A Good Thing no.3

Another thing that I've realized and feel totally fine with the past month: I don't write down what I eat from day to day anymore. I don't need to analyze what has passed my lips throughout the day. Whatever I eat, I simply eat. Whatever I don't eat, I simply don't.

Since July 2007, up until around a month ago, I would write down everyday every piece of food that passed my lips, be it healthy or unhealthy. It wouldn't matter. For ages, I would want there to be as little as possible written down each day, and that would make me feel great. Then I had to change this ritual, back in July 2008, and see it as being great whenever there was as much as I could possibly stomach, written down. For a while, I was scared to give up this daily ritual. I didn't want to stop analyzing what I was eating. I wanted to do it forever and I couldn't imagine my life without doing this. I didn't WANT my life without a food-diary. I had images of me, in 20 or 30 years time, having boxes and boxes of notebooks stored away containing all my food-diaries, that I'd collected from year to year. And being 50 years old, I'd look back at a binge I'd had when I was 49 or 48 and feel bad but also good because that binge wouldn't have made me fat. Making a record of something and keeping it "on file" in order to check back over it in the future, was who I wanted to be. Those are the visions I had of how my life was going to be. So I clung onto it, up until the beginning of January.

Up until this point, I noticed that I was forcing myself to keep this food-diary. It was a chore and I kept it up because I didn't want to be someone who ate without it being surveyed or controlled. But without feeling lost or alien, I've been breaking away from this habit. It has become something that really isn't important. I don't need to cling onto it anymore. It doesn't make me feel better about myself. I've not really thought about writing down what I would eat, for a while now and whenever I do, it's just too much effort to keep track. And I figure that if something is too much of a chore, then it really isn't needed anymore. And it's such a relief. It's like I've cut away from something I was so convinced I'd do and need for the rest of my life. But no, I can live without a food-diary. I don't need it. I like food, I deserve food and I'll always eat, no matter how hard some days still might get. My body will tell me what it needs. It will tell me what foods make me feel full and healthy and are good and also the foods that aren't. I'm not going to get this information from some diary that just encourages an obsession with food or eating in general to rule a person's life, in not such a good way.

Still on the subject of food yesterday.. I told Diann about quiting the supplement drinks, and shock was written over her face. She hadn't expected it at all. It wasn't a big deal yesterday. I didn't need the second-opinion I needed last week and I didn't need advice either. Yes, it was an issue on Wednesday when I came back from Holland, but I dealt with it myself, and now it's fine. I'm happier without them and I feel stronger for it.

All this goodness, taking me by surprise. Diann just kept on saying what a difference 2 months has made. And I know it's true. But can I take any credit for it? I don't know. It seems wrong to, for some reason. O my god, me just saying this, makes me feel so awful. So yes, I can take the credit for it. Right? Mostly I can. I want to take it all, but I can't. I think that's just the independent streak in me coming out. Always wanting to do everything without anybody else's help. But that's hasn't been the case. Doesn't everybody need help from time to time? Nobody can go through life without needing to lean on at least one person, when times get tough. I'm only human, just like everybody else. I just don't like admitting that I can't be without. It's so silly, I know. Because there's nothing to worry about. Everything is okay, and will only get better.. once the bug or virus leaves my stomach this is.. ;)