Determined To Succeed

Day fifty-two.

Ugh. I have a cold and I feel like crap today. It started with the always-suspicious scratchy, drippy throat yesterday. As soon as I felt it start I knew I was in for it, but I fought the brave fight. Even at my meeting last night I nursed a 32-ounce (!) hot tea from McDonald’s (one of the only things I will but from them AND it was on the way) complete with honey. I tried but, alas, the common cold won and today my throat is swollen and hurts like a mutha’, I have a slight fever and I am run down. As I said before…ugh!

I know I need to conserve strength today and rest. The problem inherent with that (and feeling like crap) is that you don’t feel like working out AND you need your strength to fight the bug so you have to eat. I don’t know about you but even looking at food sometimes adds inches to my thighs and belly, let alone actually having it. Double ugh! But I know that’s what I need and I will do it so I can get better faster (damned air-conditioning inside/humid-hot weather outside).

Despite feeling crappy, last night’s meeting was awesome. So many of us were sharing stories about ourselves and how we turned to food as comfort to help deal with shame, pain and events in our lives we all wanted to push down and forget. It was amazing learning that much more about the guys in the group, and oh how it helps knowing I’m not the only one who used/uses food to do that. Wow. So cool (yet so sad), indeed.

Food is always a temptation, isn’t it? No matter where you live you can always find some semblance of your “comfort foods” from childhood, your favorite ice-cream at the store, egg rolls, sandwich, loaded french fries, etc. Man, I wish I could go back in time and invest in then up-and-coming companies like Coke, Hostess and the like. This way, as I got to 400 pounds I’d me helping to make myself rich in the process (just a little fat humor there). I also wish I knew why food almost always is used to dull pain. I know the scientific reasons – that it triggers the release of dopamine (sp) and seratonin (sp) in the brain (pleasure chemicals) that make us feel euphoric. But I am talking about the actual WHY we search for pleasure in food.

Maybe it is because it is a constant. Maybe we always turn to food because it is always there, no matter where we live in the world. While so many of us feel fears of abandonment in life we know food won’t do that. It IS always there, readily available and standing by. (Shaking head) I see now how it works. See, this is how my brain functions when it’s got a fever and I’m feeling crappy. I just start thinking about the great mysteries of life and how to solve them. That’s why when we (O.K., I) move to a new area we both seek out and are bombarded with ads for easy foods like pizza. It is recognizable and, despite its many variations, pizza, after all, is pizza.

My friends, you’re gonna have to forgive me today for the blog being short and incoherent but, after a hard day of waking up with a cold, I need to go back to resting. But I will be going back to thinking about the why’s I ate/eat the way I did/do. Sure we need food but we don’t NEED food as much as we think we do. Sometimes just knowing we are not alone and can talk to people is more than enough to satisfy our real craving – for human company and understanding.