My mother, when young, was an anorexic sufferer, and while recovered from the eating behaviour that almost killed her, never really addressed the psychological stuff around food/body etc.

Acknowledging this isn't playing the blame-game; it's setting the stage for my entrance into life and how I learned to cope with its ups and downs.

Food. It was my survival, but it became a tool not for fuel but for comfort, for defence, for managing the world around me. I understand now that I never really knew it any other way.

My earlier memories with food aren't ones of gorging myself (they came later) but of the incredibly tortuous anxiety that I won't get enough. That I won't survive if I don't get enough...

I became a binge-eater and later on a bulemic, and probably from my tweens ate over 4 times my daily caloric needs, on a GOOD day. Fortunately I was also very active, so although 'overweight' for my age/size, I wasn't in the obese range til my late teens.

That's all the history lesson you are getting for now. What I wanted to emphasise is that I never learned or practised healthy mental/social skills of managing emotions and thoughts, or of life situations.

So I learned to trust - not myself, but FOOD to cope with these things. Now food is a destructive element in my life. I need to change that around. This is not a matter of will-powered big-rules dieting. And it's not about weight loss. Like weight gain, weight loss is a consequence of my thoughts and behaviours not just around food, but of all life's ups and downs.

This is where for me, the journey to a healthy eating habit really begins. Managing life and practising resilience. Learning to trust myself that I can survive life through skills that don't involve a skillet.

Learning to trust myself.

Learning new skills.

Growing resilience.

Being true to myself and respecting myself.