It's 2010

I’ve been tracking my weight for many years….

Jan 1 2002 240 lbs
Jan 1 2003 210 lbs
Jan 1 2004 235 lbs
Jan 1 2005 244 lbs
Jan 1 2006 222 lbs
Jan 1 2007 187 lbs
Jan 1 2008 199 lbs
Jan 1 2009 209 lbs
Jan 1 2010 216 lbs

Highest weight recorded:
Apr 19 2005 255 lbs
Lowest weight recorded:
Jun 6 2006 171 lbs

What I realize about my weight is that the feeling about the numbers never changes….if the number is going down it is good news, if it is going up, it is bad news. It’s not the number itself, it is the direction I’m heading. 175 lbs on the way up felt worse than 251 on the way down.

I am OCD about food. It is on my mind or at the back of my mind all of the time. I feel a groaning in my soul when a certain ‘food item’ enters my consciousness, because I know it will stay there demanding my attention until I capitulate. PLUS when I start eating…anything….I enter that ‘place’. It is my ‘blankie’, my ‘bottle’, my ‘Mommy’s arms’, the ‘walls of protection’, the ‘place of consolation’, and ‘that soothing forgetful numbing out wonderland’ – like sleepiness in a hammock – that ‘place’ eating takes me.
While I am eating the big bad wolves take a nap. The overwhelming pile of things that need doing slip away for a moment. The anxiousness, the fearfulness, the lack of self-worth or worthiness take a break…while I am eating.

You can take your opiates, narcotics, alcohols, and whatever, and I can find the same ‘away place’ in my little bag of chips, my peanut butter sandwich, or even my nice warm bowl of oatmeal. About anything will take me there.

How do I expect a ‘diet’ to fix this? It is like using a bandage to cure cancer. The bandaid only hides the sore….for a time.

I hate diets….HATE THEM

They are the necessary evil…like labor and delivery, like scrubbing toilets or changing diapers. They are painful, miserable, restricting, depriving,….only way I know….to fix this. Diets are props, temporary, momentary problem solvers…

When the thought of food enters my brain, I am going to say something that turns me away from my problem and toward Him, “Charity, the pure love of Christ” “I am nothing without him” “I am His work and His Glory” “With Him, nothing is impossible” “He is my rock and salvation” “I was hungered and he gave me meat” “I can do anything with God, who sustains me”

I need to find myself little by little…to the end of this predicament… line upon line, precept upon precept. I know no other way than to start than with a diet.
Perhaps if I pray and hope, and pursue faith…the real healing will occur.

I am Dianne. I am an addict. I willingly give my addiction to Father-in-Heaven to do with as He sees fit.

“When we put God [and the spiritual life] first, all other things fall into their proper place or drop out of our lives. Our love of the Lord [must] govern the claims for our affection, the demands on our time, the interests we pursue, and the order of our priorities. (Ezra T. Benson, Ensign, May 1988, p.4)