I love feminist kitteh. Feminist kitteh does not like to diet. Why? Well, feminist kitteh is a personal friend of mine, and she told me why: It’s because when you are dieting, there is no room for apple pie punch, and you can’t have cookies for breakfast. That, my friends, is unacceptable.
Friday means semi-topical open threads, so let’s talk about food, shall we? Talk amongst yourselves – I’ll give you some topics:
- Do you remember the first time you “went on a diet”? How old were you? What inspired it?
- What’s your relationship with food like? Has it changed as you’ve grown up/gotten older?
- What do you do when you’re tempted to cave in to the pressure to be thin/muscley/whatever-it-is-society/fashion magazines-tell-you-you’re-supposed-to-be-for-your-gender?
- How do you draw the line between keeping yourself healthy (avoiding bad-for-you-foods and remembering to get exercise now and again) and straight-up image obsession?
- If you have children, how do you/did you go about teaching them to have a healthy relationship with food? If you don’t, how would you? Or what was your childhood relationship with food like? What did you learn from your parents/family/friends/boob tube?
Being male and het and of a middle-of-the-road body type, I never thought about my diet or my weight at all until my mid-50's, when I began having serious gut problems culminating in major surgery. Twice. (You don't want details, I promise you.) At that point I started paying attention to things like avoiding dairy and getting more dietary fiber. But my weight, which had slowly crept up to 185 (I'm 5' 9" tall) stayed about the same. Then about three years ago I got seriously depressed and realized I had better quit drinking if I didn't want to get much worse; I also lost my appetite for a few months. When I started back up out of the murk I realized I'd lost about 40 pounds and I liked it–the way I looked, also that I was less short of breath (I've also got lung problems) so I decided to keep laying off the gargle except for a glass or two of wine when we go to a restaurant–maybe twice a month. I gained about 10 of the 40 back but at that rate I won't get back to 185 for another ten years, which, taking one thing with another, I probably don't have. In short body image actually has caught up with me in the sense that I don't want to be paunchy like so many of my male contemporaries who I think look… self-indulgent, I guess is the (quasi-moralistic) way I think of it. Can this all be because that tailor called me a Short Portly? Nah, prolly not.
I have been bulimic for about two decades. the amazing thing is that my size/body type, never wavered from "curvy" I believe is the PC adjective. I'm in my mid-30s now and while I won't say I have my food issues worked out, I keep them under control by avoiding triggers: fashion magazines, certain television, body-hatred conversations, and by keeping up with blogs like this one and others (safe spaces)
I am: Female – 5"9 , 135lbs.1. First Diet: I tried to cut cheese and juice out of my diet to reduce my fat intake. (Stopped drinking soda long ago). My company was having a fitness challenge where you had to have a goal. I couldn't pick weight loss because I'm already thin, so I picked 6 pack abs. The not eating cheese thing only lasted a week or two, I realized I don't know how to cook anything without cheese, my one true love. Age: 232. I grew up on soda, hamburger helper, and little debbie snack cakes. The older I get the more I try to eat a healthy diet of mostly plants and whole grains. 3. When I look at fashion magazines I see unhealthy women and way too expensive clothes. Then I go home and put money in my retirement account. I'd like to have more muscle, but I have a desk job and don't particularly enjoy working out. 4. As long as my body stays as it is I'm not to concerned about my image. 5. As a child I ate until I felt full, and then I stopped eating. That's still how I eat. My life has been a long series of friends and family telling me I don't eat enough, but I've always been a healthy weight and was an athlete throughout public school (basketball, soccer & track).
John: Zoinks, gut surgery! That sounds like very little fun – but trust me when I say I probably do want to know the details (although I can't speak for anyone else). Over a glass or six of “gargle” (now my new favorite pet name for booze!) I recently had a very lengthy conversation with some medically-inclined friends of mine about unconventional treatment options for c-dif, which is a very unpleasant gut ailment. This is the sort of stuff that passes for polite dinner conversation in my world.
“Cheese, my one true love.” Couldn’t have said it better myself, anon. How did your quest for six-pack abs fare? And did your company have winners? Like did someone come long and count the number of abs you had periodically and go, “Well you’ve got one and a half more abs to go before you can be eligible for the grand prize!” …because that would be hilarious. I have a long-running joke (mostly with myself, sadly) that I am training for a six-pack-athlon. So far I have a two-pack. Kind of. I seem destined for a no-pack, but I’ve not given up hope just yet. (As an aside, “anon” may drive me bonkers trying to figure out whether I know you IRL – do I?!)
Lucy: Eating disorders, like alcoholism, may very well be one of those ailments that people who suffer with them struggle with forever. The fact that adults with eating disorders is hardly ever mentioned in the press, while adolescents with them are fawned over, inevitably with full-color feature photographs, disturbs me.
What's c-dif? OK, you asked: I had a perforated colon which had to be resected; this meant four months with a colostomy, during which time I had two semi-colons, then the second surgery to reconnect them. The perforation was because of diverticulitis which tends to develop when you don't eat enough fiber and your gut muscles get weak from disuse. One side effect of gut surgery is that your digestive tract shuts down for a few days and they won't let you eat or drink anything, or go home, until it starts up again, signaled by audible activity. Or, as I told the patient I shared my room with, "A fart is my ticket to freedom," which would make a pretty good song title. Willie Nelson, maybe?
My first diet was not entirely intentional. I'd just moved from Indiana to Minnesota and found myself floundering in a sport-obsessed, healthy-eating mecca as an overweight young girl. My freshman year of high school I cut out soda and candy from my diet and started loosing weight from being busy with school activities. Then in college I lost more weight because dorm food was awful and I had to walk a mile or two to class each day. Part of me wants to be happy that I care about my health and have gotten down to what my doctor would call a "healthy weight" but at the same time, I feel like I'm not skinny enough. I see these athletic-type girls walking around campus and I feel the pressure to be like them. My BMI is slightly above what it should be. I eat way too much ice cream. But then I hear my friends talk about how fat they think they are WHEN THEY ARE PERFECTLY BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE THE WAY THEY ARE and I feel like a terrible, skinny bitch for still worrying about my weight. They all think I am super skinny and want to be more like me, but what they don't understand is that, for me at least, shedding the weight didn't help my self-confidence or suddenly make me feel beautiful. Yes, I try to eat healthy but that's because I really like vegetables (a weird quirk, I'm sure). I've gone back to eating what I want to eat when I want to eat it because, really, being happy is more important for my self-confidence than eating some protein shake because it makes me feel skinnier. Dieting only makes me more self-consciousness, when really what I need to do is chill out and be who I want to be. Easier said than done, but it's a start.
female, 5'7", 283lbsDo you remember the first time you "went on a diet"? How old were you? What inspired it?I don't remember the first no. I started obsessing about my weight before I was old enough to control my meals (about 10 or so? maybe earlier). I did develop an eating disorder by my sophomore year of high school (15 years old). What inspired it? That's easy- I was constantly teased about my weight and I internalized the hate and believed my weight was somehow my fault. What's your relationship with food like? Has it changed as you've grown up/gotten older?Since discovering HAES my relationship with food is excellent. I eat when I'm hungry, don't when I'm not, eat a variety of types of food and don't feel particularly drawn to 'unhealthy' foods as I was when they were forbidden. So this past year my relationship with food has improved a hundred fold. Before HAES? I loved food and I hated that I loved it. I constantly went on crash diets, binged, purged, starved myself, and felt extreme guilt when eating anything that wasn't acceptable as the healthiest food possible. What do you do when you're tempted to cave in to the pressure to be thin/muscley/whatever-it-is-society/fashion magazines-tell-you-you're-supposed-to-be-for-your-gender?go read some feminist and size acceptance blogs!How do you draw the line between keeping yourself healthy (avoiding bad-for-you-foods and remembering to get exercise now and again) and straight-up image obsession?easy- health at image have nothing to do with each other. I eat healthy foods and exercise because I love my body, not because I want to look a certain way. And yes, I just had bloodwork done and my blood pressure, cholesterol, blood sugar are all perfect
If you have children, how do you/did you go about teaching them to have a healthy relationship with food? If you don't, how would you? Or what was your childhood relationship with food like? What did you learn from your parents/family/friends/boob tube?I have a son- I let him follow his internal cues about what and when and how much he wants to eat while also gently reminding him that some foods are healthier than others. He makes very healthy choices and I'm very proud of him. As a child I was taught to always clean my plate- something that I don't enforce with my own child. When he says he's not hungry anymore I don't make him eat more than he wants.
How did your quest for six-pack abs fare? And did your company have winners? Like did someone come long and count the number of abs you had periodically and go, “Well you’ve got one and a half more abs to go before you can be eligible for the grand prize!” …because that would be hilarious. * Hah, I'm all or nothing so the first time someone prevented me from my workout it was over for me. (I know this is an unhealthy mindset, but it's hard to change). We did have a winner, if I had gotten 6-pack abs I would have had to show someone to prove it, but I didn't so no need. They guy who won lost a large amount of weight and received an IPad as a prize. We also had to check off our work outs on a big calendar on the wall. If you did less than three work outs a week you automatically lost. (As an aside, “anon” may drive me bonkers trying to figure out whether I know you IRL – do I?!)* Sorry, no, I'm StillwellMedia off your twitter, just too lazy to log in. I'll do better in the future
My family put me in Weight Watchers when I was six. I had to leave Brownies early to go to Weight Watchers and be publicly weighed and then sit through a meeting. I don't even have a way to describe the damage and life long issues this caused. I remember once in first grade I couldn't have a donut at the school party. I diligently did what I was supposed to and did not eat it. I brought it home t put in the freezer in hopes I would lose enough to have it soon. Never did get it. I was not fat at six, I was athletic. I'm not willing to post one here, publicly, but there's a pic of me at this age on my FB account if you wish to look. My father's side of the family was horrified by this. I often look at my cousin and wonder how different my life would have been had my family not pushed it's body image Nazism on me. My cousin was so big, I mean huge. But at some point he just naturally started getting it under control, he played sports in high school and today he's still big but it's muscle not fat and he's healthy. Me on the other hand, I have struggled my entire life to not feel like dirt because I wasn't pretty. I did get fat. I starved myself, drank, smoked and lost a lot only to gain it back as I had children. I grew up hearing things like "you'd be so pretty if you'd just lose that belly," and "you look like a football player." I was put down for everything from the shape of my feet to being a tomboy. And there was no escape, I got it at home and at school from teachers and students. It never let up, there were days I didn't want to get out of bed. What's worse is the sabotage they set up for me. Every loss was accompanied by my mom taking me for pizza or some other food related thing. I was made to count every slice of bread, every cookie, but she was fine with stopping and feeding us fast food every other night. I had no idea what good nutrition was. Only now at 35 am I beginning to get it under control. Only now, recently, has the idea of health trumped the depression surrounding my looks. Somewhere along the way I got addicted to the invisibility that being big gives you. Men didn't bother me, women didn't see me. I was safe, I blended. In late May of this year I had this sort of breakthrough moment – I have no idea how or why- but I suddenly realized hey, I'm 34 years old. No one can hurt me. I don't have to be big anymore I can fight back. I don't have to let anyone control me anymore. It was like a switch was flicked. I started at a gym, I've shed 60 pounds so far and I'm happy with myself for the first time in my life. My diet reflects my morals and my nutritional needs. Food was always a source of stress to me, eat this don't eat that- I had no clue what to do or not do. Now, it's like a light is on where there was none before. I think food and diet reflect more than just the fact of what we eat. I think it's dangerous to push what one person thinks about body onto another. I've tried to guide my children and I worry about them but I refuse to push them as I was. My mom had an image she wanted me to fill; a little ballerina or doll with blond curls and all the frilliness she could handle and it wasn't me. That's the most valuable lesson I got for my daughter, she is not here to live my dream. I don't think you can make a person do what's good for them, I think they have to find it in their own time and in their own way. I find myself very sensitive to people making fun of people because of their looks. I think everyone is pretty in their own way and every body ought to be celebrated. I can also say for sure from experience fat people are not fat because they are lazy or stupid or any of the other myths. I'm sorry my story sounds so depressing, I don't mean for it to be that way, but I wanted to communicate how deep this stuff can run.
Depressing? Hell, no. It's a hard-won-triumph over expectations that were strait-jacketing you and compromising hour health, and you got out on your own steam and are consciously rewriting the script. We should organize a party, I mean it. I'm volunteering a couple of dishes including a killer vegan rice salad, curried eggplant, fresh ravioli stuffed with ricotta spinach and garlic, and a polenta cake (no butter!) that's a knockout with jam. Seriously, where and when?
Jenni – that is absolutely horrible and disgusting and I feel for you, I really do.Anyway……Still a teenager, never really been on a proper diet – though I have gone on "uneating" binges and tried to go without food, because I was unhappy with my weight. I was about 12 or 13 the first time I tried it, and all the other girls were tall and skinny while I was short and dumpy with wide hips. I was a couple of kg heavier than the other girls as well, and I was very insecure about my looks.Uh…I still think I should cut back on the snacks, but these days I try and work out instead of starving myself. I think my legs are better than they used to be, though.I try and keep away from fashion magazines – they're trashy, uninteresting, irrelevant and make their money from making women miserable – so that's a start. Other than that, I tend to keep shtum about how I really feel, which is unhealthy but I don't really have anyone I can talk to about it.I draw the line at where you start doing stupid, actively unhealthy, or purely cosmetic things – such as trying to starve yourself, or getting plastic surgery. (I don't see plastic surgery as wrong in itself, but I hate the attitude that you can't be happy with your body unless half of it's silicon and you've removed the other half).I don't want children, but if I did have them I would try and teach them to eat a proper balanced diet and to exercise a lot. My family tried to teach me that, bless 'em, but I didn't really listen to them. Instead I looked at all the skinny girls at school and wondered why I wasn't like them. Combine this with insecurity and general feeling-like-crap and that was not a good period in my life!
I won't even attempt to deny that I have an unhealthy relationship with food, nor that I've gotten worse with it recently. I've always kind of felt ugly but it was at 17 that I first felt body dissatisfaction of a strong enough nature to make me take action. I'm 23 now and over my time in college have maintained a pretty low weight (I'm 5'10" and weighed 122 lbs at one point last year but am now around 130 lbs), though occasionally I indulge in intense overeating that makes me feel awful afterward. When I feel in control of my food intake I feel in control of my life. For a young man that definitely isn't what's expected, but it's how things are with me.
I don't agree that diets are for people who submit to society and its expectations (although, of course, a lot of people on diets are doing just that) … I went on my first diet about 2 years ago when I’d put on a shed load of weight from sitting down and eating cake too often. I joined a 'fat club' to try and re-educate myself about what I was putting in to my body, it worked, 2 weeks of counting points and I was able to go it alone, no more counting or weighing – I just knew what was good and what was ‘bad’. It was just about becoming more aware and creating a healthy balance. I'm back on a diet now because I lost a load of weight when I returned to the UK and I felt amazing, my clothes fitted better and I was lighter on my feet and more flexible. Then I got on the cakes again, and now I’m back on the diet – which involves nothing more than saying no to cake, not smothering my toast with a block of butter, not piling cheese on everything unnecessarily .. just making healthy choices. I like the feeling of being comfortable in my body more than I like cake.I’m pretty sure you were talking about fad diets though, right? I abhor them.
John Burke: C. dif is a bacteria that lives in your gut naturally, and when your gut gets out of balance, due to antibiotics or what-have-you, they proliferate and wreak terrible havoc on the whole shebang. The treatment method we were discussing was the final resort doctors turn to after both of the two antibiotics that usually work, fail. The proper terminology, I believe, is stool transplant.
Nazi Vampire Hunter: I definitely understand your struggles there – "I feel like a terrible, skinny bitch for still worrying about my weight." I asked my friend D. if I was a bad person for wanting to lose ten pounds. The fact that I had to even ask that is telling – anytime I want to lose weight or get in shape or any of those things, I not only end up beating myself up because I feel ugly, but also because I feel shallow. But like you said, it's a lot better to work on being happy and comfortable in your skin than to work on being pretty.
@Sarah: Stool transplant–oy! But as for it being dinner chat, when we Alte Fartzers get together we ask about knees, guts, backs, teeth–what somebody called an organ recital. I try not to fall into that routine–old as I am, it's still boring, even when it's my knees or my guts–but it just sort of naturally comes up.Check your email!
Heather! I looked up "HAES" and I was taken on a wonderful journey of size acceptance blogs and holy hell did I discover a world of awesome.Stillwell: I'm usually all or nothing too – currently I'm in an "all" phase, we'll see how long it lasts! Oh and you may continue to be anonymous if you like, don't mind my neuroses! ^_^Jenni: I agree with John, your story is one of triumph. I know how you feel about being invisible – sometimes I feel invisible for whatever reason, and it can be very comforting. When we get older we become more invisible, and that's a bit frightening – but all the more reason to work on becoming strong, inside and out, so we can better cope with the inevitable vagaries of life in a world full of sometimes not-so-nice people.Vivat: I was about 12 when I first started restricting, too. But I didn't have your resolve to stay away from fashion mags (perhaps if I did I would have been a much healthier teenager!). They fascinated me and were like a window onto a world I could never be a part of, so of course I was obsessed with them.
BrightenedBoy – It may not be what's expected, but you're definitely not alone. Feeling in control is often talked about in the books I've read on disordered eating (all given to me by my sweet sister when I was growing up struggling with these issues). I'm no expert, but sometimes it feels better to know you're not alone.Melanie – Agreed. Making healthy choices for health's sake is good (although, I gotta say, some days I really do like cake better than most things!) and fad diets are pretty silly. My friend D (the one I asked if she thought I was a shallow/bad person for wanting to lose 10 pounds) said that she saw it this way: "The way I think of it is, if you feel better 10 pounds lighter, then you should do it. Not for anyone else, but for yourself, to make yourself feel good." She has a very good outlook on life, that one.