My "Before" Peace with Food Story

Today I am sharing my story of what life looked like for me before I ventured down the road to food peace. 

If peace with food seems like a vague and intangible notion, I can relate! And I can also tell you it's the best work I have ever done in my life. The work is also never done and is always changing, but I can absolutely welcome and embrace that now in a way I never could before.

So here goes! 

Let's go back to the beginning of the end.

As much as I can remember, it was 2012/2013 when I realized that something in my world needed to change. I was constantly thinking about food and judging my body and feeling like I needed to lose weight and diet. 

In 2006 I had had my third child and managed to "lose the baby weight" and more and I headed to my 20th high school reunion in 2008 feeling like a million bucks.

It was every fat girl's transformational dream. I was on a high.

And it lasted about a minute. As the story goes, inside I was so fearful about what other people thought and I was so full of negativity and judgment.  At times it felt like the only thing I was really invested in was my weight management, despite having a very privileged and peaceful life that pretty much represented the traditional American dream that we are all sold.

But hopefully, we all know by now that weight management is not something you can count on or build a life upon.  I had built a house of cards.

The words to Brandi Carlile's song The Story used to play out in my head (such a great song):

You see the smile that's on my mouth
Is hiding the words that don't come out
And all of my friends who think that I'm blessed
They don't know my head is a mess
No, they don't know who I really am

But the real problem was that I didn't know who I really was. 

I represented the classic story of - "how is it that a seemingly successful, privileged, educated, financially sound, well-employed person could have everything I could possibly want and still feel like something is missing?"  Boohoo right? 

Somewhere along the way, I concluded that it must be the weight that I needed to lose that was the problem.   It was a lot easier to focus on that than to consider that maybe it was time to throw in my cards, shuffle the deck, and re-deal.

Now that would have been terrifying.

So instead I focused on food and weight.  I had three young kids and I was working as a health actuary; a job, and an accomplishment I spent all of my 20's trying to achieve. I was a Fellow in the Society of Actuaries and that isn't a path for the light of heart.

Gives you goosebumps, doesn't it?  It's no wonder that I decided to focus on weight issues in my new career - what else could match the complexity of Actuarial Science!

The bummer is,  I really didn't like my job but I didn't know what else to do and it made good money.  Everything is all about good money right?

At the time, I didn't know that one of the reasons I was struggling with dieting so much was likely because I was forcing myself to do a job I didn't want to do and truth be told, raising a 12, 8, and 6 year old at the time was a challenge. There were pressures I never stopped to acknowledge and I prided myself on handling everything "so well."

My kids were all busy little people who liked to play with friends and do sports and go to school and I was their primary driver and food producer, entertainer, and general caretaker. I also considered it my job to keep the house neat, my husband happy, and take care of all logistics and emotional labor of the household. 

I was happy to do this job but I was also bored and not really having a great time. Big problems right?

I took my frustration out on food and I added to my irritated state of mind by judging myself for my lack of appreciation and gratitude for what I had.

I jumped from diet to diet and fitness program to fitness program looking for that thrill of excitement and fun when doing something new.  (Don't get me wrong, new things are great. Trying things you have never tried before is amazing! Where would we be without trying new things?)  But instead of looking at it as fun, I was constantly judging myself as I did so.

These new programs I tried were all about fixing what was broken and trying to prove my sense of worth to myself. They were not bold new challenges I took on for the fun of doing hard things.

I was full of fear and always trying to fix what didn't feel like it was working at the time.

Here is a typical journal entry from the time (trigger warning - this is not kind or compassionate and is fat shaming.  I kept all of that in to show that no matter how harshly you judge yourself or others today, it can change):

I am obsessed with everything food. I am obsessed with books about eating and food. Some are diets, some books are about your mind and food. I am obsessed with what makes you eat because if I can figure that out then maybe I can reverse it and stop eating. And with every book I buy late at night on my kindle, a little spark of hope begins that this is the one that will help me solve my problem. I read more books about eating than I do anything else these days. I didn’t realize I was such a cliché. I am the average American woman, overweight, and spending all my money on “diets” that might fix what ails me. You are just a sad woman.

I just finished a book that I don’t even know the name of.  Oh, it’s “Thinside Out”, how to have your cake and your skinny jeans too. I devoured the book, much like a late-night plate of nachos. It gave me hope and terrified me at the same time. And now I’m all ready to try it but it might backfire pretty bad. The idea is to eat whatever you want whenever you are hungry. Whatever I want! Great! I like that. Whenever I am hungry? Hmmm. I know I am going to mess up on that one. If I can eat whatever I want I don’t have to be hungry to put away mass quantities of food.

So how do I know I am really hungry and not just letting myself pig out? And how do I stop once I am “full”? What is that? I know she explained it in the book but I really am not sure if I can tell when I am full. So that means I will eat whatever I want, whenever I want, and how much I want, and when I am 10 lbs heavier in 2 weeks I will say the book was a crock and I will be back to the drawing board looking for the next quick fix.

A few weeks ago I read a book called the Fast Metabolism Diet. Now that seemed like it really was going to work. I wasn’t counting calories but I was eating certain foods from a list on certain days. 2 days of grains and fruits (no fats), 2 days of meat and veggies (no fats ) and 3 days of a little bit of everything including healthy fat.  But no cheese, no sugar, wheat, flour, coffee, alcohol. I figured even if I messed up all the crazy rules (eat within 30 min of rising, eat 5 times a day, eat only what is on the list, and only the food groups allowed) then I would still lose weight just by not eating all that crap that we all know we are not supposed to eat. I lost 2 lbs. I have probably gained that back. But I never really finished the diet.

I was great for 2 ½ weeks and then it was my 25th high school reunion. There was no way I was going through that without alcohol, not to mention a few cigarettes for old time's sake. So I drank a little here and a little there and the next thing I knew I was eating myself out of hearth and home all day Sunday with the promise that I would get back on the bandwagon on Monday. And I did, only to fall off big time by Wednesday and start wondering what on earth I was going to do next.

I even bought cupcakes last week and ate just the tops off (two ginormous cupcakes) along with a cinnamon bun and a doughnut. It was insane. I didn’t eat it all but just the tops off. And I wonder why I have a muffin top and why my muffin top has a muffin top.

So this latest book says to eat whatever I want. I am going to do it and I’m going to document what I eat and when and how I feel. The author claims she lost weight on this plan but there is not one before picture of her on the web or in her book. She also says she ate Doritos and doughnuts when she started on the plan but did she gain weight before she lost? I know this isn’t entirely a new concept. It’s “intuitive eating” and apparently, your body will go a little nuts with freedom and then will start craving salad.  But what if it never does? What if it is perfectly happy with a plate of nachos for dinner every night?

I’m afraid I will eat crap just because I can and if I don’t eat the crap I will feel like I am subconsciously depriving myself. Wow – it gets really messy and complicated fast. Add to that the emotional eating aspect and I’m a mess. This author also has a book that will address emotional eating but it’s not done yet. I don’t know if I can wait. And what an awesome time to do this "eat anything you want" experiment!

It’s the beginning of summer and I’m going out with friends and out for my birthday and to the Cape and to a bunch of parties. I would love love love to eat whatever I want! Onion dip and ice cream here I come. Margaritas and guac with a bowlful of chips, baked potatoes with butter and sour cream, fried mozzarella (I never ever eat that and now I am craving it because I can). Oh but wait, only when I’m hungry, stop when I’m full and don’t make it a rule.  This is so messed up. I feel like I will be walking off a cliff. I can feel the weight coming on and it’s summer, I want to be light and fit, not a big fat slob.  

This book also said that exercise doesn’t matter. What?! Now I have actually been doing exercise so long that I like it but if I don’t have to do it 7 days a week then 3 is probably all I’ll do. The book says that’s ok.  Then it says you should go walking because it’s good for your mood. Ironic how that would also get you off the couch and not eating and moving and burning calories.

I think all these books are just trying to trick people into doing things to lose weight without saying move more and eat less because let's face it, that would suck. No one wants to hear that. How boring and awful is that? So anyway, I’m going to give this all a try.  We’ll see what happens! Oh and I’m not going to weigh myself. I know if I’m getting fatter or thinner and sometimes the scale agrees and sometimes it doesn’t. I am going to accept myself as I am and say Fuck it to the scale.

So that was the beginning. Can anyone relate? If you notice, all I could focus on is what was wrong with life and not what is going well. My levels of judgment about bodies and my fear of food and fat was intense. I was completely disconnected from the truth of who I was. 

I often use journaling to work out my anger and irritability but that seemed to be all I had at the time. All of my entries were focused on what I ate, how I moved, how I looked, who said what to who, and who is right and who is wrong and what I should and should not be doing about every little thing in my life that I was micromanaging.

There was nothing at the time that was carefree and fun. It's no wonder that I turned to food - sometimes to binge and have fun and sometimes to control and feel like I was accomplishing something important. It all made perfect sense why I was obsessed with food - I just didn't know it at the time.

I was on the cusp of a big shift and I could feel it in the air.  I wanted freedom and I wanted to change. Initially, I was focused on the idea that I needed to change my relationship with food, and one way or another - food was my problem. Little did I know that what I was embarking on was a whole new way of viewing and living my life.

I was terrified of gaining weight and I also knew that I was looking for new things in my life that were fulfilling and meaningful.  I was living with a toe in the world of opportunity and freedom and 90% of the rest of me was still in the world of fear and control. 

From where I stand now - some would say that not much has changed in my life and yet on the inside, EVERYTHING has changed. And now I know that inside is where change always needs to happen first and that none of this ever had to do with food. It was so much deeper than that.

Nothing about what I was thinking and feeling really had much to do with my body. It had everything to do with who I was being and with my underlying thoughts, feelings, and emotions in addition to the expectations, pressures, and judgments that were put upon me by our society that shaped and conditioned my way of being. 

My discontent came from the fear-based perspective and limiting beliefs that I came into this life with and that I was taught.

And in the years to come, those would all change dramatically!  Stay tuned to hear how I started to make some shifts.

I'd love to hear if you can relate to this story. I also love reading this myself because it shows me how much I have changed and in so many ways.

If you are ready for a change too and would like to schedule a free consult and tell me your story, I'd love to assist you on your path to peace with food. 

Photo by Denis Oliveira on Unsplash