Food Chains

So as I stated in yesterdays blog I was feeling quite a bit of pressure to lose weight because of my flatmates. Yesterday, I fleetingly thought about it and surfed the web. But I remember looking at the dieting websites, putting my head in my hands, and saying “this is bullshit”! I know that dieting never works and despite this it will always seem attractive. But it is attractive for many reasons - with the desire to look good being only one. One of these reasons wasn’t to do with my flatmates fat phobia, but also the fact that I was feeling so out of control with my eating from the last couple of weeks while I was traveling, and also resettling in New Zealand, which is a highly stressful thing to do. Whenever I feel like my life is out of control, or I feel extremely stressed, I want to regain that control back somehow. The obvious choice is to regain that control in an area of my life that always makes me feel the worst and most depressed….being fat. What surprises me is how the fantasy of a diet is so tantalisingly sweet. How it can not only offer thinness but also a cure for all the ailments in your life as if when you finally reach that perfect weight EVERYTHING else will just fall into place. You will finally have that control that feels like it is missing. This of course is what I am striving for I guess what everyone is striving for. 

The idea that losing weight and getting thin will solve all my problems is certainly false. I often believe that I will glide through work, dress well, have lots of friends and be wanted when I am thin. However none of this is true, it is a dream, and we all know that even if we are not willing to admit it. If work has its problems they will still be there when I am thin. If I have no friends its because I have not gone out and got any. If I don’t feel wanted that is because of my warped thinking not because I am fat. How do I know this? I know this because when I have lost weight in the past the same problems haunted me regardless of what weight I was. Dreaming of being thin can be a major excuse to not be active in your life in the present. It is a safe cocoon in which to escape the problems of life and essentially hibernate. Well it is cold out there, no doubt, but there is no reason I cant go and buy nice clothes and make friends and be a confident happy person without losing weight. I need to come out of hibernation and weather the storm.