Heavy Subjects

My sister and I got into a deep discussion last week.

We told each other things neither of us had ever admitted out loud. About the negative and irrational things we say to ourselves in our heads. About weight, health, food and who’s really running our lives and the way we think about ourselves. Yeah, it got a little heavy.

But it also had a happy ending. Just wait, I’m getting there.

Somewhere along this “healthy living” journey, I developed all kinds of unhealthy thoughts. Butter, real milk and anything too sugary or processed became scary and Earth Balance, almond milk and nutritional yeast replaced all those things. After all, that’s what everyone else in the blog world is eating, right? I started worrying about what time I finished a meal and how many hours needed to pass between that one and the next one. Or that if I had a sugary pancake for breakfast I would probably be hungry in an hour, so it was better to eat something else, even if it wasn’t what I really wanted.

I know it sounds like I’m painting a very restrictive picture here, but know that I never made things off limits and I’ve always lived with a “everything in moderation” attitude, so it’s been more the irrational thoughts, rather than irrational actions. But still, the thoughts I have on a daily basis are not the thoughts a normal person deals with. It amazes me that there are people who don’t think about food all day. And deep down, I want to be one of those people. More than anything, I want to eat like a normal person.

Normal eating is going to the table hungry and eating until you are satisfied. It is being able to choose food you like and eat it and truly get enough of it -not just stop eating because you think you should. Normal eating is being able to give some thought to your food selection so you get nutritious food, but not being so wary and restrictive that you miss out on enjoyable food. Normal eating is giving yourself permission to eat sometimes because you are happy, sad or bored, or just because it feels good. Normal eating is mostly three meals a day, or four or five, or it can be choosing to munch along the way. It is leaving some cookies on the plate because you know you can have some again tomorrow, or it is eating more now because they taste so wonderful. Normal eating is overeating at times, feeling stuffed and uncomfortable. And it can be undereating at times and wishing you had more. Normal eating is trusting your body to make up for your mistakes in eating. Normal eating takes up some of your time and attention, but keeps its place as only one important area of your life.

In short, normal eating is flexible. It varies in response to your hunger, your schedule, your proximity to food and your feelings.

-Ellyn Sater

Will I ever stop thinking about food? No, probably not. But I can work on correcting some of the disordered thoughts I have surrounding it. I can eat the things I want to eat, when I want to and feel this huge sense of liberation and happiness when I do. I can keep doing the things that make me feel good about my body. For instance, there are many times when I feel… puffy? But when I’m doing yoga, I feel awesome about myself. I don’t care that I have some extra luggage on my stomach or that my arms don’t like Jillian Michaels. I feel strong and beautiful.

And I can stop and think about how these negative thoughts developed. My sister should be a psychiatrist for helping me realize that my fears about my body/weight totally stem from being out of shape and maybe a little overweight at the end of high school/beginning of college. A time when I kinda just didn’t care what I put into my body or how it made me feel. She also reminded me that I’m not that person anymore. And that I never will be. It made my heart hurt to hear her say mean and untrue things about herself, as I’m sure it broke her heart to hear me say similar things about myself. Would we ever say those kinds of things about a loved one? Then why should we say them about ourselves?

Writing this post is really scary. It’s scary that readers, friends and family might think of me differently. It’s scary that I might be judged. But what’s scarier is that somewhere some poor girl who has similar irrational thoughts might feel like she’s the only one or that she can’t admit thinking these things to anyone. To her, I would say that talking these things out is so therapeutic. And liberating and reassuring. So as nervous as I am to hit publish, I’m doing it anyways.

Now.