This piece requires a trigger warning for disordered eating and body image issues. I encourage you to continue to read even if this is a continuous struggle for you. My hope is that my story of loving food and then learning to love my body will give you hope to start or continue your healing.
My Story
I was 15 the first time I went on a diet. I was sixteen the first time I felt hatred towards my body. While that age is significantly higher than the national average for a teenage girl to have my experience, it is worth noting that I was not living in the U.S. before this time. My community before migrating to the U.S didn’t hyper focus on body size or the foods we ate. We ate for fuel and for pleasure. I was active not because of any obligation.
My family and I moved to Ohio the month before I turned fifteen. Within months of living in the U.S. as a teenage girl, the message I was receiving from my peers and the media was that my body was too big and that certain foods were bad. This type of thinking poisoned my self-worth and eating habits. I transitioned from one diet to another. My weight fluctuated between 15 and 20 pounds regularly. I remember a time in high school, I got angry that I couldn’t get myself to throw up and It wasn’t for lack of trying.
Fast forward to college, instead of diets, I began to binge eat. I wasn’t much of a drinker but everyone assumed the freshman fifteen was from alcohol. I would binge eat to cope with the changes associated with life as a working college student.
After college the binge eating reduced significantly but I was less active. My weight moved up again and I went back to dieting. I even worked for a diet company for a period of time to learn the tricks to lose weight. My time in that job taught me that our emotions had a lot to do with our eating and how the diet culture manipulates our thinking. In my mid twenties, I went on a strict diet and exercise regimen to fit into a bridesmaid dress that I intentionally bought two sizes smaller and gave myself a few months fit into the dress. The hard and painful work paid off. I was thinner and hungry. The dress fit and the positive feedback kept me motivated temporarily. The plan was unsustainable.
While the pounds creeped back on, I continued to exercise with less intensity. I’ve always enjoyed working out but often did it as punishment for eating “bad” foods or to make up for the eating I was going to eat later in the day. This vicious cycle continued for many years and then in 2020, after reading several books and learning more about disordered eating, I started to rethink how I viewed food and my body.
I got rid of my scale by the end of 2020 because I noticed the daily weigh-ins caused more harm than good. Fast forward to 2024, when my insurance began to cover nutritionists without any out of pocket costs. I decided to take the plunge and tackle this persistent challenge. I wanted to love my body and enjoy foods without attaching shame or negative self-talk. As a mother, I knew success would benefit me and my children in the long run.
Healing My Relationship with Food and My Body
Here’s what I have done thus far to help me heal the relationship with my body and food. I eat when I am hungry and stop when I am full. My nutritionist shared a line with the numbers zero to ten on the line. Zero representing feeling famished and ten representing Thanksgiving stuffed. She wanted me to eat when I was at level three and to stop eating at level seven or eight. Initially, I was skeptical but this practice has been a game changer for me. The second thing I worked on was to stop demonizing foods. I had to relearn that there is no such thing as bad or good food if you aren’t allergic or sensitive to the food. Everyone is different, so shrimp, crab and other shellfish options are bad foods for me because they can kill me.
The Excercise Piece
While some foods are more nutritionally dense than others, not all foods can meet our emotional needs. There’s value in both types of foods. Changing this thought has been the most difficult to accept. I still struggle, yet continue to work on changing my mindset. The last thing I worked on was doing exercises that I enjoy. I get it, not everyone loves exercising but for me, I do and I had to find the ones I enjoyed because that is what I will want to do. In the past, I would take spin classes because I burnt the most calories in those classes. I have learned that I don’t particularly enjoy spin enough to do it several times a week. I can enjoy spin classes when I do it a few times a month. Thanks to apps like Peloton and Youtube, I have discovered a love for Barre and look forward to those classes.
If you find yourself relating to the me who hated her body and felt bad every time I ate something that’s not celery and carrots, I encourage you to join me in this journey to heal our relationship with food and our bodies. You can read books, follow social media accounts that support your goals, and maybe find a nutritionist who will help you develop a better relationship with food and your body. You are worth it.
