Recovery: Learning to love myself, food, & eating treats!

As some of you know, I read Rachel Hollis's Girl, Wash Your Face.  The entire book is about overcoming the lies we tell ourselves.  Chapter 17, is entitled The Lie: I am defined by my weight, this chapter spoke more to my heart than I can properly put into words, but I'm going to do my very best.   Overall the line that I keep repeating to myself over and over after reading it is, "You need to be healthy.  You don't need to be thin." Something so simple, something so powerful, yet something that I have difficulty believing some days.  I define myself by my weight. Does everyone else? No. Should I? No.  But do I? Yes! I struggle with defining myself with my weight.  For so long I've been determined to be thin without considering the cost! The cost is far greater than I ever would have imagined! My mental health, the constant worry and fear, the stress, and even just losing my hair, and so much more.  I have a lot of hair so no one notice. I would leave gobs o

Between the holidays and being out of town, I haven't posted in a few weeks. Holidays: Thanksgiving dinner, I ate.  I hated not being able to work out like I have in years past, as I'm still recovering with my ankle.  I ate, I watched what I ate, (thanks to my gluten & lactose issues carbs were easily avoidable!).  I ate and I still ate healthy on Thanksgiving.  I did splurge and have chocolate covered peanuts my Aunt Barb made.  I enjoyed them when I ate them, as I haven't eaten them in a very long time, but there was still part of me that felt like I didn't deserve to eat them. When comparing this to last year, I worked out and ate, but I ate because I had worked out.  This year I ate without working out.  This year I had a dessert even if it wasn't pumpkin pie.  It was small and I regretted it, but I ate it.  I still ate. I enjoyed eating dinner with my cousins, sister, and niece at the "kid" table.  There were parts of it that I was able to e