Mental Prison - Cooked or Raw?

This isn't going well. It's definitely not going as planned. Part of me is completely sick of thinking about what I eat. Another part of me wants to get back to that magical state of mind I experienced this past summer when I was raw for almost two months. It's ironic that this blog is supposed to be about freedom, when I feel so trapped.

I've been dieting since I was six years old. It wasn't my choice. It was my mother's idea. I didn't have a weight problem yet, but my father was overweight all of his life. I was the first child, and at the first sign of a tummy my mother panicked, thinking she'd have fat kids. It became a self-fulfilling prophecy. I was voluptuous in junior high and high school. I was always dieting. In high school I was fortunate enough to be part of an experimental weight loss gym class where we could eat whatever we wanted, but we had to walk everyday. I lost thirty-four pounds and was the leanest I've ever been.

I actually had to put on a little weight to be a plus model a year later, but I got a contract in Chicago and off I went... to yo-yo my way up and down the scale for another twenty-three years.

I always start out strong, but eventually I rebel against dieting and deprivation with every fiber of my being. After thirty-five years of dieting, how am I not supposed to think of raw as a diet???

Logically I know that I lose my taste and cravings for cooked food over time, but getting there is insanely difficult for me. Ironically, so is giving up dieting.

If I really went back to basics and simplified things to the enth degree. I would just walk at least an hour everyday and eat whatever. I actually ate pretty healthy when I did that program, aside from a lot of diet coke.

What I can't let go of when it comes to raw is undoing the internal damage I've done. Exercise takes care of some of it, but a plant-based diet is needed to clean and repair arteries and organs. I can't unlearn this simple fact either. I don't want to just halt the damage. I want to reverse it. But maybe I do just need to start where I am and quit trying to go cold tofurkey. Maybe I just need to get walking and relax about the food for a while, stop fighting with myself all the time. It makes me feel so fractured, conflicted and just plain nuts.