An Honest Revealing of Self.

Hi, thanks for stopping by my blog.  I’m wild, passionate, spontaneous, and I’m pensive, poetic, and emotional.  It depends on the day, the level of quality time I’ve shared with friends, and the weather, and probably the food I’ve eaten.

I am a mom.  A wife.  A daughter.  A friend.  

My life has been a mix of pain and joy.  There have been seasons of perfection and times of tragic pain.  I come from a long line of women with eating disorders.  Women who, while amazing, strong, and vibrant, couldn’t seem to find peace with food.

I have been afraid of food since I was 12.  I was in seventh grade when I first learned that girls were supposed to diet, eat less, take diet pills, anything to be thin.  I tried to stop eating so much.  Not easy for a farm girl raised on horses, constant activity, and huge platters of steak, with apple pie for dessert.  I didn’t make it a constant focus, I was just aware that I should always be skinny.  

My weight would go back and forth, but not too much.  I had this friend and every time we were together she would tell me we should exercise so we could lose 15 pounds.  I learned there is always weight to be lost.

My sister dabbled in bulimia.  She tried, it wasn’t for her and she continued life, tall, thin, and model perfect.  At 5 inches shorter, you see a bit more of what I eat on my body.  When I tried, I didn’t just dabble.  I went at it like I do life, full throttle.  

In my early twenties, I was in a painful relationship that dragged on for too many years, I just stopped eating.  I was trying desperately to control a world that had me trapped between my first love and family and friends who couldn’t stand him.  I lied, I was ashamed, and I avoided food like the plague.  

When the relationship finally ended and I found myself in a small midwest town, alone.  I ate and I purged.  It felt so good to let my world slip wildly out of control in boxes of donuts, tubs of ice cream, and mounds of chocolate, then right itself again head down, over the toilet, puking my guts out.

Figuring I needed a break, I went home for a few months, to heal, to find balance.  Because of a painful childhood I had spent most of my life in counseling, I knew all the tools I needed to work through what I was struggling, but I couldn’t quite find my way.  I went to a woman who terrified the life out of me and she walked me through the emotional side.  I read Geneen Roth’s books.  I gobbled up everything I could to try and find freedom.  My sister wanted to institutionalize me.  She’s a little short on compassion and because she is in total control of herself had no concept for my needing to work it out.  She wanted me better right then.  So, I stopped throwing up.  I would eat as much as I could hold and punish myself with fasting the next day, barely any food the next few, and as much exercise as I could handle.  I still started to gain weight.  I also slowly started to stop punishing myself quite so extensively.  I started to look a bit like a chipmunk.  I was a little okay with that.  I just desperately wanted to be okay with food.  To not fear every time dinner was served.  

A good friend of mine had been a raw foodist at that time, for a few years.  I remember being overwhelmed by the idea of eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  I usually ate one big meal and a party size bag of m&ms.  I started experimenting more with food.  Trying out flavors and combinations.  For a born baker whose family hails from the south this was definitely new ground for me.  Though my mom has always been on the forefront of nutrition and the health movement, this was taking it to new heights.

Really I just started eating raw cookies.

I found a job back in my hometown and I started to find freedom.  I was at my heaviest weight.  I met the man who in a few months would be my husband.  There is something precious for a girl who fears fat like the plague to meet a guy who thinks she’s beautiful when she’s at her highest weight.  

Nine months later we were married and living in Madison, WI.  I had managed to find a sort of peace with my weight and was focused on life in a new city married to an amazing man.  Then I got pregnant.  It wasn’t the plan and it took me a while to reconcile to this new turn that life had taken.  I gained weight.  I was pregnant with an amazing boy and he just turned my narrow hips to thunder thighs, gave me a triple chin, and had me looking a bit like an oompa loompa.  When he was born I was determined to be the best mom I could be.  Part of that was not being overweight.  

I monitored what I ate.  I focused on small servings and because I was constantly attending to my baby, food became a very small thing in my world.  I rarely finished meals because I would need to nurse or change a diaper.  There was always something and I threw myself in to being a mom.  I got thin.  Very, very thin.  We moved back to California and life was full and beautiful.  I was thin because I nursed, because everything was so good I didn’t need food to fill any voids.  I was happy and part of a sweet little life.

When I got pregnant with my daughter, I grew a big belly and kept my skinny arms and legs.  I looked like a spider.  Food wasn’t an issue for me.  I lost my baby weight in the first month of having my daughter.  She nursed, I shrank and it was good.

Then we sold our first house at a loss and bought a second older home, needing quite a bit of work. I started to stress a little.  Eat a little more.  My son was 2 1/2 and a handful.  I had well meaning individuals telling me I needed to have him tested, he could be on the spectrum.  I was panicked that I was doing something wrong.  We cut out gluten, dairy, and sugar.  It felt incredible.  Our lives were calm and peaceful.  We were figuring things out.  I was highly controlled by our diet, but there was a visible change I could see so we kept going.  Then we went on vacation and we cheated.  I would try to get us back to our ‘healthy’ ways of eating, but it felt like constant try and fail.  

We moved, again.  To the northern California coast.  It was 55 dgerees and grey all the time.  I had a three year old and a one year old.  I needed family, friends, and lots of support and I lost them all.  I was lonely and struggling.  So, I turned to food.  I would try to restrict everything we ate to find some control, only to fall back in to popcorn and wine the moment the kids were in bed.  I’d go gluten free, until I didn’t.  It was constant back and forth.  Which was a lot like my childhood.  I was allergic to everything, so my mom would restrict me for a week and then she wouldn’t.  So I would learn to not eat pie or eat the whole pie.  I had lost all boundaries and connections with food except as a means to fill my lonely life.  We moved two years later to the bay area and the cycles I had begun to overcome came right back.  I eat when I’m lonely, when life gets too quiet, when I feel lost.  

It’s taken a while, but I’ve found a measure of peace with food.  I know that when I’m lonely I want to eat.  I know that if I try to restrict myself, I will binge.  It is best for me to avoid any and all dieting.  I’m working out my food allergies and finding what works and what doesn’t.  I did the whole 30 diet for a little over a week and I felt amazing.  Diet’s however aren’t sustainable for me and are mostly a chance to binge the day before.  I’ve had to make them off limits.  I simply try to eat the best I can.  Without fear.  

I am doing my best  as a wife, a mother, a friend, a woman.  There is so much that I have learned on this life journey.  I hope that through my successes and failures I can encourage you.  I will be sharing more about my relationship with food and I hope that you find encouragement.

T

 The bottom picture was taken by Kara Stewart.  It is our most recent family picture.  I am 31.
The top was taken by my husband on our journey across the country.  I was 24.

So much life has happened in between.

Never Enough.

I have to admit that I put myself under quite a bit of stress.  I'm always certain that I should be better, perform harder, do more, be more.  It is very rare that I am able to just rest in the reality that this is who I am.  That I am exactly the me I should be.  That who I am, what I am, brings value to the world and those around me.

I bought the Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred DVD a few months back.  I have to be honest, I didn't expect it to literally destroy me, punch me in the face, telling me I've believed a false message of lethargy!  What the heck!  I thought taking the stairs was a good idea.  Regardless, I've been exercising.  Fully loving how it feels to get back in shape.  It's been a while.  My kids were too little, I had too much milk to deal with, etc.  The excuses were endless.  Until I was finally dissatisfied enough to pursue a change.   Getting stronger just feels good.

However. . . I signed up for Jillian's health and wellness emails and suddenly I was inundated with the idea that I need to eat less, eat low fat foods, cut out sugar, only drink water, don't breathe, don't frown (you'll wrinkle), be less, do more.  And.  Well.  It's easy to jump into that.  Especially when you're unhappy with how you see yourself and you want the change to happen right now.

I could feel myself stressing, 'OH NO! I ate after eight, I didn't stop when I was full, I had a peace of chocolate cake!  I am now going to be fat and I will never look like the hard bodies on pinterest!'  Sob.  Sob.  Gulp.

And yeah, bummer.

Law will destroy you.  Every time!

Yes, there are times that you need to be a little strict and push for a change.  However, if you are constantly living under negative self talk, stressing about everything you eat, you're probably not going to be successful, or you will - only to put it all right back on.

I thought I'd share a couple tools that have hugely helped me reach a happy, healthy place with my eating, my body, my weight.

I pursue loving myself.  It isn't easy for me to find the good in my looks or my body.  I tend to be uber critical.  But, when I start to focus on what I am good at, even if I can't see it, that I am beautiful.  Some of that judgement starts to fall off.

Live in GRACE!!  Don't stress if you binge, or you ate past a certain time, if you had one of your I'll 'never' foods.  It can be so easy to jump on a wagon and then devastating when you fall off.  Rather walk as close to the wagon as you can, then one day you'll realize you've been riding in it and it's no longer scary or forced.

I am absolutely not an expert in any way.  I mostly have a healthy diet.  I am aware of foods that I struggle with and I try to avoid them, but I'm learning sometimes I won't and that's okay.  I am okay.

After having my kids, I could feel the stress of trying to get all of the weight off.  Striving to instantly be back in shape.  Every article, person, doctor said to take my time.  I constantly heard 'you took 9 months to put this weight on, give yourself that long to take it off'.  It can be discouraging when the scale seems to move so slowly, but as you choose to continue changing habits and focus more on living fully, being healthy, and exercising - that number will move.  Don't worry.

I hope that everyone who is pursuing their health is able to enjoy each and every accomplishment without the weight of any little failures holding them back.  Enjoy your life, your day, you.




I was hoping to post my granola recipe - which is a little bit of heaven.  But, I realized last minute I need a couple things.  I'll do my best to have it up tomorrow.

Blessings.  Cherylyn

shoving forward.

Every now and then I indulge and have my cup of coffee with heavy whipping cream instead of half and half.  mmmmm.  There's something about the fat bubbles that gently spread to fill your cup with the rich lace of butter in the bite of a dark coffee.  It is goodness.  Though I suppose I should also admit that I've been frequenting the heavy cream a little more often lately.  Then today when I reached for my grande dark roast spiked with butter *ahem* cream, and the barista kind of smirked, like 'here ya go lady, enjoy your thighs with that'.  I was sad to find it didn't taste as wonderful as all of the previous times.  Not because of the snarky counter girl, but because I have become used to my sweet, indulgent, heavy cream and now it just tastes like regular half and half.  I am so annoyed.
Because I should be in bed I am now thinking of all the areas in my life that I began to indulge, to loosen the grip, to shirk responsibilities in the thought that it would just be this one time.  Until suddenly I wake to the realization that I have allowed the occasional to become the routine, and now the butter has lost its cream.
I could carry on, every now and then have the elusive sip that hooked me in the first place.  Or I could go back to square one and learn to appreciate the subtle nuances of the first sip of a black cup of coffee.  Ok, probably I'll just stick with half and half, or switch to tea.   Though now that I am awake, I cannot be asleep any longer and must root through the closets of my days and find the areas that need to be shifted, rearranged.  Complacency has snuck into more areas than I want to admit or openly want to change.  I like how life has flowed, I could choose to continue drifting in my whimsy down a winding stream.  And yet I cannot so easily swallow my laziness and must find ways to adjust.
Like an athlete who finds themselves stagnant in their speed and then push themselves, rejecting the desperation for rest, I too will push myself out of my imprint on the couch and get up to change the channels myself.  I will do this because I am embracing the change that is life.  The need inside myself to better, what I will only want to hide, if I continue.  

Then when routine has become a stronger, more diligent, faithful, clean at all times, type of women, then I will allow myself the small luxuries of rest.  And enjoy my coffee with heavy cream, until I can no longer enjoy the weight and will wallow back to my black cup of joe.