Winning the Mind Battle

It's not news to most of us that the only socially acceptable size is skinny, even if that comes at the price of unhealthy.
I've never been a skinny girl, though I have been a thin girl (does that make any sense?).  My smallest grown up size wore a 4/6 on my petite 5' 1" frame.
I don't aspire to be micro thin.
I don't buy into societies views that we must be uber skinny in order to be H-O-T.  
I'm a Mama.  I'm the daughter of a deceased Mother.  I'm a wife twice over. 
I desire health.  I desire to overcome my life long battles with food. 

I've realized that yes, my childhood has shaped my eating habits.  Yes, those "damages" will always be present.  Yes, I am more than a sum of childhood experiences that were beyond  my ability to control.  Yes, I can overcome.

For me, food is social.  We like to eat.  This has been the steady theme throughout my life.  Family gatherings were always based around food, outings with girlfriends always centered around food.  I don't eat because I'm hungry (although, I do that as well)... I eat socially.

A few months ago I was invited to a girls night out at a friends house.  I call this the "skinny girl" party.  Seriously... they were all thin.  No one ate, even though it was a dinner party.  Ok, I take that back, everyone nibbled on the (healthy) dinner of mahi mahi fish tacos.  I brought along bread and cheesy artichoke dip with veggies and hummus.  Where I come from, people EAT.  I took home almost all what I brought. 

In a conversation with the host of this gathering, I mentioned that I hated this "starving" feeling and that it makes me CRANKY (and who likes a cranky girl anyway?).  She said, "you get used to it".  Whaaaaaat?  That's what it takes to be thin?  I don't think I want to hop on that bandwagon!

So, I'm on a mission to overcome.  To move beyond being force fed as a child because I wouldn't eat... to move beyond my bouts with eating disorders/obsessions... to move beyond feeling that food is necessary for entertainment... to overcome my love/hate relationship with the mirror and my inability to ever try clothes on at the store.

Currently I'm unhappily wearing a size 14.  My final goal is a size 8 but I will be equally content with a 6 or a 10.  I don't care that a 14 is the average American woman's size, so don't try to make me feel better.  My first goal is to lose 30 lbs, although I don't really care about how many pounds the scale says... I just know that 30 lbs should get me back to a size 10.  Then I will re-evaluate and go from there.