It's Not About the Food

Warning...significant navel-gazing in this post...

When I started this 'makeover' project last October, I thought it was all about teaching myself new eating habits, getting healthy, meeting my fitness goals, and understanding why I have such a messed up relationship with food.  I am grateful for the progress towards those very important goals but the farther I get down this path, the more I realize that it's not about the food.  It's really about finding out who I want to be - what kind of friend, wife, sister, citizen - or more accurately what kind of human I want to be - and then becoming that person.  Making choice after choice each day that leads me in the direction of the person I want to be.  Some of those choices will be food-related (do I really want to be the girl that eats 3 brownies for lunch?) but most will not.

I find that as I stop focusing on food every minute of the day, I can instead turn my attention to what I want to do with my life.  I'd like a new career, sure - that's certainly one of the steps towards becoming the best version of myself.  But the larger question is really what impact do I want to have on the world around me?  What am I capable of creating, what heights can I reach?  What kind of legacy do I want to leave behind when I'm gone?  Do I want to be an agent of change, or just let the tides carry me where they may?

I thought my relationship with food was holding me back from achieving my goals, but I was wrong.  I defined myself as a compulsive eater, lazy, someone who has no self control.  But I don't need to define myself that way, I can be whoever I want to be.  We all can.

Nope, it's not about the food.