I have a new instagram account that I can’t seem to link to here.
bluecollarballerina2.oh if you’re interested.
It’s mostly food pics and memes and me documenting my life, same as it ever was really.
I decided in this last leg of the plague to do the things I hadn’t managed to do for the past 2 years. I used to do this all through school too, leave a project to the last minute, rush through it at the end and get an A. Nothing changes. This newest thing is ‘getting in shape’. It’s working.
We’re in the endgame now
I had a friend DM me and ask how I am losing weight.
Diet tips from an anorexic are probably as useful as travel tips from a shut in…am I right?
I don’t have a good relationship with food. Or maybe I do.
I see food as a necessity, as fuel. I have to eat if I want to move and live.
I want to do those things.
So I eat. Begrudgingly, mostly, but I am also a really good cook so that helps.
Funny enough, I absolutely love to cook, Always have.
I also don’t put gas in my car when it is already full, but I am not comfortable running on empty either. Especially since in my car, a quarter tank is actually empty. Found that out the hard way.
I like the act of going out to eat as well, but that is more about the pomp and circumstance.
I like getting dressed up and trying new things, or getting dressed up and revisiting my favorite things. I will go back to NOLA one day and eat that shrimp and grits again before I die.
When I was young, eating anywhere but home was a very rare occurrence and a welcomed change of pace, it denoted a trip or a celebration, so dining out has positive connotations in my head. Now it means brunches with the girls, road trips and dates. Still good things.
God I cannot wait to go out on a date again. Plague be gone already.
I wasn’t privy to fast food very often as a kid and I have been known to binge from time to time, or most recently, Newfoundland and the lack of time to prep and eat meals at home which had me skipping the dishes often and grabbing a Big Mary combo 3 nights a week for 2 years.
But going back to childhood…my mom is a spectacular cook, so is my dad. We ate very experimentally back in the 80’s even before watching Wok with Yan. My folks brought dishes from their childhoods into mine and we were friends with people from a myriad of cultures so my palate was pretty sophisticated, even when I was little. We had a respectable spice cupboard, I knew the difference between good feta and what we get at the grocery store here. My favorite thing about Christmas was the Welsh neighbor’s boozy traditional pudding with hard sauce. We stashed stacks of corn tortillas for tacos in the freezer on our trips to the states because we couldn’t get them here. And most of our pizza nights were both homemade and still unrivaled.
But there were things I couldn’t stand as a kid and still don’t like as an adult. Ground beef for one. I will devour a burger from A&W or Whattabuger without a second thought, but homemade hamburgers, nope. Meatloaf is just a huge no. I make amazing meatloaf, I just won’t eat it. Even something so humble and apparently delicious as a meatball, nuh uh. Cabbage rolls and shepherd’s pie too, I can make them and they’ll knock your socks off, but I will not partake.
These were all staples when I was a kid, ground beef is cheap and feeding a family of 5 on a budget means ground beef. And growing up in the 70’s and 80’s (and probably before) you ate what was on your plate, all of it or you didn’t leave the table.
It was a constant source of conflict and I think it coloured the way I view food. As a have to instead of a want to. I never want to eat, and I don’t ever feel ‘hungry’, more of an internal timer that says “too long since last time we had sustenance. Do the thing”
In my teenage years, after a decade of fighting to get me to eat and stay at the table, the option was given for me to make my own food and/or graze as I wanted. It was better for everyone really. A lot of the time I would just not eat and lie about it. Preferring the sanctuary of my room and my music to the traditional family suppers. It worked out, my sisters had tons of extra curriculars after school so meals became sporadic and I spent 90% of my time on the phone or brooding over some boy that I was too scared to call.
And at 15 or 16 I landed in the hospital because I fainted. I fainted because I hadn’t eaten in days.
I played dumb. Didn’t tell anyone what I had done and let them run in circles trying to figure out what was wrong. Plus I got out of school, so triple win really.
Unfortunately the connection was made that this
1. Got me attention that wasn’t negative attention
2. Was something I could control in a life full of things I could not
Number 2 is still a problem.
I know a lot of people who equate feeling full with comfort. I don’t, never have.
I know people who grew up with food insecurity and are the opposite of me.
I made sure my son didn’t have to deal with either. Never force fed, always given options and never being hungry. From the time he could walk and talk, the bottom crisper in the fridge always had healthy snacks he could access whenever he wanted. He has a good relationship with food. Parenting win.
Speaking of, I heard something once that makes a lot of sense so I am gonna drop it in here. If you feel hungry, eat an apple, if you don’t want an apple, you aren’t hungry.
There, that’s my pearl of wisdom. That’s all I got.
My roommate and I were having a conversation regarding my current war on carbs wherein she was saying I could cheat. I don’t want to. I retorted with the infamous Kate Moss quote “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.” Sadly this is still true, although I had a dream about an english muffin the other night.
I didn’t start my anorexic journey in my teens because I didn’t like my body, I mean I didn’t but I was missing a tit at the time, so that kinda overshadowed everything. I had a good body back then, no appreciation for it, but I was definitely very attractive. Still blinded by the lack of boob, but I can see clearly now.
Back then, and when my anorexia came back with a vengeance 20 years later, it was always about control. And coveting that empty feeling. It isn’t how skinny feels, so much as the power that comes with feeling clean and empty and in control. On the rare occasion that I do over eat, like a steak dinner or thanksgiving I literally cannot stand the way my organs rearrange and my stomach distends. I feel like a stranger in my body.
Which is how I started feeling lately.
Most of my friends struggle with weight, I never have. I don’t really engage in their conversations about it because I honestly couldn’t relate and they made a HUGE point of telling me how skinny I am.
But, the last couple years I have developed a pouch. Like a little pot belly that now lives where my flat stomach used to be. AND I FUCKING HATE IT. I can’t dress myself, I fixate on it, it makes me cry. It is not a cute pot belly and contrary to what she said in Pulp Fiction, it doesn’t feel good to the touch. Probably because it isn’t so much of a pot as it is a pouch. I am not a kangaroo ffs.
When it first appeared a couple years ago I just thought okay this is a “Newfoundland drinking a few bottles of whiskey a week and eating like shit” kinda thing. I can undo this.
And for a brief period, I did. The timing was immaculate. I was going to Florida for a month and vowed sobriety and no fast food or meat for 30 days. I did the thing. I ate beautifully and healthy, no red meat, one piece of chicken one time, no soft drinks and no booze. And I wore crop tops with low skirts, I walked 4 miles to town a couple times a week, I swam, I wandered theme parks and felt lovely.
Then I went back to St. John’s ate steak, got black out drunk and threw a huge sobbing tantrum because I was too inebriated to get my pink butt plug in and ya, that ended well. I did throw up the entirety of a $200 meal and $200 bar tab, so bye bye calories and dignity really.
We learned a valuable lesson about consent. Fun times.
I had to fly the next day with borderline alcohol poisoning.
Not the fondest of memories.
But it should be noted that I despise throwing up, bulimia, while popular in my high school was never my thing. Denoted a lack of control for me.
Then covid happened and life became both scary and sedentary, but I kept up with the healthy eating, long bouts of sobriety and for a while I was walking constantly. But…here we are 2 years later and my man pants don’t fit and I have a handful of fat where my waistbands used to sit, justy above where my hip bones used to protrude just a lil bit in the most delightful way. And 30 some odd years later my brain is wrestling with an eating disorder again.
Eating disorders and addictions are never really gone, they just hibernate until we get thrust into survival mode and we revert and regress…or until we learn new coping mechanisms.
I am still learning.
Stress puts me in a cocoon goo state. Not much going on outside, but inside I am becoming.
It should be noted that my throat still closes up when I am stressed, I can’t even begin to navigate the mechanics of chewing and swallowing. They become foriegn things that I used to know but have lost. But my old crutches of coffee and cigarettes don’t really exist anymore. I used to drink a pot a day, but now it’s a cup, maybe 2.
2 years of ‘nowhere to be’ kinda quelled my coffee addiction. Didn’t need an energetic boost to sit around and wait for the plague to end. I used to get hyper caffeinated and write, but I stopped doing that too.
It should also be noted that covid did give me a respectable booty. On my last voyage to the island, I showed up at Final Boss’s house and he had me spin around a few times and made good grunting noises about said booty and grabbed it often. Dat ass, I shall keep, and I never minded doing squats.100 a day lately.
I am going to skip over the part where 15 years ago I dropped to 95 pounds during my marriage. I have seen the pictures, now you have too, I know what happened and I know my boss was the only one who said something and that is what stopped me. I needed someone to see what I was doing. I was fitting into child sized sweatpants ffs. No one said anything.
I have better people in my life now and a better life. So there’s that then.
This trip on the skinny merry-go-round, instead of skipping meals completely which was so tempting, I cut out carbs.
I love carbs. Back in the day, if I ate anything in a day it was usually one piece of toast with butter. Or if they were around, one english muffin. I wasn’t counting calories, carbs weren’t the enemy. It was a volume thing. As little as possible to keep going.
This is still a control thing and a self denial thing, but at least I am eating.
I also added chia seed and lemon water to get rid of anything that wants to linger. Makes me feel cleaned out, so that is probably healthy/unhealthy, I never did get into laxatives, too scared of shitting my pants. And I started working out a lil bit. Just in my attic with my mat and free weights, I now have a bosu, like a half yoga ball thing that saves my spine during crunches. I went from 10 minutes a day 3 weeks ago to 30. 15 reps up to 25×3. I haven’t done it today but I will, then shower, then I get to go buy some plants. I need my dangling carrots.
When I don’t feel like working out, I shop online and see how I want clothes to hang off my frame again. And when I want a carb, I roast or mash some cauliflower. I am getting to the point where I might need a gym membership and a trainer because I have no idea what I am doing physically, just going off tik toks and memories of the time I dated a trainer and he had me working out 4 mornings a week, but he would fuck me right after, I am telling you, I need those carrots. We all do.
I also think some of us need to reevaluate our relationship with food and our bodies.
My body hurts more often than not. But it still gets me places. My step counter on the first game day at my new job had me clocked at 35000 steps in one shift. I had to really assess whether or not my legs were going to work enough to operate the gas and brake on my drive home, and I hobbled that night, badly, but I got up in the morning and I worked out. I also had a butter tart at work that night that tasted like a religious experience, but I also walked 9.7 kilometers fueled by nothing but a bento box of veggies and cheese so there is that then. I didn’t feel bad about the butter tart.
I don’t feel bad about any of it. Mostly because I don’t cheat. No one is holding a gun to my head saying I can’t have an english muffin. There’s actually carbs all over the kitchen. I just don’t want them. And when I do, I envision that flowy white skirt I found at a thrift shop in Texas paired with one of my plethora of cute crop tops and a sunny warm day wandering through Kensington market and skipping past the bakery.