I love licorice. Particularly the extra special kind that they carry at Whole Foods (it's called RJ's soft raspberry licorice if you're interested :) I'm convinced I could literally eat bags of that stuff.
Which is when I realized I had a problem. (Yes, the first step is admitting you have a problem. And indeed, I am a licorice addict.)
In all seriousness though, over the last six months, I've learned some pretty important lessons about food. After struggling with my weight and just about everything else I could find wrong with my appearance, I woke up one morning and realized that enough was enough and something needed to change.
About 4 years ago, I went on a diet program and lost about 25 lbs. I'll never forget how accomplished I felt and how proud of myself I was. I felt like my outside appearance finally matched the happiness I felt inside.
But somehow, those 25 pounds plus some more found their way back to my body. Not overnight, but one pound at a time. And although I'm always quick to say that I don't have regrets about life, deep down I consider this one of my biggest failures.
Because the truth is, it's not about those 25 pounds.
It's about failing and wondering where my discipline went.
It's about the fact that I didn't feel like I deserved to be thin.
And more than anything, it made me question why I wasn't strong enough to stick to it.
In the other areas of my life, I think I'm a pretty disciplined person. I work hard, I keep my house clean, I walk my dog every day and I do things that I don't want to do because I know it's just the right thing to do. (Wow, do I sound like a rule follower or what?!)
So how did my disciplined self let 25 + pounds creep back on?
Because for me, my love of food isn't really about food. Such was one of the lessons I learned when, on a whim, I picked up the book "Women Food and God." As I slowly read my way through this book, sometimes in tears, I felt like it had been written just for me. And as I read one chapter after another, I was slowly picking up small pieces of my heart and putting them back together, one at a time. I realized that food had crept into the hidden, dark parts of my life and acted as my distraction. Food wasn't just food anymore....and that's a problem.
Shortly after finishing this book and realizing how my perspective on food was impacting my battle to lose weight, I started hearing chatter about the "Four hour Body" diet, written by Tim Ferris. I took note because a number of friends in my photography community started doing this diet and were finding great success. After carrying around disappointment in myself for 4 years and expecting that I would fail if I tried again, I decided I'd give it a fair shot and I started this eating plan.
It's been three and a half weeks on plan (if you're interested in the specifics you can read about them here) and I've lost about 11 lbs as of today. And although it's a daily choice to stay on track, I'm succeeding because I understand the role that food plays in a healthy life.
These two books unexpectedly came into my life and have inspired and challenged me. So I'm putting it out there to the internet world (whoever you are) in hopes of hopefully encouraging someone (maybe you?) to get over your failures and start again. The reason I'm highlighting both of these books (rather than just one) is because they each represent different pieces of the "health puzzle:" the first book helped me realize the emotional components I was dealing with when it came to thinking about food, while the second book gave me a practical, easy-to-follow guide about how to start making healthy changes that I could stick with.
**Important Note: (Licorice is still my favorite. I now enjoy it responsibly only once a week which is totally allowed on my plan cheat day!)
Getting up and starting again after failing over and over is the unexpected choice. And these days, I'm finding that sometimes I even surprise myself.
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