Why?

Here is a question I ask myself constantly.  Why?  Why do I...(feel free to complete this sentence as you see fit).

Tonight that question was completed with the phrase "...eat that when I know I shouldn't."  Eating, or keeping myself from eating, what I shouldn't is a constant theme in my life.  Ask my husband, as I know he bangs his head against the nearest solid object every time I utter those words.  Tonight the culprit was homemade chocolate pudding.  I wasn't planning on eating it, but the next thing I knew I was sitting on my couch, watching the New England Patriots on TV, and in front of me was an empty pudding bowl.  Why?

Looking at me, you would not think I have too many issues with food and health.  I am extremely fit (if I do say so myself) and a healthy weight.  I am a vegetarian and am very concerned about eating the best, organic, whole foods I can find...before 8pm.  After 8pm, I turn into sugar fiend!  I can't help it.  Call it habit, obsession, eating disorder, whatever you want to.  It is a problem.

I grew up the fat kid.  I was the overweight one in our family.  I was fat in high school, fat in college, a fat adult.  After I had my second daughter, my perspective changed.  I didn't want to give my girls a poor example by living an unhealthy life style.  I became determined to change the way I lived and ate.  It happened slowly, but over the course of about a year I went from a high of about 200 lbs at 5'8" to 145 lbs, which is where I have been for the past 5 years or so. In doing that, I became so obsessed with what I ate, counting calories, figuring out how many calories each and every activity I did would burn, that I have not yet learned how to let that go.  So now, I just work out obsessively, so when I do have a "piggy night" as I call it, it won't move the scale too much.

I tell people all the time that I can understand a little bit the mindset of people with eating disorders.  While I know that I am a normal weight, and that when others look at me they see a fit, healthy person, when I stand naked in front of the mirror, I still see that fat girl whom the kids would taunt and tease constantly in school.  And there is the rub.

So, the question is...why?