Navigating The Lines Between An Eating Disorder and My Love For Food – A Letter to My Past Self
A letter to my 15 year old self: things I should have been told then so I might not be struggling now.
“Dear Past Me,
Let me start by making one thing very clear: this is not going to be a sob story. This is a message from Future You with some hope and insight into how (successfully) we made it to the other side.
It’s probably 2011 where you are, hair feathers are all the rage right now, everyone’s listening to Adele and you’re out for dinner with family but you’ve pushed for a corner table, afraid to eat in public and even more afraid to admit to friends and family that your relationship with food is not what it was supposed to be.
“At times when I’ve snapped and said something harsh about or to myself, I’ve learnt to take a step back and ask myself how would I feel if I heard my best friend talking about or to herself that way? ”
Food has always represented so much more for me beyond just taste and nutrition. It is a smorgasbord of emotions, memories and bonds. When I’m happy I want a piece of cake, if I’m talking about my childhood I think of a hot fudge sundae, and when I think of my best friend, I think of us making a big pot of pasta and eating it right out of the serving dish with two forks and a can of Coke. Fun fact: in 2019 we try our first Carbonara – spoiler alert; your mind will be blown and you will dive so deep into the world of Italian food, you even start learning the language in 2020!
But it was only in 2021 did I start to realise that my relationship with food through most of my teenage years was actually an eating disorder. In the simplest terms, an eating disorder is a result of psychological conditions and various other factors causing the development of unhealthy eating habits. It could be an obsession with food, body weight or shape due to past traumas, cultural ideals, personality traits and even genetics. It could lead to symptoms like severe restriction of food, binge-eating, over-exercising or even vomiting. And because eating disorders can be hidden so well in plain sight and aren’t the prettiest realities to accept, very often victims and people around them try to convince themselves that they might be building it up to be something much bigger than it really is for seeking attention or that it’s all in their head. I’m here to tell you that if you’re continuing to hide the fact that you’re having an unhealthy obsession with food, because you’re afraid people will instantly tell you it’s all in your head – it’s not all in your head and you’re definitely not doing this for attention.
It’s sad but many people around you are long-time victims of a deep-rooted diet culture that push the concept of ‘skinny is beautiful’ and will feel no hesitation to tell you what or what not to eat since it’s high in a certain food group which will ultimately make you gain weight, because that’s all they’ve learnt, heard and over time internalised. But as a fellow foodie, I would repeatedly tell you that food is not divided as good food and bad food. All food is just that – food. The only way I’d wish you divided food going forward was as sweet and savory, pastry and pasta, bakes and breads.
Being a foodie with an eating disorder is like a never-ending rollercoaster of “I really love making and eating this cake because it makes me so happy” but also “if I eat this cake it could result in weight gain, which would make people like me less” and “am I only supposed to enjoy the making process but not the final result because in some people’s eyes that makes me unhealthy and/or obese”. It took one of these several moments in my mid-twenties to shift my thoughts to “why should anyone else’s opinion of me stop me from things that bring me so much joy?”.
So without further ado, here are some things that helped me change the way I treat myself, my relationship with food and my body and made me excited for my future.
EMBRACE THE CLICHES
The most significant practice that has helped shift my mindset is one of the most cliched but effective techniques. At times when I’ve snapped and said something harsh about or to myself, I’ve learnt to take a step back and ask myself how would I feel if I heard my best friend talking about or to herself that way? How would I reword it to sound kinder? Something as simple as “I should not have overeaten at lunch today” can turn into “I really enjoyed my food today – tomorrow’s a new day for me to eat more mindfully and one meal is not going to affect my body in either way”. It is a process of unlearning the concept of instinctively blaming myself whenever I feel uncomfortable which I’m still practicing, but it works. Today, while I might have the occasional setbacks, I’m also finally able to state things like ‘I am worthy’, ‘I am capable’ and most importantly ‘My body does not define me’.
That being said – if you need a day to sit in the dark and feel your feelings, a good way to avoid internalising and absorbing them is to verbalise them instead. Word-vomit into a voice note on your phone, or write it all out on pages and pages of paper, stuff it in an envelope and lock it in a drawer. Once you take the words out of your mind, you also take away some of the power they hold over you, and that feels fantastic.
360º WELLNESS – NOT THE ‘GOOP’ KIND
I’m not about to start telling you I add spirulina to smoothies or that I’ve embraced kale because I still can’t (if you’re someone who can, please teach me your ways). What I am about to tell you is how my approach to wellness shifted from just going to the gym and hoping for the best.
I was keen to not give up all my favourite foods, but I was equally aware of how significant weight gain over time could affect my health, especially since conditions like diabetes and arthritis run in my family. That’s when I realized, if I don’t want to be suffering at 40 and taking multiple medicines to keep my vitals in check, something has to change.
Now in 2021, I push myself to eat at least one portion of vegetables, protein and healthy fats at every meal, whenever I make noodles for dinner – which might be considered somewhat unhealthy – I load it up with tons of veggies and most importantly, I no longer skip meals to save calories. I do occasionally make myself a batch of brownies in the middle of the night (yes it’s got proper chocolate chips, sometimes toasted walnuts too, and of course, a gooey centre) but I’ve stopped punishing myself the next day by only eating eggs, chicken and toast. I eat all my favourite foods, albeit in moderation not because of how it will impact the shape of my body, but because of how it will impact my health in the future.
Fortunately I really do enjoy being active everyday – I’ll be honest, cardio’s never had any appeal to me, but put me on a spin bike or in a barre class with some Ariana Grande and I will fly through a 45 minute session (even if I struggle to walk back to the changing rooms after). And because I know how stepping on a weighing scale might be triggering for me on a bad day, I gently boxed it up and put it in storage 2 years ago because now the only reason I’d need to weigh myself is at a doctor’s office, and they have their own scales. Instead I keep one pair of jeans which I try on once a week and let that be my guide rather than a number on a tiny screen. No more number-induced fear for this woman.
More recently my wellness practices are based on both physical and emotional wellbeing – I’m trying to do 30 minutes of exercise 4-6 times a week, mindfully planning my meals and putting pen to paper every evening. I mix up my workouts and meals based on my schedule how my mind and body feel that day, and try to think of 3 affirmations, 3 things I’m grateful for and 3 things I’m looking forward to as a way of ending my day on a positive note, regardless of how crap it may have been to get stuck on the tube between stops for 20 minutes at 9AM in peak summer. This super specific incident totally didn’t happen to me.
GLOW AND GROWTH COMES FROM WITHIN
I’m the biggest believer that if you want something bad enough, you will do everything in your power to get there. I went from ‘just accept your body the way it is’ to ‘I accept that my body will change shape as I go through life’ and once I accepted this, I found myself feeling so much freer, I’m not as anxious or conscious about my body or as the kids today would say, ‘I glow differently now’ (can someone tell me if I got that term right? 👀 ).
I began to workout not to change my weight but because the endorphin-release gave me so much energy and put a smile on my face. Since I enjoy cooking, I began finding recipes that were a good balance of nutrition and indulgence so that I wasn’t restricting myself, but I wasn’t going overboard either. I put time into noticing the people I surround myself with, including curating my social media feeds – if someone you follow posts content that doesn’t align with you during this time of growth, liberally use the mute feature until you feel ready. Best of all – I took it upon myself to celebrate even the smallest wins and learnt to clap for my own self, because at the end of the day if even I don’t give myself credit for my achievements (big or small), no amount of external validation will matter and that’s the tea (seriously, Gen Z drop me a DM if I’m using slang wrong).
I started to educate myself and those around me about how words and actions could inculcate such disorders in someone else. Not only was I able to communicate to my peers how these disorders affect the mind, I became more aware and conscious of how I spoke to and about myself and I’m counting that as a BIG win! It might be an uncomfortable topic of conversation, but even if you resonate with one person at that table and make them feel less alone and more heard, that’s one less person suffering in silence.
It took me a while, but I finally understood that I have one body – I have to nourish it, move it regularly, and give it the respect and kindness it deserves for all that it does for me and lets me do. And It will take time to pull yourself out of this experience, there will be good days and bad days but I can confidently say that 10 years later, you will be kinder to your mind and body, you will be emotionally content and you will regularly eat alone in busy restaurants with zero anxiety.
In the words of Taylor Swift – “pushed from the precipice, climbed right back up the cliff, long story short, I survived.”
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Thank you so much to the brilliant Sam for contributing such a vulnerable yet beautiful piece to TIGC. To see more from Sam or to get in touch, you can find her on Instagram at @samruddhikarandikar.