Just Move On

I was forwarded something recently that I have kept on my desk so that I can read it every day.  It is as follows:

Just move on.

Stop dwelling, stop missing the days when you ate with reckless abandon, stop lamenting a second bowl of ice cream, stop begrudging the present moment, and move forward with your life.  Eating, though it seems like the most important thing in the world, is not.  Food, though one of the purest forms of pleasure and fun and reward, is just sustenance.  Think about your relationships and goals and other parts of your life that bring you satisfaction.  If you focus on the food, the food will take over your life and you will miss out on so much more.  Life is more than a great meal plan.  Think about what could happen if you shifted all your energy from food onto other parts of your life.

I can't tell you how much this short paragraph helped me this first few months along this journey.  Food has been my friend, my companion, my go to for everything in the past.  I am from the south and as I mentioned in a prior post, we use food to express our feelings here.  But this statement made me stop and take a second look at where I was placing food in my life.  I was placing food on a higher level in life than even myself.  And that I can tell you is not healthy in more ways than one. 

Take a minute and think about how you view food.  Where does food fit into your life?  Are you happy with your relationship with it?  I know I wasn't.  I let food take over my life and drive me to a existance of unhappiness and pain that I wasn't sure about how to get out of.  Now that I have put food where it belongs I am much happier and I know my knees are beginning to thank me for it.  I sit here now and wonder how I ever got to where I once was in my love affair with oreos and pizza.  Food doesn't have feelings and can't truly comfort me like my friends can.  Food doesn't heal my broken heart like the love of my family loved ones will.  So why was I putting it in the places that these people should have been filling?  I don't know and am not certain I will ever truly have the answer to that question.  I just know that I am not going back there God willing.

I wish I could have realized this 20 years ago, but God has His timing for a reason and I can't question that.  I am learning these lessons today and I will continue to grow and hopefully continue to understand who I am and how to continue on this journey to a healtier me both inside and out.