Coming from an eating disordered background, sometimes I get anxious about food. No, make that MOST of the time I’m anxious about food. Food, weight, my body image, the way others perceive me, how I measure up in my looks, personal life and work. I’m constantly feeling inadiquate, weak-willed and inferior.
Interestingly, I recently did a diagram of the way I was feeling and contributing factors. I was feeling sad and unworthy and the reasons that came out of my head had a lot to do with how I feel other people rated my looks. For some reason I equate being ‘thin and attractive’ with being ’successful, popular, accepted and worthy of friendship’
This is NOT a normal conclusion. In my childhood when Mum was in one of her ‘happy and high’ cycles (she suffers from bi-polar disorder) she would buy lots of clothes rapidly lose weight and entertain lots of friends in a whirlwind of social activity. She was mad and happy, popular and exciting. When she plummeted to incredible lows, she would gain weight, stay in bed for weeks or months, see no one and tell me she wanted to die. That was a big factor that helped shape my views about myself and how I feel about the way I look. Another factor could have been the social circles I was in as a teen and young adult. At least three of my friends openly discussed their eating disorders and dieting habits and tips. Then there was the ‘popular’ girls. Older than me, trendier and much, much skinnier. They were the ‘cool’ ideal that I was usually excluded from that I constantly wished to be. If only I could be thinner, they would like me more. If I was thinner they might want to talk to me or tell me about their new boyfriends.
For reasons unknown to me, I have carried these unreasonable ideals around like old suitcases my whole life. When my husband says “You really like Saemon, she’s a big girl, do you think you wouldn’t be friends with her if she got any fatter? Do you think if she lost weight you’d like her more?” I can see weight has nothing to do with it. I KNOW that my friends couldn’t care less if I was 10kgs lighter or heavier!
That being said, my recent diet has done wonders for my mood. When I don’t eat I get anxious, moody, paranoid, I sink back into my comfortable quagmire of depression. Not-eating feeds my anxiety, my body needs food to regulate my hormones which in turn, regulate my moods. It’s like a vicious cycle of self destruction. So I’ve been eating three meals a day plus some snacks and I feel so much better. More able to cope with day to day stresses and problems. I’ve cut out sugar and alcohol altogether and cut coffee down to one a day.
Here’s a sample of my daily menu:
Breakfast - 2 free range eggs scrambled with parsley and a grilled tomato or eggplant
Snack – handful of almonds or a piece of cheese
Lunch – fish and salad
Snack – handful of almonds or a piece of cheese
Dinner - protein and steamed or stir-fried veggies or salad
Dessert - a baked apple with cream or natural Greek yoghurt (my one fruit and only sugar fix! mmm)
It is helping me so much to feel stable again. On advice from my Naturopath, I’m also supplementing with cod liver oil, B2, magnesium, Coenzyme Q10 and 5-HTP. The new supplements are also doing much to relieve my brain fog! Has anyone else discovered better moods through regular meals and lower carbohydrate intake? I’d love to hear what worked for you.
About the Author...
I've finally overcome my destructive eating habits by learning to accept myself, applying the WAPF nutritional principles daily. I'm now at a stable, healthy, slim weight, have lots of energy and no more guilt. I've been happily married for 7 years and am a graphic designer. In the near future I'm hoping to start a nutritional course and start practicing as a qualified nutritionist. At the moment it's all self education.
Jun 28th, 2008 at 6:50 pm
One thing I’d like to mention to you is nourishment through other channels in your body. Food is just one way that we receive ’stuff/energy’ from the environment. With eating disorders you can easily focus so much on this one direction (in a good or bad way).
I knew a very old school naturopath who worked with a support group for hospitalised anorexics. She said she never once discussed healthy food or eating with them. They already were obsessed with that.
Instead she focussed on nourishing them through other means. Her example was one week she insisted all of them buy some silk sheets and sleep naked. Another week she got them all to get a massage. Another week she might say walk bare foot on wet grass. etc. You get the picture. These girls were in severe states and none of them at the time had complete recoverys. But her point was just to get them feeling good about themselves, and removing all that excessive nervous energy being focussed on one channel - what goes in your mouth.
I hope maybe this story is helpful and best of luck to you :-)
Jun 29th, 2008 at 5:43 am
Jad - Thank you so much for your kind post. Since I have stopped calorie counting and focusing more on the quality of my nutrition, I’ve found it a lot easier to accept my body as it is and love it more. I try really hard to practice positive thinking, telling myself all the things I LIKE about myself instead of those I dislike. You are right though, it is hard to stop being so single-minded about food and treat myself to sensory treats occasionally. I don’t know if things will ever be easy when it comes to food. Even now I am constantly teetering towards some new fad diet. I snap out of it and don’t, but the point is I often wish I was thinner despite health risks. Head versus heart? Don’t know. What I do know is that eating disorders are not glamorous or cool, they are crippling both mentally and physically and I DO NOT want to go there ever again, that is what makes me stop. I have to respect myself and my loved ones by eating well and maintaining a healthy weight.
Jun 30th, 2008 at 6:44 am
Hi Louise,
A viewpoint from the other side:
As a young woman who has always been small, pretty, thin, and never had to worry about weight, my life hasn’t been a bed of roses. In fact in high school, I was very lonely, had one or two friends and like you, was very envious of the ‘beautiful girls’. I suffered some pretty bad acne from the age of 13-21. I was obsessed with one day having beautiful clear skin, thought everyone judged me by my skin, wore make-up constantly and fussed over covering my zits. I wore my hair to cover as much of my face as possible, and was extremely shy with boys etc etc. I was convinced if I only had clear skin, my life would be perfect and I would be popular and get a boyfriend.
I think when you’re that age its either one thing or another. In my later teens, early twenties, I had other girls and good friends envy my figure, go on crash diets to try and be my size, and I HATED it. I was society’s stereotype of the ‘thin’ woman and I resented it for a long time, especially as I was quite the feminist at that age. Nothing I said about wanting a fuller figure was ever believed, and I was not so much sneered at, but ignored when the topic of body image ever came up. Just for the record, being thin never helped me to be anything. There were many more less attractive and larger girls more popular than me in school, who had friends and boyfriends aplenty. I was walled in by my acne, shy personality, and resultant social ineptitude. I only really blossomed in my mid twenties and continue to grow stronger each year. We all have our demons to fight.. :-)
Personally I think you’re really brave showing so much vulnerability by your blog, and you’re obviously doing so well and going through a lot of issues. That’s really awesome.
My hat’s off to you,
Karen.
Jun 30th, 2008 at 9:23 pm
Thank you Karen, there are two sides to every story! I think a lot of us as we are growing up find it hard to come to terms with our ‘differentness’. Each and every one of us are unique. Luckily as we age we learn to embrace those differences and love them. What a boring place the world would be without the sparkle of our individual quirks!