i love food, believe me. i love looking up recipes, i love looking at pictures of desserts, i love eating it; in fact, i spend most of my time on food blogs. but although i love it and will constantly praise it, for the past year, i've been through several ups and downs with my so-called "friend."

my relationship with food is not the very best i must admit; my family knows it, some buddies know it, and of course, i know it. i've had my share of binging, restricting, self-starvation, extreme guilt, abusing pills, experimentation with vegetarianity (LOL), negative thinking, exercise purging, etc. it all started right before i graduated from high school and continued throughout my first year of college. it was only me, myself, and i secretly coping with my food issues and it was quite a difficult & traumatizing journey because no one was there to help me. i know it was all in the mind, but people couldn't understand that it wasn't something i could easily control :/

it's sad, but as you can see, food plays a major factor in my insecurities, if that even makes sense. however, food is not the enemy here, and there's no one to blame but myself. it's all a mystery to why i'm like this though, because, yeah ... i'm not even overweight. in fact, as of right now, i'm kind of the opposite. i've been eating though, rest assured!

however, over the course of summer 2011, a drastic lifestyle change occurred - my relationship with food changed dramatically. i do not restrict anymore; now, i just simply enjoy eating healthy & clean (for the most part) and see the importance of having a balanced diet. i feel more in control than ever; i don't binge anymore and even more importantly, i do not starve myself anymore. although food & i aren't 100% re-conciliated, with the proper motivation & endless determination, we are sure on our way to getting there again. i just want to able to eat again with absolutely no feelings of guilt and not have people look at me weirdly because of my eating habits.

the purpose of this flickr to post what food i eat - while at home, while on vacation, while in college. some will definitely be unhealthy (especially vacation snapshots), not because i lost all control, but because i need to re-learn that it's okay to indulge sometimes. my pictures will not only be a reminder to myself that i can enjoy food again, but it's also a collection of the things i eat in the places i travel just because i love food in general and i want to share this love with others ;P

basically, it's a food collection w/ orthorexic tendencies, AHAHAHAHA. but please, feel free to ignore my sometimes triggering (shhh!) & annoying (idk?) commentary, and just enjoy looking at the pictures, yeee. oh who am i kidding - my main purpose is to make yall hungray hippos.