The road to self-acceptance for me has been rocky. My relationship with myself, with others, and with food has always been complicated. Even when I was five I had to learn to read ingredients to avoid hours of vomiting later. Even when I was three I looked at my thighs with disgust, even though I was not fat. And even now I have a need to feel validated that might still boarder on unhealthy sometimes.
First I'll talk about my history with food. Let me tell you about the types of crap I grew up eating.
As a small child, I could not eat anything my friends were allowed to eat. No butter, no milk, no ice cream, no cheese, no oranges (still don't know why I couldn't have oranges and why I can have them now). From an early age many foods were seen as forbidden, and if I tried them I'd become very ill. Classroom birthdays were the worst, as beautiful cupcakes tempted me like nothing else.
Age 5 (Lactose Intolerant)
Breakfast: Dry toast and apple juice
Lunch: PBJ, Banana, and grapes with juice
Dinner: Some kind of meat with vegetables and mashed potatoes. Unfortunately I never ate the vegetables because they were gross gross gross and probably canned anyway.
Dessert: Something made with soy milk, because I was lactose intolerant.
Then a few years later my lactose intolerance was less severe and I was making up for lost time by eating all the stuff I wasn't allowed to eat that all my friends ate ... which usually meant pastries, chocolate, cereal with milk in it, and cheese pizza. Sometimes chocolate and sprinkles on top of cereal and milk in it, and I think I might be ill right now brb.
Age 10 (YAY I CAN EAT WHATEVER I WANT)
Breakfast: Tastycake Pie
Lunch: Cafeteria Food
Afternoon Snack: Some horrendous science experiment involving whatever we had in our pantry.
Dinner: Some kind of meat with vegetables and a pasta side dish. Which could mean cheeseburger and canned peas with canned Chef Boyardee.
Dessert: Halloween Candy
Then I began gaining a lot of weight and my cholesterol shot up to 230. I just thought vegetables were the most disgusting thing in the world. I even picked the black olives and green peppers off of pizza until my mom caught me and I ate them with a look of disgust on my face.
Soon my diet looked more like this:
Age 10.5 (OH NO I HAVE THE HEART OF A 90 YEAR OLD MAN)
Breakfast: Wheaties, banana, skim milk
Lunch: Cafeteria Food
Afternoon Snack: Grapes and yogurt
Dinner: Garden Salad, cornbread, baked chicken
Dessert: Frozen yogurt, or strawberries
I still didn't lose weight though. Starting at age 11, I started skipping lunch, and by age 12 I began over-exercising for hours a night. By age 13 my diet was this:
Age 13 (AM I FAT AM I FAT HOW ABOUT NOW)
Breakfast: Wheaties, banana, skim milk or Dry Toast and Honey
Lunch: Nothing, or an apple.
Afternoon Snack: Grapes in between marathon sessions of Abs of Steel on VHS.
Dinner: Tried to skip dinner if I couldn't get caught, or just eat a little dinner.
Dessert: Some kind of diety dessert or nothing. I usually went back to marathon exercising, usually rehearsing ballet or tap in our basement. I loved it!
However ... soon I cut down even more.
For a very short time I was 5 foot 6 and 116 lbs, which is honestly a healthy weight for someone at that age and a healthy weight now. Except I didn't have a body of a child, as I was almost through with puberty at 13. My bones were large and dense, and I had big boobs. Except the month before I had been 128 lbs and I wasn't eating anything and I was obsessed with food. The arguments at dinner table started becoming more intense. My ballet class measurements got really small. However, my grades and friendships suffered, as well as my self esteem. I felt so self-conscious, because even at that size I was bigger than the popular girls who were all skeletal and short.
My parents took me to a nutritional expert, who told me that skipping meals would make me fat in the long run and to stop. It was a hard habit to break, but I eventually accepted myself as I was, growing flab and all. By the time I was 15, I was 140 lbs. I thought I was huge, and that nutritional expert told me I should not be any smaller than 135 lbs and to stop obsessing, to stand up straight and proud, to get out there and dance and run without caring who saw me.
My parents were divorcing at that time, and to cope with it at first I spent much of the time jumping rope until I was soaked in sweat, or sprinting. However, soon I just laid in my room and cried and read books while binge eating boxes of cereal and toast.
I actually got very big. By age 17 I was 175 lbs and a size 15/17. And so I backslid, becoming obsessed with food and looks. My diet looked like this:
Age 17 (IT IS EASY TO BE HEALTHY WHEN I DON'T HAVE TO COOK)
Breakfast: Yogurt and fruit
Lunch: A giant bottle of Sobe, whatever had the most vitamins and weird ingredients like ginseng in it. I liked to collect the caps! Sometimes I would buy actual food, but I was usually still full from breakfast by then.
Afternoon Snack: More yogurt or fruit, but most of the time nothing because I didn't want to spoil dinner with a possible binge. I usually went for a run right after school before heading to work. I probably would have liked to eat something, but our kitchen was infested with ants and I imagined them crawling in anything that wasn't sealed shut. I call this my "everything has ants in it" diet.
Dinner: Whatever my mom made, which usually had lot of vegetables which by then I would eat steamed or sauteed. My favorite meal was orange roughy with asparagus spears. If I was working a five hour shift at Pizza Hut, a personal pan pizza that I made myself, no sauce, light cheese, chicken, peppers, and mushrooms. I usually shared it with my family if I didn't scarf it down before I got home. Every so often I would make dinner and it usually was tuna sandwiches with sliced apples.
Dessert: Nope, unless it was a special occasion.
I lost 30 lbs in three months, and was actually proud of that. I got down to a size 10, which you've seen. Unfortunately, I was still obsessed. Obsessed with food. Obsessed with looks. Obsessed with boys. Obsessed with sex. There was little joy. I wasn't happy.
A Word On My Rocky Road To Self-Acceptance
The obsession with boys was the most painful.
No not boy crazy teenager obsession.
But like, obsessive obsession.
I noticed in high school that all the girls had boyfriends. I wanted a boyfriend too, but not because I liked boys. I wanted to be accepted and validated.
By the time I was 17, I knew that I had an attraction to boys. Out of the three or four guys I'd gone on dates with, there was only one who really did it for me (and I'm currently married to him). What surprised me was that I was becoming more attracted to girls. I was very interested in some of the girls and boys I went to school with, but I never told them. I had no desire to be any less popular by expressing myself, but while I felt like having a boyfriend was the only way I could value my existence (no self-esteem, remember) I didn't necessarily have any real crushes beyond wanting to feel loved by a cute guy.
This continued as a theme throughout my early twenties. I would become obsessed with the idea of things. I met someone over the internet during my senior year in high school, a boy. I met him in person just after my 18th birthday that summer. To my surprise, for the first time in two years, I felt excited by him in person. Unfortunately he lived in Florida. I lost interest in him probably within six months after we met, but I was obsessed with the idea of us ending up together despite all odds. Being stubborn, this horseshit lasted for a couple of years.
I feel bad for saying it was horseshit, but it totally was. By March 2001 I wasn't interested in him at all, and yet we didn't even officially break up until June 2003. I stayed with him out of guilt that I thought was love. I think he stayed with me for the same reason.
I still feel really sad about it, all these years later. We were great friends and the breakup was mean-spirited and awful, like most breakups are. The stress of it caused me to stop eating entirely except for one yogurt every few days. I feel bad for how both of us treated each other, but there is no way to make up for that at all. Even if someone is a wonderful person, they are not always meant to be in your life. I've learned that over the years with many of my friends, actually.
While we were together there were both boys and girls I was interested in who I hung out with on a regular basis. I even started dating one of the boys, and thought that my obsession with him was love too. There were also girls I was obsessed with. But even in 2003 I needed boys and girls to fix self-esteem issues, which is a terrible reason to be with anyone.
I went to therapy in June 2003 to fix those issues and it was super helpful. I remain in therapy to this day, because I still work on knowing what is healthy when it comes to my own judgment.
When I met Greg for the first time since high school and fell in actual love in July/August 2003, I was completely unprepared for what that was like. While I had moments of obsession (old habits die hard), the obsession went away and I got to know him . There was a peacefulness along with the passion for once.
Unfortunately, my obsession turned to food. Fast food. Horrible-for-you food. Oh, and sitting on my butt all the time.
I went from 135 lbs to 190 lbs within six months, and by 2007 I was 230 lbs. I had stage 3 high blood pressure. I had severe asthma. I had severe depression, anxiety, and agoraphobia. I was angry all the time and took it out on everyone. Then my paternal grandparents died within a year of each other and by 2010 I couldn't take being unhappy anymore.
As I've grown, I've accepted many things about myself. I'm slowly accepting my looks and my body as I've lost and gained 50 lbs over and over. I no longer feel like I'm living a lie like I was in high school and college. As I've gotten more comfortable with who I am and what I like, nutrition is now my biggest food issue. Nutrition has always been tricky with me and something I will work on for the rest of my life.
I have a feeling that if I could make a few simple changes I can prevent chronic diseases. A little bit more walking, a little bit more spinach. A little less fast food.
I hope never to be at a point where food becomes an obsession again, but even if it does I hope to identify it as it is happening, or at least in time to prevent any damage.
And I hope to love all people for who they are and not who I want them to be.
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