Days 32 & 33: There are No Answers

The past couple of days I've felt really torn between two things: the desire to be thin and the desire to eat all the time.

I'm still holding strong on the no sugar/vegan/no processed foods thing (which is awesome and something I do feel so proud of), but sometimes I just want to eat. And I mean EAT. And the past few days I have not been able to separate my desire to EAT from my desire to have the "perfect" body. (By the way, I know this does not exist and that no one is perfect, but I somehow still find myself wanting to move toward perfection, which I realize is a mythological place in my mind in which I weigh 120 pounds, am never hungry, and can effortlessly do crazy yoga poses. Um, yeah right.)

What usually ends up happening is me eating anyway, almost in defiance. On Friday night as I scarfed (literally) down a bowl of cereal, I realized I was eating out of rebellion. Eating to prove that I could eat, that I wasn't on a diet. Instead of tasting my granola, I tasted my conviction.

During the first few weeks of this 100 Days, when I noticed myself wanting to eat for other reasons than hunger, I just gave it up and left the kitchen, found something else to do, felt my feelings, and moved on. It was pretty easy. Well, this week it became very difficult. I think because I got so hung up on my weight, practicing all of the mindfulness and non-emotional eating behaviors became secondary. So what if I eat my feelings tonight, I can go on a diet tomorrow. Yeah, back to that again.

This week has revealed how much work I still have to do on this part of my life. Maybe I'm someone who will always want to eat yet simultaneously desire to be thinner, and that is something I have to accept about myself the way an alcoholic has to accept that they are addicted to alcohol. Maybe I am addicted to the drama of proving to myself that I can "overcome" and lose weight, only to regain it and do it all over again. Maybe I should stop weighing myself. Maybe I should work hard at the strategies I know that curb my emotional eating. Everything feels like a maybe right now, and I just have to be ok with that. I do know one thing: writing helps. Bringing voice and life to all this stuff floating around in my mind that can easily make me feel different or weird or separate from everyone else helps. So does taking deep breaths, and surrounding myself with supportive people (you!).

What I really am trying to figure out is this: if I am in fact a food/sugar addict (and I do believe I am), and I start going to OA and get on board with having a very strict eating schedule, is it going to feel like another diet? Am I going to continue to go through my weekly cycle of diet-binge-diet, etc? This is my fear. Hello, fear. Part of me really wants to just set up a schedule and stick to it. But part of me wants to rebel and eat crazily and binge just to prove that I'm not being restrictive. Where is balance? Where is middle ground? Where is freedom?

One of my favorite quotes comes to mind: "There are no answers, only questions."

Here's to the questions, the uncertainty, the moments of me feeling like WTF am I doing?!, the doubt, the blahs, and all the rest. In my dreams I'd wake up tomorrow knowing everything and never struggling with food again. But if that doesn't happen, at least I'm taking it all in.