My latest issue of O Magazine has Oprah shouting from the cover "the battle is over!" OK, not shouting, but it was certainly in large font in the top corner of the cover. Inside, Oprah reveals that she is newly aware of the root of her food issues after reading Geneen Roth's latest book. I read Geneen Roth's Breaking Free from Emotional Eating several years ago, and it really did change how I think about food and diets. I was in the midst of food unhappiness, bingeing after WW turned me into a fearful, point-counting thin person. Geneen's insight into compulsive eating and the insanity of dieting was an almost instantaneous light-bulb moment for me. I stopped judging myself by my food choices. I started eating foods that would satisfy me, foods that I really wanted (instead of foods I thought I wanted, or foods I thought I should be eating). I credit that book, along with When Food is Love, for bringing me back from the brink of a lifetime of disordered eating.
True, I haven't been happy about my weight for several years (read: nearly all my blog entries from 2007 and 2008). And I judged myself about food choices (snack cakes anyone?). But deep down I still knew that eating is OK, that if I really wanted a piece of cake it didn't make me a bad person. And now, back on WW and close to my goal weight, I still feel like a sane person. I eat what I want to eat, but I think more about when I'm really hungry, whether certain foods will satisfy me. I don't feel like a compulsive eater anymore. Most of the time I feel like a regular eater, someone who thinks about food at mealtimes or when I'm hungry, but not all the time. I'm happy to be in this place, and I think it takes work to stay here. I'm not smug enough to think I'm "fixed," because I've been in that spiral too often to think it's gone for good. But I do thank Geneen for helping me get where I am.
3 comments:
I'm nearly 59, probably too old to get over the WW-induced food insanity I've lived with my entire adult life. My life from 11 to 21 (when I joined WW) was spent going from one fad diet to the next, trying to be as thin as my best friend. There's always hope, though! Thanks for a thoughtful post.
My heart hurts thinking about all of us stuck in diet-induced craziness. It's not OK that we ended up there. It's not OK that even young girls think about calories/fat/perception before taking a bite of cake. I hope that I maintain my sanity about food, but I also know too well the insanity of it all. It's a horrible place to be.
Dear D,
Thank you for your thoughtful post. For those of us who have struggled with food, and there are many of us, compulsive eating is a way we leave ourselves when life gets hard...Compulsive eating is a way we distance ourselves from the way things are when they are not how we want them to be. The biggest thing we all need to learn is to reteach ourselves our loveliness. I wish you peace and wellness on your journey.
Geneen Roth
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