Show Notes

Listeners’ Letter

Dear food,
I binged on you last night.  I abused you.  I attended a family gathering during the day and wasn’t able to control you, and felt like I “blew it”, and that was just the beginning.  I lost complete control and spent the night making trips to the kitchen.  The leftovers from the party didn’t stand a chance.

Food, I’m stuck in a cycle between restricting you, bingeing on you, and then compensating by intense exercise, and of course, more restriction.  And I know, I know…. I know that the restriction is the culprit here.  If I wasn’t restricting, then I wouldn’t be bingeing, right?  And the exercise that feels like my penance is totally an addiction now :  I push myself to walk about X miles a day, and on top of that, I do high-resistance, high-intensity exercise every day.  Sometime I cancel plans and miss out on life just so I can exercise.  It’s become completely abusive.  I’m driving my body into the ground.  I haven’t had my period in a year and my body is screaming for relief.

Food, I spent the first twenty years of my life free from these worries.  I didn’t have control, body, or exercise “issues” when I was a teenager.  It wasn’t until I experienced the loss of a parent when I turned twenty that I began to control you as a way of dealing with emotions.  I spent most of my twenties entangled in a toxic relationship with you, Food.  I loved you and feared you at the same time.  And Exercise, you were both my savior and a sadistic overseer.

When I turned 28 I began a relationship with the man who is still currently my partner and this all changed.  The relationship became my new focal point, for better or worse.  Food, I completely stopped thinking about you.  I ate intuitively, didn’t obsess over you, and didn’t find the need to over-exercise.  It was wonderful.  My body’s weight self-regulated and I thought I was free!  I enjoyed this freedom for four care-free years.  But then Food, we had a baby.  The stress of parenting became overwhelming and I found absolute comfort in controlling you, in measuring you and calculating you.  That was far “easier” than the stress of parenting and you became a distraction.  You distracted me from dealing with my emotions.
Food, I have a beautiful two year old daughter and I don’t want her to absorb these problems.  I want her to be free, to feel beautiful in her body, and to trust herself.  I worry that she will see me abusing my body with exercise and bingeing and restriction.

I want the cycle to end.  But here’s the thing, Food.  The cycle has become a big, tangled ball of yarn and I can’t work my way out of the mess. But, I know I have to make a cut somewhere, just so the whole thing can finally unravel.   And so here’s my question :  Where do I make the incision?  Do I start to cut out the exercise that I know is making me so hungry, or do I cut my losses and stop controlling my food intake?

And that’s the other problem, Food.  My intake.  I don’t even know what to eat or how to eat anymore.  All I know is total control or total abandon.
Please Food, tell me how to stop obsessing over you and tell me how to learn to let go.
Sincerely,
Tangled