Farewell my Friend, Food, You Were a Bad Pal

My Mom asked me a question today that I have actually spent a lot of time thinking about lately.
How have I been dealing emotionally since the surgery?
I'm a big-time emotional eater. I have been since I was a wee lass.
Like everyone with an eating disorder, (Hi, my name is Gina and I'm a binge eater), food was a constant companion.
It was a false friend. But I didn't know it until it was way too late.

So what does a binge eater who has spend 20 something years eating their feelings do when food can't be their crutch?

She deals.
But she also grieves.

The grieving is a weird part of this journey that no one really explained to me.
I know that things have to change. Ok, they don't have to change.
In a few months I can go right back to some of the worst habits that got me to the morbidly obese category on the BMI scale.

But for me to live the life I want, things need to change.

So I have grieved.

I have moments of sadness when I go to get food and chose the salad over the cheeseburger and fries.
I can still remember the binge high vividly. Thankfully I can also remember the inevitable sickness.

But I still grieve.

My friend food is gone. Yes he was not a good friend. Frankly he was the worst friend ever. But he and I had some good times together.

So I grieve. 
I really wish I could find a better term for it. In so many ways though it feels like a death. I guess it is the death of the old me and how life was for me then.

I will still eat. One must eat to survive.
But food can never take that place in my life again.
Celebration, sadness, victory, defeat, life and death must be dealt with sans the emotional dulling my old friend provided. 

Some day I know that will not make me sad even for a moment. But "some day" isn't here yet.

4 months. 83 pounds. A lifetime of new lessons ahead.

-Gina