All About Me Revision

Growing up, I hated to cook.

Everything from toasting toast to baking cookies, I had this embedded fear of cooking anything thinking it would be harmful to me.

Coming out of high school that fear of cooking became so fierce, that the thought of even eating became forefront.

Anorexia had made its nest in my bran and it wasn’t planning to leave any time soon.

This disease was so mind controlling that I even would count calories of chewing on a piece of gum or even eating 5 carrots.

I thought about food constantly and let me tell you, it wasn’t in a good way.

Just when I thought I was at my worst weighing at 120 lbs as a six foot woman, my savior came.

You would think it would be some sort of doctor telling me I was going to die if I didn’t eat anything, or some close friend forcing a hamburger down my throat.

No, it wasn’t anything like that that.

My body was in starvation mode and when your body is in starvation mode, you look at food like a ravenous lion stalking their prey.

You can’t stop thinking about food, you can’t stop looking at food, and you start to hallucinate food.

With that being said, my savior ironically was my job at Trader Joe’s.

Demonstrating the food forced me to be around the smells of food, the sight of food, and feel of food.

My senses were on overload, and the disease was losing its battle with me.

The sense of taste barged in and it wasn’t looking back.

I couldn’t defy my starvation any longer.

When I succumbed to finally eating, my mind immediately had conflicting feeling of all the endorphins from eating, to the overwhelming weight of the guilt of eating.

I hated myself for eating.

When would write in my diary, I would be so critical and so judgmental of my own self that my mind was making me hate myself.

I tried to throw up the food.

I tried to run several miles to burn off the 100 calories I had given myself.

I was literally torturing myself.

After almost 2 years of this torture, I eventually began to realize that I really love food.

At this new job as the demonstrator, I began to learn new cooking techniques.

Ironically it turned out to be therapeutic for me.

And customers were actually asking me for recipes and complimenting me on how good it tasted.

How could this bulimic anorexic girl be doing this?

I couldn’t stop thinking about the flavors, the spices, the expensive cookware, and when I was going to get m y next cookbook.

Now that I was completely infatuated with food, my anorexia was deemed defeated!

There will always be a lingering affect but I definitely will never report back to that degree.

My clothes were starting to fit.

My skin was glowing and not looking like a ghost all the time.

And with all this praise and encouragement, I took the ambitious step of going into culinary school.

I graduated with a grand diploma in classic culinary arts in the fall of 2011.

Never in a billion years would I ever think as this being one of my accomplishments.

I thought for sure I would get my college degree before anything but amusingly my one fear has brought to be my biggest enjoyment in life.

I even took it a step further and found another love of mine which is wine.

I became certified wine sommelier in the winter of 2013 to accompany my love with food.

The path that I’ve taken to get here wouldn’t be most people’s choice but it happened to be my path and it makes me more proud of how my obstacles have gotten to where I am now.

Viva la food!