Dancing on the Razor’s Ledge: Centering Health in My Life

In this clip, I talk about both the celebration and danger that are part of making healthy choices in this modern food environment. The reality of my journey is that I am not fixed and the things that caused me to fail in the past surround me. Failing again would be easy to do. Ongoing success means staying vigilant, humble, and self-aware.

Dancing on the Razor's Ledge was almost the title of my endeavor to share my story of losing half my weight and finding greater health and wellness. This phrase still fits my message in powerful ways — even though I don’t actually dance, lol.

Dancing metaphorically is something I do all the time on this journey. Dancing captures the celebration that comes when I act in my own best interests for my health.

Most importantly, I celebrate eating the foods that promote health, lifestyle disease reversal, and prevention of illness and disease. Losing half my weight is part of that.

Change has been and continues to be a process. I used to think it was a destination. I am maneuvering myself through change today — working myself into a better version of myself today than I was yesterday.

This is what my journey really looks like: back and forth between successes and failures, between the best and worst of myself — with more successes than failures.

The razor’s ledge captures the danger that is constantly part of living in this corrupt food environment. I am not fixed.

I have failed epically in this modern food environment, and I could easily double my weight again. I regained a large amount of weight once already. I live on a ledge of safety, surrounded by danger.

But, I know my hunger drive now. I know my action plan. I know how quickly and easily this can fall apart. The razor's edge is how I feel when I get too far away from the foods and balances that are right for my hunger drive.

Finding my way out of the shadows has been well worth the journey. The greatest peace is a relief from personal torment that comes from knowing what was best for me but being unable to act in my own best interest. Life on this ledge of safety liberates me.

The edge always exists in the ledge, and transforming my shadows means living with my shadow selves. I traverse back and forth between the ledge of safety and the razor’s edge, a place where I am threatened by food addiction and my omnipresent shadow selves – binge eating, exercise purging, and anorexic restricting.

I may not dance physically, but I constantly dance in the decisions I make around my health and wellness. I dance between grace and accountability. I dance to find ways to make healthy choices for myself. I dance in celebration of those healthy choices. I dance between the best and worst of myself. I dance in my light, my shadows always present.

Finding a way to eat when hungry and lose half my weight has been one of the most complex and positive processes of my life. I am sharing my story to bring light to that complexity. Follow along in my social media to learn more about my adventures as I share through the ups and downs of centering health and wellness in my weight loss journey.