People who have known me for years have been so complimentary of my success. They say things like “You look so good”, followed by  “What is the key or secret to your success?”

Usually I start with “Thank you“. If you don’t know me well, or if you do know me well you should know it is really hard for me to accept a compliment. After the initial thank you, I tell them a list of multiple things, sometimes I look back at what I write (through face book or text message) and find it a bit overwhelming myself. I usually follow up by saying something like “I’d love to sit down with you and chat if you are ever interested.” 

It became very apparent that my success has never been one thing. To be honest a lot of the times I don’t feel successful, especially right now. People want answers though and I get that. They want to know how to do it themselves. What I can tell you is that success is multi-dimensional.

Everything we do and why we do it is multi-dimensional. Meaning I had to attack it from different angles and layers. As I approach this blog, I am primarily addressing the different layers of my self and what I’m going through. My real secret though, believe it or not, was commitment. One single word, and all though it sounds easy… It’s not. It’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to accomplish.

For my 29th birthday I decided to gift myself life. I knew it would be a journey, it would not be easy and I was just going to have to accept that.

With that said… and what I mean by multi-dimensional, is that with my commitment I had to commit to not only myself, but my food, and changing the way that I ate food, cooked food and my relationship with food. I also had to be open to my process, and the new path that I would take.

For my 29th birthday I joined a weight loss clinic. I give a lot of credit to a few food consultants that I did work with to loose weight. They helped me loose 70 lbs through diet change and working their program.

This was going well until recently when my commitment to myself seemed to change. Even more recently this past week I had been binge eating so bad that I felt like throwing up on Sunday because of it. My mind was consumed with old ways of thinking, and I hated myself. I hated my body. I hated my addiction. I could probably tell you all that Iv’e consumed in the past 4-5 days, well most of it anyways. It would probably make you sick. I actually threw a cake away in the trash today to prevent myself from eating it all.

Today, or rather tonight I re-committed myself again. At 930 at night I bought groceries. Chicken, fruit, lettuce, and other veggies. One of the reasons why I eat crap is because I’m not prepared. When I allow myself to eat crap, I then spiral fairly easy into a binge, which sometimes lasts for days.

A part of the program with the clinic was practicing new ways of thinking and eating through diet and some homework. They asked lots of questions and had me look at different aspects of my life including different things in my environment, triggers, planning, tracking food, emotional eating, setting goals, self image,  and more.

I really have learned a lot that has helped so much in my process. The one thing though that has really come to light has been staying engaged in my learning about my food addiction and eating disorder to help stay present in my progress. It’s really hard to change 20 years of deeply in-bedded practices, but I’m going to continue to work towards a healthier me. 🙂

Even though it was late at night tonight, I cooked my chicken, prepared my lunch for tomorrow and wrote this blog post. I needed to be prepared tomorrow, as I know that if I’m not prepared… I will eat crap, which will only perpetuate the cycle. If I didn’t prepare, I wouldn’t be following through with my commitment to myself.