How Eating Pasta In Italy Saved My Life

The title caught your attention didn't it? Good because I wanted your attention and I am not joking about the pasta (eating).

A few years ago I set an intention that I would one day head to Italy to eat pasta, pizza and gelato. I did that recently on my birthday. Mama mia.. and I wondered why it took me so long to get to this incredible country. The food was heavenly but how did it (pasta) saved my life? It goes a long way back with my unhealthy obsession with food, body consciousness and eventually leading up to an eating disorder.

Growing up I was being called fat a lot and even though mostly as a joke, it impacted how I viewed my body and myself. It affected my self esteem. I was perpetually 'on-diet' for most of my life. I had a love-hate relationship with food and my body. I recently learned that it is commonly known as body dysmorphic disorder - a mental disorder defined by an overwhelming preoccupation with a perceived flaw in one's physical appearance.

Well, how did the pasta eating helped? For the first time in a very long time of my life, I gave myself permission to EAT. I allowed myself to taste food as it is. Too simple? But that was what exactly I did. For once I stopped controlling and judging my food choices and allowed my taste (buds) to guide me instead. I ate slowly, savoured the food, the texture, the sensation and how I felt after eating. I allowed myself to feel FULL (pun intended) - physically, emotionally and physiologically. I allowed myself to FEEL. I stopped seeing food as the enemy and started paying attention to what I was choosing to put in my body.

I decided I was no longer willing to punish myself with food.

Perhaps it may still sound too simplistic for some people but l believe once we are ready to heal, something within us will just 'unlock' itself. Yes we can change, just like that, like a flick of switch as Tony Robbins once taught that during his Breakthrough session. Why not? When you start feeling like you had ENOUGH of your own bs story, you know it's time to get on with life. And pasta in Italy did just that for me!

Photo by Bruna Branco on Unsplash