Food Struggles

Welcome to a Secret Subject Swap. This week 11 brave bloggers picked a secret subject for someone else and were assigned a secret subject to interpret in their own style. Today we are all simultaneously divulging our topics and submitting our posts.

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Food is a frenemy of mine.

My relationship with food goes far beyond comfort, love, or hate. It's a complex beast, wild and chaotic. Food is shame, rush, art, creation, emptiness, a consolation prize. Sometimes it's the rainbow after a torrential rain. Sometimes it's the rain.

I'm not entirely to blame for this. Family and society did their part, and I have yet to be able to entirely get over it. I can't escape the voices that guilt me over every piece of chocolate I try to enjoy, but I can't stop feeling absolutely elated every time I make a dish I see other people thoroughly enjoy. It's a fucker of a thing loving to cook, loving the art of creating a good recipe, but hating myself for finding solace in the way it tastes.

There is no peace in food, no real comfort without destruction, and it's been that way for most of my life. I wasn't really a big kid until I was maybe 10. I had to wear a bra before then but hormonal body changes made me a little pudgy. Every day at school I walked during p.e. Most days after school I walked around the block at my grandma's to get more exercise. I needed it, she said. I needed to be on a diet, she said. I was fat, my dad would laugh. Fatty, fatty 2x4; can't get through the bathroom door...

I

Was

Just

A

Kid

And so began the complex. My dad died without ever having so much as a half-compliment about how I looked even at my thinnest (which, let's be clear, was never really thin by society's standards given my genes) when I took diet pills and purged and dieted until I made myself sick. I still can't be around my grandmother without waiting for that word, "diet," to trigger a bout of depression and disordered eating. I can't be around her period to be honest. Family or not the damage done is too much to salvage a relationship with someone who was only ever hypercritical, who expected a child to parent her alcoholic, coke-addicted father at 14 and still manage to fit in a size 2 dress.

None of my family was ever thin. So why was I the butt of the joke?

Add to that I didn't grow up in a time when body acceptance was the movement it is today. I didn't have fat icons to look up to. Fat women were always portrayed as gross, desperate, sad, lazy, void of anything worthy. And I internalized the fuck out of those images. It was hard not to when everything I heard at home confirmed them, and I was picked on at school for it just as much. "Fat dyke" was the pretty consistent mantra I heard shuffling hallways to class, and "lardass" or "crisco" followed it at home. Food takes on so much negativity when every bite you take is scrutinized, and a lifetime of relearning can't fully break it.

It's not so simple as whether food makes me happy or unhappy. An umami bomb hitting my tastebuds is likely to give me a rush in the moment, but the blowback shame I feel for letting myself enjoy it muddies the waters. But so few things can match the joy I feel when I taste-test a dish I'm working on in the kitchen and know I nailed it, took a bare bones recipe and made it mine or started out with some random idea I had in the shower and actually brought it to fruition. How do you balance those two worlds--one where creating food is everything and one where enjoying the taste of it can never happen without shame?

It's a war in all honesty. I could wave the white flag and give in to the darkness at any time, but my worth is not my weight. My size is not a problem. And having a damn candy bar shouldn't cause a meltdown. Every meal is no longer a battle (depending on other stresses) which is an improvement, but I can't kid myself into thinking it will be over anytime soon. So, every day I lay on the armor and work on facing those demons head-on. I may lose a fight or two, but this victory will be mine. One day.

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Here are the links to the other submissions:

Baking In A Tornado http://www.BakingInATornado.com

Cognitive Script https://cognitivescript.blogspot.com/

The Blogging 911 http://theblogging911.com/blog

The Lieber Family Blog http://thelieberfamily.com

The Bergham Chronicles https://berghamchronicles.blogspot.com

Southern Belle Charm http://www.southernbellecharm.com

Bookworm in the Kitchen http://www.bookwormkitchen.com/

Never Ever Give Up Hope https://batteredhope.blogspot.com

Part-time Working Hockey Mom https://thethreegerbers.blogspot.ch

TaylorLife http://www.TaylorLife.com

Treat My Cold Not My Love Handles

The thing about going to the doctor when you don’t fit this strange, standard mold that saturates our society—the tall, thin, wispy model-type—you don’t receive good care. I’m 5’4 and a size 12. I’ve never fit that standard ideal, and despite the average woman being closer to my size than what fits into that narrow idyllic box, I still get told that everything would be fine with me if I lost weight, if I exercised more, if I ate right. The assumptions are always the same—I couldn’t possibly look the way I do if I did get exercise and eat right. I wouldn’t have a sinus infection if I were smaller. I’d have more energy if I lost weight. I’d feel better. I’d not have headaches. Losing some lbs would just automatically transform every fucking thing I have every experienced medically.

Because thin people are never at the doctor, right?

I do exercise and eat right. I love yoga and even though I also love candy, I do believe in moderation. I limit my caloric intake to 1400 calories a day even when candy is part of the equation, and I try to keep my food choices pretty healthy. It’s never enough though.

Because look at me…

I’m not a wisp of a woman with a flat stomach. I don’t have rock hard abs and defined thigh muscles. Instead I have soft hips, a round belly, and tits for days. And because of that, I must not have willpower. I must eat all the time. I must sit on the couch all day long guzzling soda and shoving whole cakes in my mouth. I’m a time bomb waiting to have a heart attack on my couch because hips and stuff. Those assumptions lead to less care, worse care, no care...no addressing of the real problems not to mention how wrong those assumptions almost always are.

It’s amazing to me that a person who spent 8 years, hours of interning, and grueling nights of studying thinks that he or she can look at me and tell how healthy I am by my size alone. What I would like to happen at the doctor’s office is someone who sees me for what I am…a person who isn’t skinny who makes relatively good choices and who is a product of genetics. What I would like is for a doctor to use his or her knowledge about how the body works, how genetics and epigenetics work, and how weight is much more than willpower. What I would like is for the person, the patient, me to be treated as an individual. Thin people can be unhealthy, can die young, have diabetes, heart problems, strokes, and all the things that are usually reserved for blaming on us fat folks.

Weight is not an automatic determination of health.

That’s where we need to be--we need to stop fat shaming by doctors who think that a person’s health is always and completely directly related to their weight. For one, fat shaming most often has the opposite effect of its intent. Studies have shown time and time again that people who experience fat shaming and fat discrimination (which also happens at the doctor’s office) are far more likely to gain weight or continue to be obese. It doesn’t have the intended effect. What we also need to focus on is health overall.

Genetics are often completely denied.

BMI is utter bullshit.

Weight loss isn’t associated with decreased morbidity.

Weight is one aspect of a person’s health. Some people don’t want to be rail thin. Some people embrace their curves. No that isn’t promoting an unhealthy lifestyle. The focus at all times should be on that person’s overall health which may or may not be bettered by losing a few pounds. At some point, doctors seem to have lost sight of this and to have completely lost sight of their own understanding of the human body preferring instead to go along with social standards and norms that have no basis in actual health.

This is kind of why I haven’t been to the doctor in more years than I can remember which ultimately has the opposite effect, right? I’ve been fat shamed by enough physicians that I would have to almost literally be on my death bed before I go to one because I’m never seen as anything more than the size of my dress. What’s the point of going when you’re not going to be treated and everything always boils down to how fat your doctor thinks you are.

Just to be clear, not going to the doctor's office and telling each and every one of them just exactly where to stick their stethoscopes when they talk about my weight just goes to show I HAVE ALL THE MOTHERFUCKING WILL POWER. 

This, as with every Sunday, has been part of Sunday Confessions with More than Cheese and Beer. check out her blog to read her post and posts from the other bloggers who linked up today. 

Sunday Confession #2

I am not perfect.

This is not news to anyone especially myself. 

I am perfectly fine with being imperfect (sort of). 

That part, however, is relatively new in my world. Since reaching 30, I have become more involved in feminist views and, through that, I have entered the realm of body acceptance. It’s been a hard road, I must admit. When I was a young child, I was blasted constantly with derogatory comments from my father and grandparents about my weight. Either I needed to eat more or I needed to go on a diet. My dad often referred to me as “Crisco” or “Lard ass” instead of using my name when I would gain weight. When I was around 18, my grandparents offered me $500 to get to an approved weight. Needless to say, it created a complex. I hated the way I looked all the time. I hid behind baggy clothes and counted calories. Even in my early teens, I refused to go on the beach or wear a bathing suit in a pool. I stopped wearing shorts, skirts, and dresses. I existed in a dark world of self-hatred, eating issues, and thoughts of suicide. Instead of being supportive and helping me make healthy food choices, I was made to feel ashamed of my changing body. 

I spent my entire adolescence and early adulthood having never felt beautiful. 

Everyone tells you that it’s what on the inside that counts anyway. If only that were true, it would make all the difference. The fact is, though, that America is very much a physical society. We make base judgments about people on their level of attractiveness. There has been study upon study conducted about how much of an opinion we form in the first 10-20 seconds of looking at someone, and the results show that attractiveness decides trust, believability, aggressiveness, friendliness and more. In the last 5 elections, we have consistently elected the younger candidate of the main two political parties. Every ad related to makeup and clothing is filled with women who have ideal body shapes and facial features. We, as a society, are more concerned about body size and appearance than in any other feature of a person to the point where we consistently make flawed choices based on looks alone. 

Telling someone who has body issues that it’s what is on the inside that counts is like trying to convince an adult that Santa Claus is real. Oh, wouldn’t it be so magical if it were true, but the sheer volume of facts outweighing your statement makes the truth pretty fucking obvious so let’s just skip the bullshit, okay? 

So, in the end, I am insecure still that I am not part of the 5% of women who can actually fit the model body type. I have a lifetime of voices that still echo in my head every time I look in the mirror even though I am a size 12. I am insecure about food and find that counting calories is a rather difficult thing to stop doing. And, I am insecure that I can't love myself just the way I am. I look at blogs about body acceptance and wish I had that courage because I know I can be brave and strong and let go of these things. One day is what I tell myself, and I hope that's not a lie.