One pound at a time.

One battle with binge eating at a time.

One workout at a time.

One healthy decision at a time.

One meal at a time.

One bite at a time.

One act of self-care at a time.

One breathe at a time.

One step at a time.

One grateful thought a time.

Here is what I believe.

That there is an intersection between spirituality and how you feed yourself.

Geneen Roth can back me up.

When I first began whatever journey I’m in right now, my influences were fat acceptance blogs. Like Lesley Kinzel, like Kate Harding, women who preach “just say no!” to dieting. I fell in love hard. With the concept. With the freedom. With my body.

The love inspired me to want to change. I cared, for maybe the first time, about the direction my life was headed. My influences then became healthy living blogs. I was soon part of a cult that worshiped KERF and Healthy Tipping Point, Meals and Miles and all the other ladies who have made a living by posting every meal they eat.

But now,

Now.

Now, I read spiritual blogs. Zen Habits. Roots of She. Tiny Buddha. Medicinal Marzipan. Christie Inge.

Blogs by life coaches. Blogs by (mostly) women who are living in the intersection between spirituality and food.

Who also believe that eating whole foods does influence whether you have an inner feeling of wholeness. Where showing your local farmers’ market some love also means showing your body some love. Influences who see and feel strongly about a gut/brain connection.

I’ve never had any kind of connection to a religious spirituality. But I do feel strongly that my faith, my love of all things of the Universe and the law of attraction, has gotten me to where I am and to wherever I’m headed in terms of loving my body, being able to change, and subsequently losing weight.

There’s so much talk when you discuss losing weight about how to “outsmart” hunger, how to eat less, how the “wrong” foods are sabotaging your efforts.

Focusing on these things will only draw more of those feelings to you. You will continue to feel hungry and continue fueling with the wrong foods.

Instead, savor your food.

Create peace with food.

It is not the enemy

Food is healing. How and what you choose to put in your body should be celebrated and enjoyed and not feared.

I’m saying this because I think if you’re someone who is like I used to be – consistently using food as a cure-all for anxiety, loneliness  fear, sadness – then this is the only way of escaping that pattern.

There is no cutting food out of your life. As much as you would like the hand off the responsibility of your health to Weight Watchers or Jenny Craig, that’s not how life works.

As someone who has lost 85 pounds, I get asked a lot about what is or is not healthy, what I eat, what I’m doing to burn calories.

But what I want to say,

How I want to answer,

Is that none of that would matter if I didn’t believe, every single day, that my weight loss has everything to do with finally believing that I deserve the effort of taking on my health, waking up early to eat breakfast, packing a lunch and snacks for work, and coming home and cooking dinner.

Sure, it would be easier some days to grab lunch out or heat up a frozen meal in the microwave for dinner, but I deserve better.

It’s these small acts of showing myself love that keep me engaged, keep me going in my own path of healthiness. Keep me invested in my body.

A while ago, someone commented on my blog asking if I believed there was space for someone losing weight in the fat acceptance movement. I want to believe there is, because a large part of me still truly and lovingly identifies with fat acceptance even though I do think losing weight has benefited me. The gap, I think, can be bridged through spirituality.

At least for me, I don’t feel like I am being untrue to myself in wanting to lose weight when I know that faith should be filling me up instead of food. I know that my issues with binge eating, emotional eating and the like will be taken care of when my head is in the right place through positive thinking and conscious thought.

As always, in order of importance:

Love,

change,

and losing weight.