A Different New Year's Eve

I spent my New Year's Eve differently than I usually do this year.  Partly because I've been sick, so hanging out in public just didn't sound fun at all.  We were home, on our sofa, snuggled with pups, playing Mario Kart and watching movies on Netflix.  It was really kind of awesome.  We toasted the new year and were in bed at like 12:05.

But the biggest difference was in what I ate.  Or didn't eat.  And what I resolved, or didn't resolve.

I cannot remember a New Year's Eve when I wasn't stuffing myself with every forbidden food on the planet, because TOMORROW starts the diet!!!!  Every December 31st in memory, I've had that whole "Last Supper mentality" because I knew, after that date, I couldn't eat THAT food anymore.

I'm not thinking that way lately.  I've been reading Women, Food, and God by Geneen Roth, and I just finished reading Unbearable Lightness by Portia de Rossi.  The messages behind both of these books have really started to sink in with me lately.  There is no food that is forbidden.  And making them forbidden is really the problem.

Geneen Roth says, "Eat what you want when you're hungry and feel what you feel when you're not."  If we're eating food when we aren't physically hungry, we're trying to satisfy some other need.  I do that a lot.  And I haven't completely stopped doing it, but I'm trying to feel my feelings and at least be aware of when I'm trying to use food to make me feel better.

Portia de Rossi started down the path toward anorexia and bulimia because of unrealistic diets forced upon her as a child model.  Once she stopped labeling foods as good or bad, and started giving her body what it really wanted at any given time, she reached a normal, healthy weight, easily.  She even stopped going to the gym and started walking her dogs and riding horses instead.  She made a comment in the book something like, "How often do you see fat people walking dogs?  And how often do you see fat people on treadmills?  Which one seems to be a healthier thing to do?"

I'm far from the end of my journey.  And I haven't updated my ticker in a while, mainly because I know I'm making healthier choices for my body, and I don't want that number on that scale to make me feel good or bad about myself.

But I know this much.  I didn't pig out last night.  And I didn't diet this morning.  And I feel really good about that.