Always a Food Lover

Recently a new reader to this blog sent me a message saying that she wanted to lose weight, but since she loved food so much she did not see a way that she could. This is more or less my response to her.

Hey friend! I hear your pain. I am a life long food lover. I started cooking as soon as I could reach the stove, which was about age five while my parents slept late on Saturday mornings. At that point in 1966 I was not cooking because I had any culinary interest,  I was just hungry.  Eventually food became a bigger part of my life, and I let it have more power over me than I had over it.

More people I know are food lovers than “Food, what’s that? I forgot to eat today” people. In fact I can count on one hand, a hand that lost three fingers in a horrible Cuisineart accident the number of friends I have that really don’t care or think about food.   They are the food outliers and they as you can imagine are naturally thin.

Then I know plenty of people whose lives are not ruled by food, although they like to eat, some are heavy and some are thin and a few are just right. That leaves the group I am in. The people who think, plan, talk, read, smell, everything about food – some are heavy and some are thin, some are just right.

Here is what I have come to learn in my most recent two-year journey to control my own life and food:

I love food

I think about it everyday

I cook, grocery shop, read about it

I write about it, photograph it

I make food for others

I eat it.

I try and eat smaller portions

I treat some foods as treats and so I limit sugars and white flour foods to special occasions

I recognize that I will always be a food person. I also understand that being a person who loves all things about food does not have to mean that I am fat. So the excuse that you are a “Food Person” is just that, an excuse. You can love food and not give all the power to the food. It actually holds no power. The power is in your own brain. Once you decide to take control of food then you will lose weight.

Good Luck. It’s not easy.