I Know Why the Caged Bird Eats

I have always been a food junkie.  I love to cook, bake, eat, graze, watch cooking channels, and try new cuisine.  Give me a recipe, and I can make it...I might even make it better.  Another one of my food talents is that I am very good at accessorizing my food. EVERYTHING can taste even better if you add one or more of the following: butter, sour cream, bacon, or chocolate.  The size of my ass has always been an indicator of these facts.  One of my previous blogs talks about how I have lost weight in the past year.  I am very happy to be thinner than I was this time last year (thinner than I have been in several years).  However, I know that all that weight will find its way home if I do not change my ways. 

Food is a necessity for life.  You don't eat, and you will die.  It is so easy to overindulge on something you need to survive.  You do not say, "O.k., I need oxygen to live, but I breathed a lot yesterday when I was out with my friends, so I need to breathe less for the next couple days."  Food is not only necessary for life, but it has a life of its own.  Food gives comfort.  Food is instant gratification.  Food is social.  Food can bring nostalgia.  Food can inspire creativity.  Food has good taste (pun intended).  There is trendy food, foreign food, peasant food, native food, healthy food, sloppy food, baby food, and dog food.  What I am trying to learn is that, like oxygen, you have to take in the right amount or you pass out.  Whether you are fainting while trying on swimsuits because you have not eaten in a week, or passed out on your couch surrounded by empty Girl Scout cookie boxes, the balance is off.  Be it food suffocation or caloric hyperventilation, I am trying to see food like I see oxygen.  I need it, but it should be seen primarily as a need of necessity and not a need for compensation.

I will never be a size 6.  I may never be, "high school skinny," again (which was a size 10).  I may gain more weight back than I have lost.  There are a lot of different scenarios.  What I have to remember is that it is my choice.  It is my responsibility to enjoy my food but learn how to enjoy it in moderation.  We all know how to lose weight.  It isn't just a pill or surgery or fads or fasting.  It is looking at food in a different way.  It is giving food a different place in your priority list.

Why does the caged bird eat?  Maybe it is having a rough day.  Maybe it wanted to try out a new recipe. Maybe it is just freaking hungry.