I've been umming and ahing about whether to write this post. I'm not anorexic. I'm not bulimic. I don't have any labable 'eating disorder'. I'm not a huge junk food eater. Nor do I buy ready meals, instant meals or order takeaways anymore than 3-4 times a year, maximum. I do, in fact, have a very secure knowledge of food and nutrition. But still, my relationship with food is beyond desirable.
I am a comfort eater. If I am feeling down, trapped, emotionally switched off, I will reach for food. I eat because I am bored. I eat because I am ill. I eat because it's there. I eat in secret. I stash away food in my wardrobe and wolf it down when no one is around. Then I hide the wrappers. The more I eat like this, the sadder I become | The sadder I become, the more I eat like this. It is like a vicious cycle, a mirror image, an unbreakable bond I've forged with a substance I cannot walk away from.
It's not even food you would consider 'bad'. At the moment, because of having to reintroduce gluten and wheat for the coeliac test, I have so many food groups reopened up to me. Still, though, I'm not buying packets of crisps or biscuits. Things like bread are luring me in. One slice, two slice, three, four...I chain eat them, one after the other, barely stopping for air between each buttered offering. I'm piling my cereal bowl up to mountainous proportions and digging my way through mundane foods such as wheetabix. I deny myself the big 'treats' but chow my way through hideous amounts of 'normal' food.
I'm far from kidding myself as to what I eat. I track my calories using an online app. I started doing this for protein measurements when I became vegan and was very athletic. It started as a way to make sure my body was getting enough of the good stuff. Now it's a way of shaming myself. Every week starts the same. I input the meals I'm going to have and make sure I stick within my calorie allocation. On paper, I'm doing everything right. I plan ahead, I monitor what I eat. I'm not 'clueless' when it comes to nutrition. I can't play the ignorant card. I make sure the food I buy is nutritious and useful. I look upon my weekly calorie allowance with pride. Then something happens. Something inside just, snaps. I'm baking and eating cookies all to myself. Loaves of bread disappear. Handfuls, fistfuls of nuts thrown down my throat. Bars of bitter dark chocolate broken up and wolfed.
The aftermath. The guilt. After I've eaten it all I'll just sit there, stunned by my own stupidity. I feel my mood plummet. Standing in front of the mirror I grab handfuls of fat, pulling them off my body. Look at you. Disgusting. So close to being the weight/ shape you want then you go and do that? I try to breath it in but my bloated stomach won't budge. You'll be sorry in the morning.
I don't wallow for long. I shrug it off. It all starts afresh tomorrow. Maybe I can still be within my weekly allowance. I delete foods off my list. One Weetabix for breakfast instead of two. Maybe just veg for lunch. No rice with my chilli for dinner. Maybe just cut out a couple of meals entirely. The next day comes and so does the apathy. Well, what's the point. The week is ruined. Start again from Monday. The meals go back on and so do the calories. All of a sudden my carefully planned week has disappeared. The next week comes and I think you can guess the pattern.
This is definitely a state of being I can break. When I was working out and physically active, I left these days behind me. I woke up in the morning excited for my workout. Hill sprints, weight lifting, bike riding, brisk walks, I couldn't get enough. People would stop me and tell me how fit I was. I grew with pride. I'd see my body transforming in front of me and I was happy. So, so happy. Then I became ill: slipped discs, pernicious anaemia. Not getting a proper diagnosis left me hospitalised. I was so ill. I couldn't walk stairs without collapsing into a breathless heap. I had to give up work. Medication and being unable to leave my bed meant I piled the weight on. I went up 10kg over the summer. Clothes no longer fit. I felt the rolls creeping back on. I couldn't even bare to stand in front of the mirror, in my underwear or in front of my new husband. Unable to work out, not getting anywhere with medical treatment/ understanding, I turned back to food. When I started to get better, I broke the cycle again. I was nowhere near well enough to go back to my old regime but slowly I built up to daily walks which brought the weight back down and food no longer became an emotional crutch. But now, again faced with health issues, I'm standing on the precipice looking down on myself, seeing the same habits creeping in.
I'm not a 'big' girl. I'm 5ft 10 and usually a steady 73kg. At my lightest I was 67kg and my heaviest 79kg. When I was working out, scales meant nothing to me. My heavy muscle mass was a thing of pride. Now I feel my once firm arms wobble and I know the numbers staring up at me are because of fat, not fitness. As a child I had puppy fat but was never overweight. Always taller, bigger, stronger than my female peers. I had curves before everyone else. Men would notice me but boys would poke fun. I am not for one second deluded enough to think I am grossly overweight, but I am unhappy. And I can see, I can recognise that, for me, for me right now, food is becoming something I am leaning on. It's a source of comfort and self hatred all wrapped into one, essential little bundle.
Things have to change. I'm waiting on the injections in my neck and more into my lower back. I'm hoping they resolve the pain/ mobility issues and allow me to get back into work. I have a place to study mental health nursing in September and I'm pushing so hard for everything to be up and running and back to normality by then. One and a half years of not being able to work, not being able to go out, not being able to exercise. No money, no social life, no human interaction past the family and very close friends confines. It takes it's toll on you mentally and physically. It's one thing choosing not to be active, it's an entirely different matter having that option taken away from you. Days spent in jogging bottoms, hours slipping away into nothingness. Nothing to dress up for, nowhere to go. The way everything has been handled by doctors is beyond disgusting. They would never allow an animal to be housebound and treated this way. Slipping through nets, not having anyone fight for you and being told your very physical/ cellular illness may just be in your head really takes it out of a person. Even those who appear strong.
As for food? I only have a few weeks of having to eat gluten/ wheat left. Once that's done, I'm not touching the stuff again. For the very immediate present, I'm starting again. I'm drawing the line. I'm going to practise some mindfulness exercises so that if I feel myself slipping towards old habits, I can take a few moments out and reconnect with myself. Poor food choices will be replaced with positive self affirmations. I can no longer rely on the help of others. I'm locked in a constant battle with the bureaucracy of the NHS. But this is my battle. My body. And it's up to me to treat it with the respect that others are failing to show to it.
This is my catharsis, my rebirth, my resolution.
From Today, I'm reclaiming my body and my mind.
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