Lady release your jaw...this man is not a roasted chicken!

So I am in the grocery store yesterday fluttering around trying to balance the 20 items I have accumulated in my two arms, cuz I tell myself I don't have time to grab a cart or a basket and that I actually only need 3 items.
Then I saw that the new Cosmo had come out,that Special K(chocolate) was on sale, and that I needed a bag of 500 cotton balls. This is usually what happens and then some little tween stockboy walks up to me with a "pity cart" and all is well.

So I am standing in the soup aisle trying to decide between "Chunky"."Robust", or "I don't care I just want soup", when I glance up and see her. For a minute I am taken aback because it was like  I was looking at my own reflection back in the day.

She is very tiny, and you can see every single bone in her body. Her clothes are baggy and her hair is obviously thinning and just matted in a giant clump on top of her head. She is pushing her cart slowly and isn't even paying attention to what is around her,because she is to busy reading the back of a label of no calorie chicken broth.
She is studying it, anyalyzing it, and yes I know all to well mathmatically configuring how many sit-ups it will take to burn off what isn't there. She has a look of vacancy on her face, no emotion, no depth...just hunger...I can see it in her eyes...sharp,dark, unbearable emptyness, and although you can't see it, her body is screaming from within to please put it out of it's misery!
It is yelling at her to put down the "god damn" broth and go buy some bread, some milk, some butter, anything..just please don't feed me this carton of liquid "nothing"!
I want so badly to grab her, to shake her, to tell her to stop the insanity..but I know by the look in her eye that she is in her zone..her "leave me the fuck alone, I don't have a problem" zone.

I get asked on a daily basis, what it was that took me from being "death thin, and starring into the toilet bowl girl" to who I am now?
I honestly don't really know what it was, but all I can say is that after 17 years and then some "hunger" can suck it!  I was  really really tired of being hungry.

Starvation is probably the most god awful thing you can put your body through. I mean why do you think they starve prisoners of war to get them to break? It is one of the most angonizing, painful, slow processes of torture anybody can possibly imagine.
Not only does your body start to respond physically to hunger, but the mind tricks it plays on you are insane! You see your brain needs chemicals that only food can provide, without them it starts to shut down and in my opinion "flip the fuck out"

They have done countless numbers of studies on lab mice along with humans examining the behavior associated when the body is put on a very low calorie to nothing diet.
Such behaviors include not sleeping,hyperactivity,ticks,taking food and dividing it into small pieces,memory loss, and of course obsessing over food.

Obsessing over food is probably one of the most prominent syptoms somebody starving can have. If you have ever seen those old cartoons where the two guys are stranded at sea in a little boat, and then one guy looks at the other guy and he suddenly looks like a giant turkey, then you know what I am talking about. You are so hungry that seriously people, cars, your dog, they all start to look like you could sprinkle pepper on them and have them for lunch. It's not like you are Hannibal Lector, it's just your body has kicked into survival mode and at this point wants food so "friggin" bad it starts to wig out!

I to this day I have a fascination with food, whether it is seeing it,smelling it, watching it be prepared, or eating it, I am intrigued by it's essence. Luckily for me though, I have come to be able to manage the whole process of what it is and what it represents. I used to see food as the center of my universe. I was either not eating it at all, or eating it all and then expelling it from my body like poison. It was my life, and it was what made me feel good, bad, or guilty.

Now I have come to respect food,I see it as nourishment for my body, and I have come to not see anything as "good" or "bad". I realize how much it also plays a part for me socially. Everything I do with others usually involves some sort of food, and I realize now that it isn't about the food so much, but about the people and memories surrounding it.

I have a lot of good friends who are chefs and they have taught me how to respect food. They have shown me to appreciate it, to sit down and really taste what I am putting in my mouth, to listen to what my body wants and to challenge my taste-buds to try new things.
It has taken me many many  years to get to this point, but I honestly do not let food rule my life anymore. I eat when I am hungry, I stop when I am full. I eat what my body feels like and know that nothing is off limits to me as long as I eat it in moderation.

I have long since put the whole diet thing to bed, and think that anybody and everybody can do the same if they just used portion control. We as adults lose touch with what is called out "intuitive" eating skills. As children we didn't know anything about calories, or fat, or watching our weight. If you have ever watched a child eat, it is extremely interesting. I have seen children turn down cookies in favor of an apple,I have seen them eat a lot, or maybe just a little even if it is a big plate of ice-cream and cake. It isn't until we start to get those messages that what we are is what we eat, and that what we want is not allowed, then we start to crave, and deny,starve and then stuff.
If we can learn to tune into our bodies instead of our outside environment, then things become extremely simple.
I really am so glad that it was not me yesterday teetering down that aisle debating on the chicken broth...I am really glad I could go home and make myself a nice bowl of risotto with parmesan(cuz thats what I wanted) and then be able to move on to bigger and better things with my life.
I will be addressing this topic again at sometime, but for today I will leave you with this. If you don't let yourself have what you want, you will want it more. Strive for balance...a little bit of this and little bit of that will make you feel like you have a lot of it all!
Smiles
Melissa