In August of 2020 I had a call with a woman who told me I needed to eat.
I was telling her about this thing that I did.
How I would wait many hours to eat breakfast growing grumpier by the second.
How I would feel annoyed at my body for being hungry.
How it would happen all over again at lunch and I hated it so much I would often barely eat lunch.
I’d give my body little bits of food until it stopped being so LOUD and then I would be like ok that’s enough!
I would eat at a meal until half full because that’s what all the magazines said to do, right, eat until half full. And I taught myself that that WAS full.
As I told her about this pattern.
She became very, very serious.
She was like. This is the root of everything. (We were talking about my menstrual cycle issues).
You are angry at your body for having needs, she said.
And I said, I know. This has been going on for many years.
But I still felt pretty helpless to do anything about it.
We even then got a personal chef. To make all of our meals and deliver them to our home.
And I STILL WOULD NOT EAT.
I came up with all the reasons. I don’t feel hungry. I don’t want to this particular food right now. Etc etc etc.
I knew it was a problem but I didn’t want to face it.
My friend Olivia wrote a post in January about her pattern with food in a group we are in.
I was like. This is exactly what I do. I resist eating all the time.
And then in February I started learning more about why eating enough was so important.
And why eating all food groups was so important.
This came from Jessica Ash (though I don’t do her program anymore – it was just the start for me).
And it finally landed how serious it was.
I was like I am really hurting my body.
I felt like I woke up.
And I started to eat.
And cry.
And eat.
It took me almost three entire months of eating more before I realized I had an eating disorder.
This actually came from all of you. Commenting and suggesting books and saying “this sounds like my ED recovery journey.”
I was like… I had an eating disorder when I was 19. Not now.
And then I started reading and I was like well this all sounds like exactly me.
Extreme hunger. Messed up hunger/fullness signals. Feeling like I couldn’t make myself eat. Feeling like certain foods were going to kill me.
Tabitha Farrar’s blog really helped me here.
What I want to land is that it has been a very slow journey.
The first time I realized I wasn’t eating enough calories was back in 2017.
I was lifting a lot and had a strength coach and she wanted me to check my calories.
It turned out I was lucky if I ever hit 1500.
Some days I was at 800 at 9 pm and I’d have to run out and get Burger King. I didn’t know what else to do.
She wanted me to eat 2300.
I could not.
It felt unbelievably hard.
I told her it was too stressful to track calories.
And in truth I was still secretly proud.
I kind of thought it was funny.
I knew I needed to eat more but I was proud I could survive on less.
That I didn’t “need” it.
In 2016 I learned I had low WBC count so I know this was happening even before then.
Who knows when it started.
Who knows the last time I was fully fed.
Turns out I did need it.
I was “surviving” but my body was very slowly shutting itself down.
A year ago was the first time I ever really acknowledged that what I was doing to my body really mattered.
It took me 7 months to finally be like, ok I am doing it. I am really eating more.
It took me 10 months to be like ok fine I will really fully go all in. Completely unrestricted.
It is still hard.
It is not as hard as it was in June. June was the worst of it, and the beginning of July.
June was the most important month too because I finally committed all the way.
But I still catch myself wanting to fall back into old patterns.
It makes sense.
I’ve had them for a long time.
And it’s easier to fall back in now that I am starting to feel better.
A part of me wants to be like ok I think we’re fine now can we go back to what we were doing before?
The difference now is that my body has completely woken up.
It is literally impossible for me to eat less now.
I didn’t eat enough yesterday because I was at a hotel and the room service meal was gross and then I waited too long for dinner etc etc.
I slept 3 hours.
My body was not having it.
And I really try hard to not shame myself over this.
I just say yeah that was not enough.
Ok I will eat a lot for breakfast.
I will get back on the horse.
I will eat more today.
When I look back at this year I am really proud of myself.
And I feel how hard it has been.
And how I am still so in the middle of the process.
It is actually the scariest thing I have ever done.
To be almost 200 lbs.
And I also love it so much.
It is funny how my perceptions of beauty have changed.
Now I see skinny women and I cringe.
I am like, she looks like she needs to eat.
I see rolls and cellulite and I smile.
I see women eating and I smile.
I see MY body and I smile.
I never ever would have believed you that being fat was fun.
I thought it was disgusting and that I would feel disgusting.
But my love for my body is stronger than I imagined.
I actually love it even more now.
Because I am like wow look how it is protecting me.
Look how it is healing me.
Look how it just knows what to do.
And I am less concerned with my appearance.
I am the least tan this summer I have ever been.
I used to rely on a tan to make me “hotter.”
Now I just really do not care.
The freedom that has come from living in this body is worth everything.
The power and the knowing of myself.
And also I like touching my butt and my boobs and my belly a lot more than ever too. They are just so soft and juicy. ?
And I now weigh 30 more lbs than I did in this photo.
If you liked this piece, you might also enjoy:
– Everything to do with my food journey & weight gain in chronological order
– The hardest parts about this process – real update of where I’m at
– A woman called me ugly and this is how I responded
– Food & ice cream & weight gain & nourishment (the beginning)