Looking Outside for the Answer

'Change happens when you do something different than you have before.'

It always seems that I am looking for the answer to life’s big issues outside myself.  If I read the right book, find the right teacher, take the right class, meet the right person, or find the right food plan (diet) than all my problems will be solved.  If I could just find the answer to this one big problem, than all would be well.

That has been my experience with dieting my entire life.  Always looking for the answer outside myself.  Seeking the “cure” to the fat blues.  Going from diet to diet, weight loss program to  weight loss program, crazy fat cures (like stapling your ear) and a variety of exercise regimes.  Not to mention pills, potions, vitamins and extracts.   Even Twelve Step programs, workshops, retreats and anti-diet groups.  I even started my own group called Living Life Large - a size acceptance group that promoted loving yourself as you are, no matter what size or weight. Unfortunately, I could never really accomplish the self love part.

Change happens when you do something different than you have before.  It’s like the definition of insanity - doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.  You can’t get different results, unless you do something different!  So why on earth am I looking outside myself for the answer?

My body knows.  It knows what feels right, it knows when I eat something that it doesn't like.  It responds - there are signals.  Like I get headaches when I eat raisins, my intestines go crazy when I eat certain legumes or fermented foods.  When I drink regular coffee I get a buzz like I have just taken speed.  When I eat chocolate I get that same buzz and then my body craves it like heroin.  When I eat combinations of sugar, flour and butter I get light headed, a slight headache followed in a couple of hours by ravenous hunger.  And I am sure there are many other signals that I am missing - because I have been focusing my attention outside of my body.  I have been ignoring the most powerful knowledge that I possess - the wisdom of my body!