I’ve always used food to cover up my feelings.

As a coping mechanism.

A way to forget what I was so miserable about.

I used to tell myself that I don’t use it that way.

That food wasn’t an escape.

But I was lying to myself.

Or unable to see the truth.

Or both.

As I continue to gain some clarity, slowly, I can see things for what they truly are.

Not under the blanket of psychotic symptoms.

And I have used food as a comfort my entire life.

I’ve just within the past few months been able to lose most of the weight I gained while on seroquel last summer.

Fifty pounds.

I gained fifty pounds on seroquel.

Within a two month span.

My blood pressure and weight skyrocketed while taking it.

And it took about six months to get rid of it after the Invega injections started to help me snap back into everyone else’s reality.

When they added the twice daily risperidone, that was when I could really start to focus on losing weight.

The combination of these medications has helped me unlike any medication before.

So, a year after I gained the fifty pounds, I was able to lose it.

May to May.

It was a rough year.

I was so frustrated with myself.

Again.

But now that I have been able to start to see things outside of the veil of hallucinations and delusions, I can eat better.

For the first time in my life.

I’ve been able to be really diligent about my diet since the beginning of this year.

I have been at my wits end with my weight for several years now.

But gaining fifty pounds on an already big frame made me feel fucking terrible.

Granted, I’m five foot ten and then some, and have a big frame.

But I’ve been overweight most of my life.

Even if I do wear it well as I’ve been told, it’s still there.

And I’m trying to change that now that I can see food for what it is.

It’s seemingly impossible to focus on much when I’m in and out of psychosis like I am.

But the medications and hard work I’ve been putting into myself is starting to show in ways I never thought were possible.

Food is for nutrition, substance.

It can be for pleasure, in moderation.

But I always used food as an escape.

A momentary pleasurable taste led to significant weight issues for most of my life.

The one or two years that I was slim, I was in active addiction and using substances so heavily that I have had a hard time equating my slim self with being healthy.

Because I wasn’t.

I lost weight then becuase eating food would fuck with my high.

It would dull it.

So I just didn’t eat that much.

And that isn’t healthy at all.

But now I’m able to see food as necessary energy.

I’m able to categorize it.

I know my juicer has been helping me concrete this thought too.

I can’t remember the last time I had so many vegetables in my diet – if ever, really.

I always chose bread and cheese and cereal.

And I wondered why I felt miserable, when I could feel my physical body (which wasn’t terribly often).

It’s amazing how much my viewpoint has shifted on food this year.

When I was finally able to catch my breath, it started to make sense.

Just like many things in my life.

It’s turned into one of the things in my life that I can control.

One thing that I can hold a grip on and do or not do as I see fit.

I know this is a mildly dangerous feeling around food too.

I don’t want to become obsessed with counting calories and limiting my intake to unhealthy levels.

But the amount I was eating, as an average american, was outrageous.

Honestly, the average meal from a restaurant is usually all of the daily allotted calories.

It’s well over one serving.

Which makes me feel like I’m swinging in the middle with my control over food.

I’ve been slowly changing what I’m eating.

I had already cut out dairy, so now I’m limiting added sugars and white, or bleached, flour.

I like it because food is becoming one of the things in my life I can limit as I see fit.

Very unlike my psychotic symptoms.

And as I count calories most days, I’ll still let myself eat what I want to on others.

It’s just that what I want to eat is changing too.

I ate out with my Dad the other day and ate the caramelized onions and brussel sprouts appetizer for my meal.

They were delicious.

I let myself get a side of fries too, with a small, amazing beer cheese for a dip.

But that was the first meal out in about three weeks.

I earned those fries!

Before being able to start looking at food healthier, I would’ve ordered a sandwich and fries.

A dessert.

Maybe even an appetizer too.

But not now.

I think that the juicing I’ve been doing is helping to change the way I look at food too.

Real food doesn’t mean meat.

Real food doesn’t mean cheese.

Or pasta, or bread.

It means something that makes me physically feel good.

And helps me not destroy myself mentally for my food choices.

I’m not calling this a diet.

It’s a lifestyle change.

I had gotten my blood work back a few months ago and I was on the border, like a lot of folks on antipsychotics, of being prediabetic.

And I’ll be damned if I sit around after hearing that.

It’s scary.

I get another round of blood work done in a few weeks.

And I’m hopeful that my numbers will be more normal than they were.

I’m not holding my breath.

But I’ve changed pretty much everything about my diet since the last round.

And I did it slowly.

Now I just really hope all of this sticks.

– Keren