Processing

I quit smoking for good several years ago. I say for good because I had quit smoking multiple times before that but it never stuck...at the first sign of stress I would run out and buy a pack of smokes and never look back - that is until the next time I decided to quit. I didn't quit for good until after I was married - my husband put his foot down at a time when I needed him to and wouldn't let me buy a pack of cigs. It made me realize that the nicotine fits really didn't last that long after all and weren't so bad once you got to the other side.

On the flip side of not smoking I started eating a lot more. I was also cooking a lot since I had my new hubby to cook for. I love cooking, but it was pointless to cook when I was single unless I was entertaining (which was rare). Needless to say I gained 40 pounds in about 6 months time. This was devastating to me since I had always been tiny and never had a weight problem. I didn't know what to do with the weight - didn't know how to diet. It was all foreign to me.

I've realized over the past several months that there is a pattern in my life with taking things to the extreme - cleaning (control freak), smoking, eating. God showed me that I was trying to control the things that I could - the things that brought me comfort - because there was so much in my life growing up that I couldn't control. I went to the extreme with all of these habits or defense mechanisms because I wanted to make sure no one had the power to take them away from me as I felt stripped of all else. I didn't have these things all at once - they sort of replaced each other along the way. I saw that no one ever respected my boundaries so I put up these boundaries in place in my life that couldn't be touched. I now know that I can have boundaries in my life and my heart - God given boundaries. Other people may still choose not to respect them, but I have the authority to keep them out - something I didn't have growing up.

Even after having the above revelations I still struggle with eating and weight. I realize when things are going poorly I still turn to food for comfort - mainly I just lose motivation to exercise and eat right - it's not that I binge (although I used to). Having the extra weight in itself depresses me. I realized yesterday that there was only one time that I lost all of the weight, and it was after my second miscarriage and surgery. The doctor told us that we couldn't try for a year for safety reasons - so I went all out on exercise and diet since I didn't have to worry about taking precautions for a pregnancy. It dawned on me yesterday that ever since we started trying again (over a year ago now) I have put the weight back on and exercised minimally. I don't understand the correlation just yet of my weight issues and trying to get pregnant, but I know this is the root of my weight gain. It is almost like I am trying to mask something with my weight. Maybe it is the pain of not being pregnant and not being able to have any control over it (much like my other habits in the past), but that doesn't sit quite right.

I will continue processing this until I understand, but I look forward to putting this demon in the past - along with my much larger sized jeans!