Life after Pandemic

One of the current things I tell people is that I wish I were stuck back in pandemic. I get interesting looks but what people don't realize is that for someone that's lived such a high stress life, being forced to stay at home and not do anything in society was just the thing for me.

Resilience.

While everyone was going a little crazy, I had an opportunity to really enjoy time with my family and time for myself. I've never been a person to sit still. I learned to always be busy and to always be productive. When the first few months of pandemic hit I was a little antsy. There news made us paranoid and so we finally made a decision to really cut ties with media. We focused on being outdoors and getting exercise.

I decided to join a health program because I had started feeling really down about my current state of health in September of 2019. The program called my name because it seemed to focus on something other than the food: mindset.

One thing I've learned about myself is that something new always excites me. I throw all of myself into it and just learn. For a good 7 months I learned about mindset and health and realized that I'd been living in a victim's mindset. The world was always happening to me. I was always a victim. 

In 7 months I lost 90lbs and acquired mental skills to believe myself to be in charge of my new life and the decisions I needed to make to continue this trajectory. I'd never felt so great. I felt so great I started coaching and sharing with others how I was feeling but I never really felt comfortable asking health or the product. I've never liked being a sales person.

I started a little business and for that first year I was able to make nice side money but I was still glued to the program and buying it's product like I was stuck to it. Pandemic started easing off bc Andi felt so great in my health I started getting antsy about adding more food to my diet but still feeling uneasy about adding food or even trusting myself around food that wasn't in the program. I started doubting myself. I tried to think of new goals like losing another 30lbs but that seemed pretty impossible especially since I started working out more because of my energy but then I started being hungry. I was stressed about being hungry and I felt a little out of control.

Food became an issue again but I realized that food has always been in an issue. We started being around family and visiting family in late 2021 and there were a few flare ups with family members that started creating more stress in my mind and life. Somehow I started feeling out of control again and all I found think about was food.

I started just eating foods I missed like complex carbs and then it just kept going from the fall 2021 until present day.

What this program taught me though it's that I'm done with diet programs. I'm fine with food restrictions and crazy programs that take away freedom from really knowing what I need. See, what this newest program taught me was to go out and learn more about who I was. Why I had a victim's mindset and why I turned to food but it wasn't just a coping issue. It was a response to so much more.

Why did I find myself again in a diet pattern? It has been the only think I've known since I was in college. No real healthy tools to see or handle food were shown to me, just restriction and control.

I started reading about psychology and food addictions. I started reading Gabor Maté In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts and When the Body Says No. These books rocked my world because I realized that I truly was a victim of the world I grew up with. It was the only world I was given. A world of shame and loathing.

Trauma is what I lived through and what formed my unhealthy mindset which kept me in toxic patterns that only seemed normal to me. 

Realizing that I've had no boundaries and no voice for so long made me angry. Angry that I've been living in bondage to a lie. Toxic people and environments is all I started seeing around me. 

This is what states my journey of truly healing. It's not about the food. It's so much more.