My Body, Myself: Learning to Eat and Love

I don’t remember a time when I had a healthy relationship with food. I’m sure when I was very small, I ate to satisfy my intuition and had no internal dialogue or shame about the choices I was making. Obviously when I was very young, I did not criticize or dislike my own body. I have no memory of the before times.

Instead, I have memories of hoping no one was noticing how much I was eating. Or of sneaking into the treats when my parents weren’t around. I remember eating entire frozen pizzas for dinner – not because I was hungry or thought the food was particularly satisfying, but because I felt gross, and I covered the gross feeling with more eating.

Before I get too far into this, I want to make some things very clear! I do not believe eating beyond fullness is morally reprehensible, I do not believe in food addiction, and I do not believe processed food is to blame, nor is a lack of willpower.

Though I don’t remember a time when I had a healthy relationship with food, that is no longer true. It took until after my 27^th birthday to circle back, but I’m finally in a happy place.

In the years between baby bliss and my newfound ease, there were decades of shame. I believed and was told that I was too round. No one told me to diet as a child, but I can’t name a woman in my life that I didn’t see doing just that. I remember the judgement of people who lost weight from dieting but couldn’t keep it off. What a shame… They must have lacked self-control, right?

Part of me wants to skip over all the “diets don’t work” talk and skip straight to “why do we even have a problem with fat bodies?” conversation. But my life took me down the diet route so I’m going to start there.

From elementary school I started to think there was something wrong with my body. I was told capri pants didn’t work with my shape – by another child, but still – rude! My discomfort in my own skin only increased as I went through middle and high school. When I looked around my classes, it seemed like everyone was skinny and I was the chubby one. I was always in my head when I was eating. How much did everyone else take? Did they notice how much food I took? I started eating more and more in secret. I felt shame from hiding my food from others, so much so that I wouldn’t even enjoy the food I snuck and would go back for more, seeking the satisfaction that would never come when I was riddled with shame.

This same basic structure followed me to college – not dieting, but also not being happy with my body and not feeling good about the way I was eating. With a depression diagnosis came anti-depressant medication, which altered my appetite – eventually I stopped taking that medication and my body reacted by promptly gaining a lot of weight. Of course, there were a lot of shame-fed feeding frenzies in that time as well.

Suddenly I wasn’t just my usual round and uncomfortable self, I was someone I couldn’t recognize in the mirror or photographs. I hated myself for the weight I gained. Isn’t that absurd?! Why should my self-worth be so attached to my bodyfat composition? I am so sorry for that era of me. I am so sorry to you also if you’ve ever had a similar experience. What a crappy fucked up nightmare world that is.

After college I set out to “get healthy.” There were some aspects of that time that were healthier! I was doing a lot of yoga, which was awesome for stabilizing my mental health. I started running, which taught me that I am capable of the things I never thought possible. But the way I restricted my food was not healthy. Restriction leads to obsession and eventually nature wins and starts the feeding frenzy to better prepare for the next “famine.” My body’s number one goal is survival. While I was being “healthy” and feeling proud of my shrinking body, my poor body was in starvation mode and doing everything it could to fight back. I am so sorry to my body. And I am sorry to you if you have ever felt the need to shrink to fit into your own or someone else’s expectations.

After my third or fourth misguided foray into restriction for the sake of ideal aesthetics, I experienced some serious binge eating. “I must be a monster,” I thought. “No one can ever know.” My body did its job to protect me from future famine and packed on some extra fat reserves. I hated that people saw me and thought, “What a shame… She must have lacked self-control, right?” Painfully often, I ate until I felt so sick and so ashamed. I needed help, but I was wrong about what that would look like. I thought I needed someone to help me overcome food addiction, learn to only want the “right” foods in the “right” quantities, and then I would be small and cute and lovable. And I was so alone in those feelings, certain no one else could possibly understand.

I got help.

Last September I started seeing a dietician and working through literature on Intuitive Eating and Health at Every Size. Through a gradual process, I learned to allow myself to eat without judgement. I started to accept the fact that I am not going to be skinny, and the only thing wrong is the belief that skinny is better. I am still working on believing that. It takes a long time to reprogram my brain. I can still get thrown off by a photo of myself. But damnit, I’m not going back! I would way rather work through the emotional labor of coming to accept my body than ever return to the diet cycling that is all-too common.

There is so, so much more I could go into about health, body image, food, but I have read some awesome books this year that do a much better job than I can. I just wanted to tell my story. Hopefully I have many years left in this body of mine. It’s about time to start living without the baggage of body shame. I know from experience that for me, sharing leads to healing.

While writing this post I realized I wanted to incorporate current photos of myself. Though it has been years since I’ve felt confident about how I look in photos, I am determined to reframe how I view myself! I enlisted a friend to help. This was a mortifying and uncomfortable experience, but she helped me see myself how others might. In the end, this last-minute photo shoot and subsequent perusal to pick my favorites ended up being therapeutic. Perhaps it will be possible to love my body.

If my experience resonates and you want to learn more:

Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Anti Diet Approach by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch

Health at Every Size by Lindo Bacon

Anti-Diet: Reclaim Your Time, Money, Well-being and Happiness Through Intuitive Eating by Christy Harrison

The F*ck It Diet: Eating Should Be Easy by Caroline Dooner

The Food Heaven Podcast

It is much easier knowing I’m not alone in this journey. My dear friend is a constant inspiration.