a cat. Long story. She dabbles in blogging, crafting, baking, and other tedious tasks.\u00a0Long baths and fresh air come strongly recommended in her world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bingeing A Guest Post by Rachel As a solid over-six-feet-tall woman, I can put away a serious amount of food. I always\u00a0could. I currently reside inside a 50-lb overweight body. My history with food is tumultuous, at best. I grew up in a small family, on welfare, and\u00a0sometimes if you didn\u2019t eat fast at dinner […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25615,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[20,4918,44,3449,55,64,65,2754,84,3448,91,92,104,1816,105,2565,2250,152,154,2559,193,194,2777,214,298],"tags":[1639,4919,1503,4922,4924,4923,4927,3452,4920,1714,4926,4925,4921,2535],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/diet.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25449"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25449"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25449\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26060,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25449\/revisions\/26060"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/25615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}