About Me!

My name is Cynthia and I am a recovering compulsive eater. I enjoy running, fitness, and healthy eating. Every day is a struggle to devlop a new relationship with food while I strive to each my “happy weight.” You can always find me searching online for new recipes to try out. I am constantly trying to make old recipes healthier and my one goal is to make sure I am never bored with healthy eating. This blog is the story of my jourmey towards a healthy lifestyle.

Weight Loss Struggles Through the Years

I have always struggled with my weight, ever since puberty. Exercise was never big on my priority list and junk food was very prevalent in my house growing up. The fact that I was not a happy child made it very easy for me to turn to food in times of stress and anxiety.

 In college, I thought the best way to get rid of my excess weight was diet pills. I did lose weight, but when I think about it today, I know it was not a healthy way to do it. Eventually I stopped taking the diet pills and I gained all the weight back. Fast forward after college and I was about 35-40 pounds overweight and very unhappy. I decided to do something about it and for the first time decided that exercise should be part of the deal. However, I still had not learned to lose weight the healthy way and I was still overdoing it. I was a little obsessive. I exercised by treadmill and gym workouts for about 2 hours a day 6 days a week. And I kept my calorie count very, very low. I would

Los Angeles 2005 - At my lowest weight

eat roughly 1000-1100 calories a day. Sometimes I would eat less than 1000 calories a day. I can’t believe that I actually thought these habits were healthy. My friends were worried about me, but I shrugged off their concerns and insisted that I was just being healthy. But I wasn’t. Instead of loving and appreciating my body, I was punishing it. I wanted to punish my body for not being perfect. I did lose the weight and reach my goal weight. However, even when I reached my goal weight I still felt like I needed to lose more weight. It took me a long time to realize that the number on the scale was never the problem. The problem was that I didn’t appreciate or love my body for what it was. I was very unhappy with myself and thought that if I lost enough weight that I would be happy.

Of course I should have known I couldn’t keep up that workout/diet pace forever. It wasn’t realistic. After a bad breakup, I turned to food to ease the hurt. I still hadn’t learned proper coping mechanisms for stress. When I met Corey (my now husband), I had already gained back a little of my weight. But then a new relationship cinched the rest of my weight gain and I gained back everything. That wasn’t unusual since I was not exercising at all and we were eating out at every meal. And I don’t always make the healthiest choices when I eat out.

But when Corey proposed, I had the motivation to lose some weight. And finally I was doing it the healthy way. I exercised, I ate right, I did everything in moderation. And I lost half of the weight I needed to . . . 15 pounds. I even needed a new wedding dress because my other one was way too small. It felt great.

Wedding Day - 2008

I was determined to continue this after I got married. I wanted to reach my goal weight. After I got married, I even became interested in running. I was still a beginner, so Corey and I would run three days a week and then I would do other work outs the other days. This is also when I became interested in googling recipes and I was addicted to every recipe out there. Since my husband is such a picky eater, I became obsessed with finding recipes that would keep us from getting bored and were healthy and tasty at the same time. Not an easy feat sometimes.

Running Injury

Then in 2009,  I suffered a running injury that was  a bit of a setback. I twisted my ankle while running and it took a while for it to heal. In the meantime, not only could I not run, I couldn’t do other exercises either (even the elliptical). It took about six months for this ankle injury to heal. During this time, I did the worst possible thing, I went off the wagon (so to speak) eating-wise. I was upset about not being able to exercise so I just ate whatever I wanted. I didn’t count calories or anything. In the meantime, I gained weight. When the ankle injury healed, unfortunately I did not start exercising again. Once you get back off the exercise wagon, it’s so hard to get back on. So my running shoes and my elliptical were just gathering dust.

Time for a Change

I think the thing that finally pushed me to make a change was my migraines. I have dealt with migraines for as long as I could remember, they had gotten out of control. I had started running again, trying to lose weight, but the headaches kept interfering with my ability to run or do other types of exercise. Plus, I kept feeling like my binges were out of control. I would do fine with my food for a week or so and then binge on an outrageous amount of food. That was definitely interfering with my ability to lose weight. Then, a couple things happened. I started the Heal your Headache plan talked about in “Heal your Headache” by Dr. David Buchholz and I read “Women, Food, and God” by Geneen Roth. Those were two amazing books.

The headache book taught me how to control my migraines with diet, which I am now doing. My migraines are now under control and I am so happy. It is wonderful being able to exercise or even get up in the morning without worrying about getting a migraine.

“Women, Food, and God” was definitely life changing. It taught me how to have a better relationship with food and that there shouldn’t be any foods that are on the forbidden list, even when you are trying to lose weight. My binges are now under control. I am still constantly working on my issues with food and trying to figure out why I feel the need to eat even when I am not hungry, but at least now I don’t feel like food is controlling me.

Thanks to the blogging community, I have learned new ways to eat that actually keep me full and give me energy. I eat more whole foods and keep out the preservatives as much as possible. It is amazing the change I have felt since eating more natural foods. I am slowly learning better ways to eat and more importantly than that, I am learning to love myself for who I am. I will never have abs of steel or thighs that are free from cellulite. And that is okay. It may take me a long time to be able to eat a cheeseburger or skip a workout day without feeling guilty. But I wil get there. This blog is about my journey on accepting myself and live a life where food is my friend, not my enemy. I hope that you will join me on this journey.