Ever since I can remember, I have had a compulsive relationship with it meal. I grew up with my grandmother who had been occupied, deprived of bread, sugar and a hug. So when she wanted to show us her love, she locked us in her arms with buttered bread with sugar. I grew up as an honorary member of the club… "Clean your plate"!
I combined all aspects of life and the joys and sorrows, with food, a lot of food and good food, I have no complaints about that. It was in my routine to seize like a tuned, every opportunity for a treat that was in my way. Not a single treat should be lost in the office, the buffet at the all inclusive resort, in Mani, where I once was, should not be left unused.
Having fun outside meant eating, relaxing at home meant eating, loving others meant eating. Of course, all this sick relationship with food, fatal, brought real illness. Then I realized that this vicious circle, from "I eat because I want comfort and food is the only thing in my life that I can control", to "food has made me a slave, the situation is out of control, I am unhappy".
This was the dipole between which I allowed myself to regress. Until one night my subconscious gave the solution. In my dream, I saw Oprah Winfrey, the famous TV personality, who has been struggling with her weight for years, say to me in fluent Greek:
"How is it possible to love food and yourself at the same time? You have to take it another way, keep in mind that food is fuel and it has to be good to move and take care of your machine ".
The dream was alive and despite the fact that I told it to my friends and there was not one who did not laugh at me, nevertheless I gave it prophetic dimensions and took the trigger to change the way of thinking and living. I started reading, I watched videos with transformations of fat men and women in America and Europe. I talked to a nutritionist, who suggested my endocrinologist. I had to find a way to feed myself, through a healthier relationship with food.
First, I had to change the way I treated food. I asked before each meal: Are you really hungry? Why are you looking for food right now?
I tried to keep in touch with body to listen to what he tells me about the food I gave him, how he processed it, if they did him any good.
I wanted to put good food in my body and manage to "break" the carbohydrate addiction.
The nutritionist followed the tactic of eliminating carbohydrates and then put them in my diet, in their healthy form, whole grain bread, spaghetti, brown rice, sweet potato instead of regular potato, agave syrup instead of sugar, good proteins fats etc.
With all these changes in my life and diet, I felt for the first time, after so much "stuffing" with fattening comfort food, that I really care. In fact, when I learned what it is like to feel well after exercise or daily brisk walking, I realized what all these people I looked down on and doubted do all my life: They loved their body and nourished it with love, giving it energy from beneficial food…
It is not simple. But it is not impossible…