My Unhealthy Relationship With Food

Trigger warning: This blog post talks about my experience with the eating disorder Anorexia, and my unhealthy relationship with food.

I was planning on writing this as a twitter thread, but the more I thought about it the bigger the thread got. In the end it was just too long to put on twitter. So as my return to blogging I thought it was a great way to ease myself back into things – or throw myself back into them!

My goal for 2020 was to lose weight. We had 5 weddings planned, and I was just sick of feeling massive compared to all of our friends and family. At size 18 I am now the largest I have ever been, and I constantly feel at war with my own mind and body.

I don’t often talk about my history with disordered eating, simply because at the size I am now I don’t think anyone would believe me and I feel ashamed of myself. But that stops now.

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Living with an unhealthy relationship with food

My past food life

I have never liked my body. Like many people today I grew up always wanting to be slim and feeling like I just didn’t feel like my body fit the ‘ideal’. But it wasn’t until I started my A Levels at 16 that it became something I went to extremes to change.

I did my A Levels at college, so I met lots of new people from schools in the area. Among them was a friend who introduced me to the wonderful world of counting calories – not their fault, they had no idea the path either of us would go down at the time. This friend alway looked amazing, and oozed confidence out of every pore in their body. I wanted so much to be like them, and to be thinner, and this was the way to do it. 

I started skipping meals, and bargaining with myself. ‘If I eat this now then I won’t have anything later’. 

Then when Uni came, I was no longer living a life where people would actually notice if I was eating or not. I was in control of everything I put in my body (or not). I limited my calorie intake, lived on mainly coffee, and would have one meal a day so my housemates would see me eating and not suspect anything. 

I never once thought of myself as ‘Anorexic’ or someone who suffered with Anorexia, not until recently. I was never so small that I needed to be hospitalised, and apart from becoming anaemic there appeared to be no health complications. And that’s what I thought Anorexia was, and what I wasn’t. 

I know now that’s what I was, and still am, battling with. No matter what size I am. I am constantly drawn to the desire of being thin, no matter what the cost.

My fall back

When I finally learned to start eating again, because I did it on my own (with the help of my then boyfriend) I ended up going too far the other way. I had deprived myself of food so much so that when I started eating it again I couldn’t stop. Food was associated with happiness, and it was my go to comfort.

So, when my mental health was at its lowest, I ate. And I gained weight. And I became even more miserable. I had placed so much of my worth and beauty on my size that I didn’t want to look at myself. I was embarrassed of myself. And my only comfort was food. 

And so began the cycle. I knew what worked, I knew how to lose weight easily. So I fell back on my safety net and limited my intake. I lied about what I’d eaten, I wasted so much food because I’d pretended to eat it, I went to extreme lengths to make sure I could continue to starve myself without anyone noticing.

If I ever managed to get back to food, the same thing would happen. So the last 10 or so years of my life has been taken over by this cycle of binging and starving – I can only imagine what it has done to my body.

Where am I now?

With my goal to lose weight this year I was determined to do it the healthy way. I wanted to end the cycle and learn to eat healthily and exercise. Simple right?

It’s a daily battle. I am still the same size now as I was at the beginning of the year and we are 11 months in. I know that if I just stopped eating I could reach the goal I want, but I don’t want to be a slave to this illness forever. I want to be able to control what I eat, by choosing to eat what I want without feeling guilty about it. 

Exercise isn’t really an option

Because of my ME, I am not able to exercise like most people. My body becomes fatigued easily, so I am limited in my choices. I’d love to be able to go for a run every day to burn off all the calories I eat (maybe love is the wrong word to use there). The only exercise I’ve found I can do is yoga and walking – although it does have to be a short walk or an easy yoga routine so the benefits are limited.

So my choices are to severely reduce and limit what I eat in order to burn it all off and reduce my size, or exercise to the point of exhaustion multiple times a week which would make daily life VERY difficult. 

Time to try acceptance

Instead, I am opting to try (note: TRY) to accept myself for the way I am. I don’t want to hate my body, and I don’t want to feel like I am at war with it. I am tired of complaining about being ‘fat’, or feeling overwhelmed with depression because I’m not as slim as my friends. We are all different people, and we all look different. 

Of course I am still trying to be healthy. I am still exercising in a way my body can handle and I am eating healthy food most of the time. But I’m really trying to no longer do it because I want to be thin. I’m now just trying to look after my body and keep it healthy, and that’s a much nicer and more rewarding goal than trying to fit an ideal body type. 

If you’re reading this and any of it is resonating with you, please know you are beautiful exactly the way you are. Don’t feel like you’re not doing enough, because as long as you are giving your body what it needs you ARE doing enough. And you are enough, just as you are. 

I dream of a day where we can love our bodies just as they are. 

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I hope you’re all well and keeping safe. Until next time xo