My Toxic Relationship with Food
I’ve had plenty of toxic relationships in my life, but my relationship with food ‘takes the cake’.
The first four years of my life were spent in and out of various foster homes. I was often completely forgotten so I’d go days without human interaction, which meant days without food.
At four years old I was adopted, and purely from a place of survival, I spent the next several years believing every meal could be my last, so I binged. And then purged.
At four years old I developed bulimia because my tiny brain believed that if I ate as much as I could, and then rid myself of it, I’d have room for more food. My new parents thought it was miraculous (and funny) that such a tiny person could ingest two adult portions of food at every meal.
By age seven I’d stopped purging, finally understanding I was wasting an entire portion. And thus my long-term love/hate relationship with food was born.
We were a low-income household, which meant there was food for meals, but nothing extra. And nothing healthy.
I thought about food all the time. In elementary school I used to hide in the coat room at the start of recess, which is where all the lunch bags were kept. As soon as all the kids cleared out, I’d go into everyone’s lunch bags and take just one tiny thing from each one, hoping no one would notice.
I’d sneak into the kitchen in the middle of the night as everyone slept, and I’d eat a slice of bread with ketchup and mustard, telling myself it tasted just like a hotdog. I ate slices of raw bacon. RAW. BACON. I know. How I never got sick from it blows my mind today.
My brain knew (sort of) that there would be another meal coming, but my nervous system kept me in survival mode well into adulthood. I had always been skinny (gangly, really), but I only associated the need to eat less or better with weight gain, so I continued to overeat junk throughout my 20s.
But I was sick. Like, all the time. Headaches, low energy, inability to focus, irritability. I spent an entire decade in and out of a doctor’s office or emerg, convinced I was terminal with this or that ailment.
Something shifted in my 30s and I started to gain weight, which finally brought my focus to what I was eating, and how much. I struggled constantly with portion control, my body conditioned to eat every last bite on my plate (full or not).
Today I’m doing so much better with it. It’s in the stories I tell myself when meal planning or prepping. Leading with kindness, not being dragged down with shame. Shame loves cake and chips and portions that are astronomical.
The biggest thing that’s helped me has been educating myself on nutrition. Now in my 40s, I no longer care about the “perfect body”, or about numbers on a scale, and I no longer believe my next meal isn’t coming.
Now I’m working on longevity; mobility that I can sustain well into my 80s and 90s; nourishing my body so I can keep my brain sharp for as long as I can; physical exercise so I can keep my heart healthy. I want to thrive, not just survive.