Woman Vs. Food

I have had a love/hate relationship with food for most of my life.

I have always loved vegetables, and my parents never had to force them on me. As a kid, I remember eating frozen peas, canned tuna, or a spoonful of peanut butter for a snack (although not at the same time. That would be gross). I ate my fair share of candy, but overall, I had no health problems, and I would say that I had mainly healthy eating habits.

That all changed once I hit puberty.

Everyone knows that once those awful hormones kick in, your definition of normal goes completely out the window, especially when people around you directly or indirectly try and influence you.

For me, it wasn't magazines or television or the Victoria's Secret fashion show that made me self conscious of my body. It was my parents.

Once I hit puberty, my dad started making comments to me about how I needed to lose weight or I looked chubby. I remember one time I was going out with friends and just as I was about to leave, he said, "You're wearing...that?" I asked what was wrong with my outfit, since I thought I looked just fine. He said, "Well...." and poked his finger into my soft belly. Humiliated, I ran upstairs to put on the baggiest clothes I could find. He said things like this to me all the time regardless of whether or not we were around other people, including my friends. Another day, my dad told me I needed to go on a diet. Wailing with humiliation, I scoured the fridge for celery, vowing that I would never let anything else cross my lips. My mom saw me and said, "I knew you would react like this. We are just trying to help you." She then convinced me to add a scrape of peanut butter to my sparse diet. Eventually, these messages started to sink in, and all I could see was fat when I looked in the mirror.

Junior prom. I was so worried about how my stomach looked. I'm pretty sure I spent most of the day sucking it in.

From then on, I policed my food intake. It felt good to be hungry. I was so depressed at that point that I honestly did not believe that I even deserved to eat, so I would limit myself to one small meal a day. Hunger pains felt good, like I was perpetually punishing myself for the ultimate crime: existing. I truly believed that I was a burden on everyone and deserved nothing - not even basic necessities. I weighed myself at least three times a day: in the morning, when I got home from school, and before bed. My weight fluctuation throughout the day would determine if and how much I could eat. If I was up a pound from the night before, I would go without breakfast and lunch. If I was still up when I came home, I would go without dinner as well, which was easy because most of the time, no one made dinner at home. The dinner responsibility was on your own. I think once I went a total of three days straight without eating. As I saw the weight drop off, that only encouraged me to keep starving myself. I remember one day, my family went to McDonald's for lunch. I was so terrified that I would gain weight from eating fast food that I ordered only a small french fry. If I could have, I would have skipped lunch all together. It took me over an hour to eat that small bundle of fries because I was determined to not gain anything from the indulgence: I took miniscule bites and chewed each bite at least twenty times. I'm not sure if I was doing this initially to punish myself for being a bad person or to try and lose weight. Whichever came first, I was succeeding in both my goals and was receiving praise for it.

People noticed that I was losing weight, and they liked it. My doctor told me to "keep up the good work!" at my yearly check-up, even though I had no health problems or weight concerns prior to this starting. I indirectly was complimented by my clothes. I could fit into smaller and smaller sizes, and the smaller the size, the cuter the clothing was. My dad even laid off me and told me I was finally looking how I was supposed to look. Although my legs were never as muscular as his, as he would often brag to me, even though I rode my bike almost every day in the summer. I got so caught up in this positive reinforcement for bad behavior, and not one single person saw it for what it was and called me out on it.

This strict policing of my food carried on into college. My freshman year, I was again terrified at the thought of gaining the inevitable "freshman 15." I lived in the dorms and had a meal plan, but I only allowed myself one meal a day in the cafeteria and nothing on the weekends. The thing is, the meal plans budget for more than that (and you don't get a refund if you don't use it all!), and by the time the last week of classes rolled around, I still had 40 meals on my card. That was my downfall. I was terrified of losing money even more than I was terrified of gaining weight, so I did my best to use all 40 meals within a week and a half time frame. I gained the freshman 10.

Disappointment abounding, I resolved that it would not happen again. I still only let myself have one meal a day, but I would regularly pay for my ex boyfriend or other friends to eat as well. It worked out great. I used up all my meals, I didn't have to eat it all, plus people seemed grateful. I even started going to the gym a few nights a week and lost 5 of the freshman 10. Life was good.

I managed to do this all the way up until the end of my sophomore year. I was going to study abroad in Scotland for a month, and I vowed to myself that I wouldn't deprive myself of any food experience while I was over there. I wanted to immerse myself in the food culture as completely as possible. Unfortunately, no matter how much walking I did (walking....everywhere.....) I still gained 10 pounds. And you know what? I was ok with that. I had finally allowed myself to live and not struggle with every bite that I allowed to pass my lips.

This was near the end of the trip, so the 10 pounds should have taken hold by now. I thought I still looked great.

When I returned home, however, my family didn't respond to my weight gain as wholeheartedly as I had. Granted there were some other issues going on, but my mom took one look at me and said, "I can tell you gained some weight. Obviously you ate very well over there."

That moment broke me.

I would like to say that I stood up to her once and for all and said, "You know what, mom? If you're going to treat me like this, I'll just leave," and walked out. I did say that, but I didn't leave. At least, not right away. It was that moment that I realized that everything they had said to me about my weight wasn't really about me. It was about them and their own insecurities and attempts to control me. It broke my heart to hear that, but it allowed to for healing, like when a doctor has to re-break a broken bone that didn't heal correctly the first time around.

I still struggle with my body image occasionally, but it doesn't pertain to food anymore. To be honest, I eat a lot of donuts, and I'm not ashamed. I enjoy food now, not just for the nourishment, but also the social aspect. I love cooking in the kitchen with my fiance and sharing our creation together. I love going out and eating with friends. I denied so much of that to myself before. I can't even count how many times I turned down invitations to go out to eat because I only thought of the eating aspect. Right now, my focus is being healthy rather than being a certain size or weight. If I'm going to lose weight, I want to do it right. I never want to starve myself again. I have been working on making positive lifestyle changes to help me get on track to being able to do what I want to do with my body. Yoga has helped build strength and flexibility, while cooking at home has helped spark my creativity and discouraged the need to constantly eat out. I'm getting there, and I'm proud.

I am proud to say that my BMI is 36.7. I am obese. And I have never felt better about myself.

The Art Show

Last Friday, my months of hard work finally paid off. I was in my first ever art show, and it was an amazing experience!

After much confusion and running around (I really got my exercise in that day!) trying to find a space to set up, John agreed to let me share his table. What a nice guy!

One of the items I crocheted was a drawstring bag with a heart on it (i affectionately called them Love Sacks). I sold two of them that night, both to a girl who was probably about 8 or 9 years old. After her dad bought them, she promptly ripped the strings out of both bags and stuffed her hands inside. The rest of the night, I could see her proudly showing off her new "mittens" to anyone who would look. Too cute!

There was so much incredible talent packed into the library that night. Seriously, if you want to be fascinated, go up to an artist and ask them about their work or the story behind a particular piece. John, the guy next to me, talked all night long about the properties of different types of wood and how he goes about finding pieces to work with. Another woman explained to me that when she makes jewelry, the piece develops a mind of its own and tells her a story as she creates it. Yet another artist told me with great anguish how her home studio was destroyed in the flood a few years back, but she was really close to finishing repairs.

That got me thinking about what my art means to me. I first learned how to knit when I was in 2nd or 3rd grade from my paternal grandma. She used to get the biggest kick out of how I would knit - instead of holding a needle in each hand, I found it easier to hold the left one between my knees, which freed up my hand to wrap the yarn around the other needle. However, I never really mastered knitting at that point. All I could make were lopsided squares with an occasional dropped stitch that would unravel into a hole if bothered. I only knew how to cast on, knit, and cast off. Eventually I lost interest, and my yarn and needles were relegated to a far corner of my room. Even when my grandma had to be moved to an assisted living facility and I was given her knitting supplies (I was the only one in the family who had any idea what to do with it), it was added to that sad corner of my room. It wasn't until my maternal grandma past away that I picked up knitting again. My mom and I flew down to Arizona for the funeral and were staying at my aunt and uncle's house where my grandma also used to live. This became the gathering hub of the family - more specifically, the porch, where the adults spent the long perpetually summer days reminiscing and indulging in adult only beverages. I stayed inside on the couch watching TV and helping to go through grandma's stuff. Eventually, my aunt took pity on me and retaught me how to knit. This time, though, I was shown how to cast on, knit, purl, increase, decrease, and cast off. That is basically all you need to know to follow a knitting pattern, and I was hooked. (Side note: I was planning on wearing an Auntie Pat sweater to the art show, but it was SO HOT in the library.) Since then, I've tackled hats, blankets, stuffed animals, and even a sweater.

When I was in college, I was part of a club called Stitchin' Students. Stitchin' Students was a weekly gathering of yarn nerds to knit, crochet, needlepoint, or anything else having to do with fiber. One of our activities in the club involved yarn bombing the campus. For those of you who don't know what yarn bombing is, it is exactly what it sounds like. Here are some pictures.

 

One of the places we were planning on yarn bombing was the railing of the stairway with granny squares. I wanted in on the fun, so one of the members taught me how to crochet a granny square. My first granny square ended up being a granny triangle, but I was still proud of myself. I decided to keep going with crocheting as well as knitting. That leads me to where I am today. I suppose part of why I do it is to remember my grandmas and keep those family ties alive. More importantly though, I do it for myself. I do it for the love of taking yarn and transforming it into something that can be used and/or appreciated by people other than myself. I do it to keep my anxious hands busy. I do it to keep attention to detail alive. I do it to quantify my time (believe me, 2 hours spent knitting is much more visually gratifying than 2 hours spent on Facebook). It's a documentation of my presence, both in speaking of time and personality.