{♥}: love language

It's about time for some sort of update, yes?  I guess I'm tired of opening up the blog and seeing my 9/11 post...sad.  Anyway, today has been an awesome day.  Elder Dallin H. Oaks came and spoke in person at our stake conference and it was the coolest thing ever.  The very best part?  Our dear and kind friends watched Paisley for us so we could pay attention.  It was amazing.  He was actually very funny and cracked jokes most of the time.  And when he wasn't cracking jokes, he talked about love.  Mostly about the importance of loving everyone-which I love and strive to do.  It was a really awesome meeting.

On the topic of love, I've realized lately that food is one of my love languages.  Everything suddenly clicked for me through a couple of conversations that I've had lately and some pondering after those conversations.  My relationship with food is finally in a healthy state.  It's taken me 14+ years to reach this state, but I think I'm here!!  It began to click when I over-ate a couple of weeks ago.  I haven't over-eaten in a long time and the feeling of being overly full was somewhat strange.  To make a very long story short I used to deprive myself of food often and when I did eat-I would over eat, or eat something that "wasn't allowed" and then I would feel guilty, and then I would swear I wasn't going to eat anything bad ever again.  I would then try whatever crazy diet I could-tuna for every meal, lemonade cleanses, etc and end up sick and miserable-only to eat a bunch of garbage and start the guilt circle over again. 

Up until my pregnancy with Paisley I stayed in this awful circle!  After being pregnant and having her I realized that I needed to take care of my body in order to feed an infant, and I finally committed to change.  Even in my efforts to have a more healthy relationship with food I still struggled with over eating.  In the past year I have finally been able to just eat until I'm full and not need anything more.  This is huge for me.  I also made a commitment to exercise back in January and I'm so happy to say that I have finally been able to stick with that goal.

Now, I would love to post a before and after picture of me and my 50 lb weight-loss, but that hasn't happened.  And the best part is, I'm ok with that.  I'm healthy.  I enjoy food and don't stay up at night worrying about what I'm eating.  I enjoy exercising and look forward to zumba!!!   And this, my friends, is why food is my love language.  I have finally started to love myself-enough to give myself food.  The best part about this healthy body of mine?  It's feeling safe enough to let go of some of the weight-and I'm down 5-10 lbs from January (I flux), something I never thought I would see without crazy dieting and miserable exercise.  I feel better...in so many ways it's really hard to describe.  I love the energy that comes with working out, and the release that working out is!!  I still love sweets (and I always will), but I don't have a desperate need to ban them from my life, nor hoard them-and I can handle just eating one if that's all I have room for!

This may seem very basic to some of you that have never had struggles with food.  I know that some people that I talk to think I'm nuts when I talk about this like it's a huge break through.  For those of you that know what I'm talking about, and understand it too well I hope insights into my journey will help.  I just remember reading stories like this and gaining so much hope from them that someday I could be better too and I'm so happy to say that I'm there! ♥

"Now ye may suppose that this is foolishness in me; but behold I say unto you, that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass; and small means in many instances doth confound the wise."
Alma 37:6