Long Summer

[whippledaddy 5]

I know about the night time eating because I used to do it, too. I still would if I could. Sometimes I get up and end up drinking Water because I just can't eat.

I have walked a mile in your moccasins, and you in mine.

It started when I was a child. I'd read the Lord of the Rings and would prepare this large plate of food and sneak it into my bedroom and eat it while sitting Indian fashion on the bed. I'd pretend I was Frodo and Sam having a picnic on their adventure.

I used a lot of fantasy to block out the real world then as well.

I also developed the dangerous habit of eating leftovers if there just weren't enough to save. It started with my parents. "Oh, come on, honey, it's only a couple of bites. There are children starving in Europe." I ate. The children starved and I was 225lbs before I was thirteen.

As an adult I ate leftovers rather than putting them away. Sigh. The bright side is that I've saved a fortune on plastic wrap. In fact until the Band I really didn't need a frig at all. Just a cold place to store milk. I've always had a case of eat it all. We could analyze this all day. My parents would punish me if I didn't clean my plate. And my babysitter would do "other" things to me if I didn't finish all my food, and more if it were given to me. Eating everything was a matter of survival then. I'm a survivor.

Yes, we know each other's story before we hear it. Yet it is new and bright and shiny and terribly sad at the same time.

We have all carried this connection, formed years before we ever met, that allows us to get into each other's heads a bit. But, mostly, it allows us to understand. Too bad it is so much easier to understand others, and so hard to understand ourselves.

[paula 4]

Hey Ryan!

so glad to see you still have the beautiful gift of writing. Welcome home!

And a big LBT hug for that -100 pounder. :eek

[Infaith 1]

Then I said the word that bikers know. It's part of their private language. "Priorities". He knew what I meant. Stay alive at all costs. Don't go through the motions of life, job, family, car, house. LIVE. Never forget to live your life.

Ryan...first of all, it's GREAT to hear from you again. You have been missed.

Second, thank you for very wise words. I know that personally I have a tendancy to "go through the motions of life" and forget to LIVE.

Hmmmm.....maybe a motorcycle is in my future? (not the first time I've considered it)

Take care.

[thinkthin 0]

Congratulations on this amazing success!!! I am also, like everyone above, inspired and urged to know, I mean really get in touch with, the psychological/emotional side to my weight issues. It is something I've never gotten close enough to really be able to experience and embrace the emptiness of being without food as my friend. I appreciate your words, and I will keep them in mind as I get further and further down, and on my lifelong path of healthier living.

[whippledaddy 5]

If you want a motorcycle, go for it! If you want to paint a miniature version of the Mona Lisa on the back of a gum wrapper, do that!!!

But don't put off the act of living!!!! Any plant or animal can eat and breathe. Don't fall into that rut!!

Once there was a little boy. He wanted, more than anything else, to be a writer. He wrote all the time, and read everything he could get his hands on. But he never submitted his writing. He never even let his teachers know of his desire. He kept it hidden because he didnt' really think his words were good enough. He didn't believe he had talent.

He grew up, and yet that desire never left, and still he did not follow his dream. Still, he would write things. Usually he would decide they weren't good enough for the eyes of anyone else and he would throw them away.

Years went by. He held jobs, got married, divorced, and married another. He learned a great many things, but one thing in his life never changed: Each morning when he woke he harbored a wish that he were a real writer, making his living at his craft. And each evening he would write in his head as he fell asleep. Think up new lines of prose, new plots, new stories. And just before he went drifting on a sea of dreams he would wish that he were a writer. Someone who got paid for his words.

Finally he got his first novel published. It came out on his fiftieth birthday. Now he must make up for lost time. Now he truly regrets all the chances not taken. In fact the only regrets I have are the chances not taken. I should have been submitting my work at that early age. But I didn't, instead of following my dream I followed everyone else's dream for me.

Now......grab your dream and go. You'll not regret it. What a different story each and every one of us would have to tell if we would LIVE and chase our dreams rather than be respectable and go through the motions of being alive.

Thanks for the welcome back. I'll try to post, I'll try to help any who I can.

[Parvathi 2]

Ryan, thanks so much for sharing your story. You eloquently put into words, what so many of us struggle with - giving up 'the act of eating'. I too, turn to food when I'm happy, sad, depressed, undecided .. you name it, food was my comfort, my obsession.

I'm concerned by how I will deal with this during the holidays, but knowing that all of you are here will make it that much easier I'm sure.

Congratulations on your accomplishments!!

[I'llsucceed 1]

Wow- Here I sit crying. Because I know that my problem is as deep has you have written. I didn't think I was really that addicted or weak but after only 4 mnths & already gaining back some I know I am. You words are very helpful to me. Congrats on your journey & 100 pds loss. And thank you for your post it has helped me take a closer look at myself & my on going problem.