I recently read an article in O magazine about a book by Geneen Roth called Women, Food and God. The book talks about finding the reasons why we eat, not a particularly new concept. After all, practically every book about weight loss talks about finding the reason why we eat. Every time I read an article like this, I spend a few minutes thinking about myself and what my reasons are. This time, I spent more than a few minutes. What bothers me is that I cannot really figure it out. Do I eat because I’m bored? Well yes, of course I do, but not all the time and not to excess. Am I unhappy in my marriage? No, I can’t imagine my life without Rick. OK, so I am very unhappy with work these days, but this is a recent issue and it doesn’t explain all the years before. I also know that this is probably a temporary condition and eventually I’ll get back to enjoying it. Even so, I’ve never been someone who lived for my job and I don’t feel that my job defines who I am.

As I changed bedding this morning, I spent my time thinking about what it would take to ‘find my bliss’. You know what I mean, what would my best life look like? What would it take to resolve whatever underlying problems I have so I can make peace with food? The trouble is, I just couldn’t come up with something. Oh sure, I could fantasize about winning the lottery and having lots of money to travel and shop etc. But that’s not really the answer, is it? I pictured myself doing different things: working at different jobs, living by myself, taking up different hobbies, etc. None of them produced any kind of epiphany, none of them hit me as ‘hey, that’s what I’m missing in my life’.

So, this led me to wonder… what if I never figure out what my underlying issues are? If I don’t, am I doomed to never lose and keep off the weight? Or am in in denial? Is there something that I’m just not facing? How do I know?

I guess my only choice in the matter is to keep going through the motions and hope that eventually something comes to me.