Trapped by Food

I've been doing a lot of soul searching these past few weeks.  I want to have the surgery, but in the end I don't think it will work for me unless I honestly change my relationship with food.  This decision will also have an enormous impact on my husband's eating.  I will have to change the way I think of food, and what food means to me.

I haven't really changed my eating habits yet.  I have a tendency to rush into things head first, and then when I mess up it all goes in the trash.  So I think I need to take this a step at a time.

Why is eating and food so important to me?  I live in south Louisiana and everything revolves around eating.  We take great pride in our cooking.  It's nearly impossible to do something social that doesn't involve food--birthdays, weddings, funerals, celebrations.  Even when we just get together with our friends, there is food involved.  Food is my go to.  For everything.  I also feel like many of my relationships center around food.  I work days and my husband works nights, so we have a limited amount of time together.  So what do we do in our time together?  We eat.  And lately we've been going out to eat for almost every meal.  

I also snack a lot in the evenings--especially when I'm alone.  I don't like being alone, so I fill my time with food.  I find a moment of feeling content and satiated.  Food makes me feel good.  It's instant gratification.  And it has been there for me at times when I was deep in despair.  It's hard to let that go.

Lately when we've been going out to eat, I think about what I'm eating.  I ask myself, "Can I live without this food for the rest of my life?"  When I feel sad about not eating some of my favorite foods, I ask myself, "Why does this make me sad?  Why is this food so important to me?  Is it more important than my health and self-worth?"

Food (the way I'm eating it) has a price.  I'm morbidly obese.  I have borderline high blood pressure.  I have high cholesterol.  My knees are totally screwed up.  My self-worth and self-image are damaged almost to the point where I wonder if I can ever fully recover.  For so many years I've lived in a state of depression.  It's almost funny--right now I feel very stable emotionally.  I wouldn't consider myself depressed because for the most part I feel okay.  I'm functioning.  I took a depression inventory, and it places me at a moderate level of depression.  It's scary that my idea of stability is moderate depression.

There's also a financial cost.  Since we eat out so much, we are overspending every month by hundreds of dollars.  We can't keep this up.  I can't keep this up.  I can't keep living like this--in some sort of limbo.  I need to be able to begin moving forward with my life.  I want and need to feel like I'm living.  I can't keep waiting for things to get better.  I have to be the instrument of making my life better.

I am trapped by food.  In every way that matters.  My goal is to sever those bonds, and change my relationship with food.  Wish me luck!