Redesigning my relationship with food

via The Well Travelled Woman

‘Tis the season for resolutions and a setting of intentions. It’s part-way through January, after all. And, since I have all of this extra time (yeah, sure), I’ve been doing a lot of soul-searching about what it means to eat well and be well-fed.

I spent the entirety of my childhood and adolescence eating wonderful food, prepared with love. I would often pine for the more expensive junk food because the other kids’ parents could afford them and we couldn’t. I was irritated by it. So when I graduated and moved out on my own, I bought all that expensive junk and reveled in their entirely tasty but deceptively horribleness.

It wasn’t until I got older that I realized the damage I’d done.

And that my mother had been right all along. (Yeah, like we didn’t all see that one coming. She’s wise, that woman.)

On top of my stupid — oh yes, that’s the word I’m looking for — food decisions in my early twenties, my relationship with food in any form has been toxic since the day I bought my first Vogue magazine. (For the record, I don’t blame Vogue. They’re a magazine. A biznez like any other.)

It was May 2001. I walked into the local convenience store and put down my five dollar bill on the counter. The model’s windswept blonde hair was dazzling. Her figure: flawless. And that red cutout knit swimsuit? Oh goodness, what I would’ve given to have that swimsuit look the same on my fourteen-year-old body.

I must’ve pored over that magazine for days, clipping my favourite advertisements and pasting them in my secret sartorial notebook. I pulled out the perfume samples and stashed them all over my room. For months, when I walked into my bedroom, it smelled like a heady mixture of Calvin Klein and Chanel No. 5.

During one of those analytically charged evenings, I walked into the main bathroom. The girl in the mirror blinked back at me — large, hazel eyes. Haunted. But not. I shrugged out of my clothing — sweater first, fading blue jeans, underthings. Naked, I examined what had gone largely unexamined.

A collarbone, starkly jutting out against porcelain skin. Broad shoulders. Shapely flesh and fat. I stopped myself.

Fat.

I couldn’t look like the beautiful blonde. I had fat on my body. I was muscular, sure, but there were pockets of baby fat that I hadn’t grown out of, yet. I initially told myself that that’s all it was. That I’d grow out of it before I knew it.

Hips.

Fat.

So I stopped eating. Well, not entirely, but certainly in a normal way. I didn’t want to eat. I’d end up an Old Maid, living with a million dogs (because I hate cats) in some dark house in the middle of nowhere. So, I didn’t eat more than I had to. Just enough to survive. Just enough.

The pounds melted away. I could see ribs. Hipbones. Cheekbones. I became a hungry, haunted teenager.

But now, I was beautiful and everyone could see it.

That’s when the stomach problems started. When I ate, it was painful. My stomach ragefully rejected any nutrition. Each bite seemed like agony. I would suffer for hours after any meal. I talked to my doctor but failed to mention that I only ate once a day. He couldn’t find anything wrong with me, other than I was looking a bit thin.

110 pounds is a lot of weight on some frames. On me, it was too little. My skin looked like butter spread over too much bread. Stretched. Taut. Odd. It wasn’t until I noticed a clump of hair on my pillow that I realized I had a problem. No one really noticed (except my parents) when I started to rehabilitate my eating habits. And my body, for that matter.

I struggled (and continually struggle) against that nature of “You’re too fat. Stop eating, fatty.” It destroyed my metabolism. It strained an already tenuous hold on my sanity. I stopped looking at food as, “Beautiful, delicious. A celebration of flavour.” It became my enemy. And when food became my enemy, my body became the battlefield.

Since 2001 — almost eleven years — I’ve been fighting those food demons. I fought anorexia and instead plunged into unhealthy eating habits. I fought those unhealthy eating habits with more attempts at anorexia, without the “results” this time. I stopped respecting my body. In October of 2011, I had my gallbladder removed because my body just couldn’t cope with fatty foods anymore. I spent four unexpected days in the hospital without my little boy. I took the time to rest and to examine why I was in there in the first place.

At the beginning of January, we all make resolutions, even if we resolve to resolve nothing at all. We seek to better ourselves and our lives. Many of us decide to say, “Hey, this year I’m going to go to the gym and eat better.” Many of those many stop midway through January because it’s too hard to change.

Let’s face it. Change is hard.

At the end of 2011 (ten and a half years after buying that first Vogue), I made the decision to change my lifestyle. Not just “go to the gym” or “eat healthier”. But actually sit down, draw up a plan, and make it happen. I learned different recipes. I budget to buy my fruits, veggies, and lean meats from organic sources.

Partway through my twenty-fifth year, I’ve resolved to redesign my relationship with food.

And, by proxy, my body.

For the remainder of the year, I’m going to take Mondays to write about rediscovering my appreciation for my body and redesigning my relationship with food. Perhaps it’ll be a picture. Maybe it’ll be a recipe. Could be an anecdote. Whatever it is, this is going to help keep me committed to this healthy lifestyle overhaul.

For the first time, I’m not interested in “skinny”. I really, truly, and completely believe that my body is capable of being healthy, no matter what that healthy happens to look like. Or what number is on the back of my jeans.