Food obsession

I didn't point all week. Which doesn't mean I went completely over the top, I was actually quite reasonable all week - until yesterday night when the red wine and chocolate cake got the better of me.
But I tried to stick to 3 reasonable meals a day and no snacking, and really didn't do too bad.

Which made me think back to 9 months ago and remember how I would fantasise about food all day long.
I remember going to bed at night dreaming about the next day's breakfast, or finishing lunch and already fantasising about everything in the cupboards, doing a mental inventory of the fridge and obsessing about any chocolate bar or biscuit I knew was sitting in the kitchen waiting for me. The worst moment of the day was after dinner, when the food sirens would call to me and I would make regular trips from the couch to the kitchen to nible at anything and everything, hoping my husband didn't notice. Total obsession. I would estimate I spent about 6 hours a day just thinking about food, feeling taunted by it, anticipating eating it, battling with myself about whether or not to eat it, eating it, feeling guilty about eating it...

I realised at the time that I was completely obsessed and knew it wasn't normal or healthy, but I couldn't imagine it ever changing, I thought that was just the way I was kinked and would have to battle my food thoughts for the rest of my life.

9 months on and I hardly ever think about food (I'm not kidding, I really rarely think about it anymore), I can go 6 or 7 hours without eating and suddenly realise it's dinner time because I feel hungry (yes, HUNGRY!). I think "so this is how normal people feel about food?" and have a hard time imagining I was so obsessed about it in the first place.

Of course, I still have issues or I'd already be a size 10. Stress sees me making unhealthier choices (not eating more, just less healthy) and social situations are triggers for going off track (alcohol and snacks, my two worst enemies).

Last night I sat at a dinner table with 2 friends. One naturally skinny and one a constant dieter - she's at a healthy weight now but often yoyos up and down by 10 kilos or so. On the table, a bottle of red wine and a chocolate cake. This was after a relatively healthy and filling dinner of chicken and vegetable curry.
It struck me that whereas naturally skinny friend could leave a half-eaten slice of cake on her plate and half a glass of red wine in front of her for half an hour without touching it, dieter friend and me were constantly sipping and nibbling, cutting away small bits of cake and topping up our glasses of wine regularly. I'd estimate that by the end of the evening we'd had about 3 times more cake than skinny friend and double the amount of wine.

So, still some issues to deal with before I am 100% freed from the food demons, but I do think I can get there eventually.

My dream is to become a naturally healthy person, able to stay at a steady weight for long periods of time without much effort, auto-regulating any excesses without even thinking about it, with an inate sense of balance. I wonder if that's possible or if the overeater in me will always be lurking in the shadows, ready to send me soaring back into obesity?