Eating to Live

I still remember something that happened when I was about 14 years old.

I was going through a buffet line at a special event at church. My choir director was just ahead of me, and I watched as she put a few things on her plate.

Not very much at all.

She was thin, and I remember looking at her plate and thinking, “Is that all she’s going to eat?”

Apparently I didn’t just think it. I said it. 😊

“Is that all you’re going to eat?”

She very pleasantly told me, “I eat to live. I don’t live to eat.”

What a strange concept that was to me.

There were so many yummy things on that buffet! How could she just take what she needed and walk away?

Looking back, I understand why her answer seemed so foreign to me.

Even at 14, I struggled with overeating. I was probably only 10–15 pounds overweight, but food already had far too much importance in my life. My cravings for sugar had begun even earlier, in childhood, and I was developing patterns with food that would follow me for decades.

I was living to eat.

It wasn’t until I was over 40 that I found the 12 Steps, learned to abstain from the foods that triggered my cravings, and found the support and faith-centered recovery I needed.

Today, food has a very different place in my life.

I still enjoy good food. But I no longer want food to be the thing I look to for comfort, excitement, escape, or satisfaction.

Funny how a few words spoken in a church buffet line more than 45 years ago can stay with you:

“I eat to live. I don’t live to eat.”