I’d like to pre-empt this by saying I honestly went to great lengths to write this blog post. So much so that on a few occasions, and perhaps with the help of it being 11:30, I had forgotten what I was doing it for and considered dropping it entirely. But the reason I’m making it a blog post and not an Instagram story or, as my first idea had been, a message to someone who had suggested they were there to talk, is entirely the reason for the blog post.
This began because I was having a little meltdown thinking about how much I’ve eaten over the weekend, and how heavy and sluggish I feel, and how I still can’t for the life of me seem to get a grip on eating any differently. I have a partner now, and they’re fantastic. They cook, they enjoy food, and they are absolutely astounded by how 1) awful my chicken is, 2) it’s the only thing I eat, and 3) my lack of variety and enjoyment of food. I’ve tried foolishly to explain my anxieties around food, just saying I don’t like wet food and saying I’m scared of things, but only really came to the honest truth of my genuine panic around weight gain for the first time today on a FaceTime call. He has an honesty above all else policy, and a very boyish mentality of just “not eating” when he thinks he’s gained too much weight. He’s also mentioned that my obsession with protein is a problem and that he wishes I was softer, claiming that I have no fat.
Now I could sit here and debate the reasons I prioritise protein or the amount of fat I want to loose or try justify my reasonings - and for a time in the call I did - but it’s just sad. I’ve had a few days of eating with him, and I’m just scared. I’ve gained weight, I feel uncomfortable, I have no control around enjoyable food, and it’s shameful. I can do the behaviours of eating (not in a recovered way, but it’s better than some), but I can’t bring myself to relinquish control. I can’t allow myself flexibility on a daily basis. I can’t enjoy food. I have to get the tasty thing and finish it then and there so it doesn’t tempt me tomorrow. Then I have to return to my diet as quickly as possible, coddle myself into believing it’s okay that I had a weekend of indulgence, validate and justify my decisions, and then calculate how bad it might be.
I am so ashamed of myself for having these problems with food. I don’t know how I’m supposed to solve this problem. I can’t ask my new boyfriend to just never eat with me, that’s entirely illogical. I can’t control myself to only eat a smaller portion of the off-plan food so I can enjoy without over-indulging, I’m just not there yet. And I can’t just do what any sane person would and enjoy the food every day so the novelty wears off because I will genuinely become fat as a fool.
It doesn’t help that I skipped a training session to spend time with him. Yes, I am fully aware that you can’t out-train a bad diet, but it softens the blow of over-eating.
And now I return to why this rant was a blog post. Someone in my life has, on a few occasions, mentioned I can reach out to them to talk about this stuff. I don’t tend to believe people when they say that, because I think it’s normally for optics and if not, it’s for ammunition. I can’t trust people with this. It’s also just absolutely horrible to be dealing with. I gained 15kg in 6 months. They watched it happen. So in my sick brain, I’m just here thinking they probably think I’m fat and aren’t scared of me having an issue, that I looked better before, that me saying anything would be admitting weakness.
And what can they truthfully do? I don’t want to recover. I want to be thin. I want to be light. I don’t want to gain weight. But I also don’t want to be unhealthy and I don’t want to fuck my health up. I want to be able to enjoy meals with my partner and feed my body enough to be well enough for a family one day.
I even tried using mushrooms and doing a personal healing trip. I managed to have a profound experience seeing my flesh suit and being shown all the damage done to it. I was so touched by the fact that my heart, the muscle that gets the least amount of care or affection from me, has been beating in my chest since I was a kid being abused. That heart just kept going. Kept keeping me alive. Even now, I have a deep remorse and sorrow for what I’ve done to my heart. I know there’s no real damage done and I’m probably fine, but I also know that my heart rate drops to 35bpm if I restrict or go a few hours too many without food. I also know I get arrhythmias and palpitations that I don’t remember from beforehand. I also know my hands go numb and cold sometimes. And I’m no entirely unaware of the way it races at random with the slightest input on days where I restrict. Or in response to large meals.
But again, I say I’m fine.
Anyway. I wanted to message this person and say I’m sick of being able to do the behaviours of recovery when I still get all the panic. And truthfully it’s only partly true. There’s nothing recovered about eating a 400g bag of trail mix, 5 cookies and a protein bar in one sitting. There’s nothing recovered at all about needing to finish the pods from yesterday just because they’re open and you don’t want them to taunt you tomorrow. There’s nothing recovered at all about only eating chicken and vegetables and being scared that the chicken is too pale or wet, or too big and not being small pieces enough to make <150g per serving. There’s nothing recovered at all about wanting to restrict or have a tooth extracted just to avoid eating and drop weight.
But I really do, at least some times, think I wish I had that recovery. I can see, almost a little, the benefit of that.
I just worry what the people in my life would say if they saw me gaining again. I can’t think of anything else interesting about me except that I’m petite. If I got fat, I wouldn’t be as good at a lot of things. If I weigh any more than I do currently, my clothes won’t look as good, my legs will touch and be uncomfortable, some of my clothes won’t even fit, and people will notice that I’ve failed. I don’t want people to see me gaining weight anymore.
I also know that people ignore and avoid me like the plague when I’m losing weight because it’s the only thing I can talk about.
This is the argument I’m in with myself and after all the junk I’ve just pushed into my abdomen, another argument is brewing: to lax or not to lax.
It’s midnight. I have work tomorrow.
And I never know how to end these.
x
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