I know. I know. It’s only been a few days. Have you decided on a change? Have you hit rock bottom and finally have the will power to move forward. Sugar is an addiction, food in general can be an addiction. Are you an addict? This whole process for me made me question every step of my life. Past, present and the future. I realized somewhere along the way, I related food to memories. Albeit I didn’t always eat the food of said memories, it was just who I shared them with. As a child my favorite thing was waking up to my Granny’s biscuits and gravy. Just to be clear, she was a horrible cook but what she could make was my favorites. On Christmas morning my entire family, everyone you never saw through the year showed up on her doorsteps for breakfast. That was our family tradition. Fried bacon, tenderloin, livermush, biscuits, gravy, eggs, milk rice. There was always a jar of peanut butter and karo syrup for the bread. A southern meal at its finest. I’ve always said my Granny raised me, but she didn’t she was just an integral part of my life and I was blessed enough to have her through her good years. She was a widow, who would bake cornbread and eat it out of a cup with buttermilk ( insert gagging emoji here 🤢). After church on Sunday’s it was usually chinese which was her favorite. My entire life like clock work she would get up and eat a midnight snack of peanut butter and crackers. She would bake a cake and only ice half of it since I never grew to care for icing. As much as I hate to share this, she was the one I could tell everything too and she would say baby let’s go to the kitchen. She had one of those vintage stools and although she was petite I imagined her on a pedestal with her no filter wisdom. I never realized that I correlated most of my memories around food with her, but I did. I also turned into her. As an adult and Ben can tell you I’ve always been the hostess. Our house is the central hangout, 99% of the time it’s me cooking and us creating memories. At our old house our friends knew to stay out of the kitchen while I cooked and would sit at the bar and we could spill our hearts out. It was like a running joke. So last year when this all came crashing down on me, and I tuned into my spirit to see where the root of my problem came from and I vowed to change it. Now I’m making new memories, allowing family in the kitchen to help, showing friends how to cook all our faves and doing it in a healthy and positive way. Allowing Ben to help shows him how the recipes go and he can pass it on at the fire house. Letting Chase in the kitchen is teaching him life skills. Allowing friends to come and bake is sharing health throughout the community. If we never figure out our root problem how can we fix it. Watering it down only makes it grow, but digging it up releases the baggage that we’ve all been carrying. Maybe your story is different… It could be emotional, stress, depression, memories, but they all have the same outcome no matter the situation we all have the same ending. Obesity, heart problems ,cholesterol, diabetes and there’s only one permanent solution. A lifestyle change. So address your food demons head on and start your new beginning. As always I’m still cheering you on.
