Thanks, but....

Yesterday, one of my friends left a comment and said she is proud of me for resisting the chocolate chip cookies yesterday. And believe me, I loved the comment, but it really got me thinking.

I was proud of me too, but I also recognize that it doesn't take much for those cookies to be sitting in my pantry one minute, and in my stomach the next. And as I am eating those cookies, there is usually a dialogue going on my mind, telling me that yes, once again, I have lived up to my worst fears and given into temptation, that I am no good, that I have no willpower, and that how could anyone love such a wimp?

So now I am tyring to fix myself from the inside out. Yoga is helping tremendously. But I need more. Some would call it mindful eating, others might call it awareness, but what I am trying to do is pay attention to everything I decide to put into my mouth, and take stock of my feelings at the time. If I am reaching for a bag of licorice, I want to know if I am tired, depressed, angry, stressed, etc., etc., etc. One thing I do understand is that when I am reaching for licorice, I AM NOT HUNGRY.

I am reading Geneen Roth's "Women Food and God" with a group of women at my yoga studio, Yoga4Everybody in Fairfield. I am also taking Roth's online retreat that reinforces the book's ideas, all with the hope of discovering what makes me eat. Why can I be perfect on a diet for as long as six months, and then wake up one day, start eating off plan, and before I know it every pound I lost has come home.

I call this blog Diet? Not again! because I honestly don't want to be on a diet anymore. I am so tired of counting POINTS, of counting calories, of marking fat grams, of eating cardboard, and when I do eat something I think I shouldn't -- waiting for the guilt to take over.

Enough. I want to be normal. I want my obsession with food to go away.