This is an angry post. This is a potentially offensive post. But I absolutely have to write it, because the truth needs to be said.
There is a huge deluge of media, both crunchy and mainstream, wanting to link autism to vaccines, autism to toxins in the home and other environments, wanting to link autism to inductions, wanting to link autism to basically any saturation of chemical that a developing baby may come into contact with. Because above all, they are saying, autism means your child is broken.
For every "case" that supports this theory, there is a case that defies it. My Zao is just such a one. He was conceived, born into, and grew up in as toxin-free a home as I could muster without starting from scratch. He was born at home in the water, a spontaneous birth. He was exclusively breastfed, not a single bottle ever, and weaned naturally at 25 months. He is completely unvaccinated. For most of his life we have either been vegetarian, or paleo, or WAPFers, so there has never been any excessive consumption of dyes, or HFCS, or processed foods.
He is also (currently undiagnosed) non-verbal ASD (autism spectrum disorder, not otherwise specified). He is four years old, does not have coherent speech, is still in diapers, and is the happiest child I have met in my life.
Though we are in process of seeking a formal diagnosis, for his sake, I generally find the label unimportant. It can be helpful, when introducing him, as he is socially very different than a typical four-year-old; but it can also be enraging. Because I see pity in people's eyes, and there is NO REASON to pity me.
Why would you pity me for my joyous son? For this happy go lucky boy who laughs his butt off at his favorite cartoons? Would you pity me for all of his fantastic bear hugs? For his love of chasing and playing tag? For his enjoyment of his own life?
He didn't get the memo that he was broken, you see. He didn't get the popular message promoted by the media that he needs to be fixed. That he should be something, someone else.
My son is not broken. I hate the message of media and studies that want to blame something because he isn't neuro-typical. Let's find out what causes it, so we can stop it. I don't want you to stop it! I don't want you to fix it; he isn't broken.
I think the most tragic part of it all, is the amount of time wasted playing the blame game, trying to find out what is wrong, what causes this supposed wrong. Time that is better spent trying to understand this incredible gift of a child, better spent helping him overcome his difficulties so that he can live his life, joyfully, successfully.
This isn't the denial stage talking, by the way. I've gone through that, and it doesn't look like this. :-) This is me standing up and saying that you are wrong for thinking of him as broken. The media is wrong. Anyone who says for a moment that this exceptional, special child is broken is WRONG. Whether a child has autism, Downs, ADD, or any sort of physical or mental difference, that child isn't broken. That child isn't less than one without that difficulty. That child isn't the unfortunate result of x, y, or z. That child is a gift.
The gift of new glasses with which to see the world. New eyes to see and understand humankind. The gift of growing yourself as a person. The gift of unconditional love.
These labels and boxes confine us, confine and limit our children. They don't teach us how to love them.
Look beyond the label, look beyond the difference. Stop hating the difference. Stop thinking about what is "wrong." LOVE this person exactly as they are.
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
Tuesday, December 31, 2013
baking
Walking away from disordered eating and all its lies is very hard. But in doing so, I have found that one of the greatest joys of my life has been returning to me: my love of baking. There really wasn't much fun in baking when at various times I thought that either white flour, sugar, butter, milk or eggs were the Devil incarnate seeking to enslave and destroy me and all of humanity.
I love baking, not just because it is creative and potentially artistic, but also because it is chemistry. It is science! Mwahahaha! I am the mad baking scientist!
The bending and using of baking's rules and chemical reactions to create something earlier only imagined in my mind is very exciting and thrilling. There are times I am so high from it that I say things like, "I will bake something new every day!" or, "I must have my own bakery and share my joy and creations with the world!" even "I will take over the world with my cookies!"
Perhaps I will do all of that. Ok, I've never said that last bit. But the rest, the rest all seem like very good ideas most of the time.
I've thought about starting a blog devoted to baking, but a quick google search reveals that those are a dime a dozen. It also would require a lot more time and effort than I have at my disposal right now, caring for a 4-year-old and a 15-month-old. It would become just one more thing on my plate that I would end up resenting and doing half-assed.
Sometimes, I think we are too eager to take what we love, what brings us joy, and monetize it. In order for the thing we enjoy to truly have inherent value and be "worth our time", it must make us money, or bring us fame, or add something socially valuable to our lives. The joy it provides is never enough.
What if my baking is enough as it is? Is that such a radical idea? I enjoy baking. But I don't want to bake for money. I don't know that I really want to bake for anyone else, especially if money is involved. (How terrifically selfish, and honest, of me...) This attitude is very likely to keep me from ever improving our financial station, I realize that. I feel quite affable toward that decision.
As it is, baking is enriching my life and making me happy. I am going to let that be enough.
...however, I am a creative, artistic person. I reserve the right to change my mind at any time. ; )
I love baking, not just because it is creative and potentially artistic, but also because it is chemistry. It is science! Mwahahaha! I am the mad baking scientist!
 |
| Behold my glorious creation! |
Perhaps I will do all of that. Ok, I've never said that last bit. But the rest, the rest all seem like very good ideas most of the time.
I've thought about starting a blog devoted to baking, but a quick google search reveals that those are a dime a dozen. It also would require a lot more time and effort than I have at my disposal right now, caring for a 4-year-old and a 15-month-old. It would become just one more thing on my plate that I would end up resenting and doing half-assed.
Sometimes, I think we are too eager to take what we love, what brings us joy, and monetize it. In order for the thing we enjoy to truly have inherent value and be "worth our time", it must make us money, or bring us fame, or add something socially valuable to our lives. The joy it provides is never enough.
What if my baking is enough as it is? Is that such a radical idea? I enjoy baking. But I don't want to bake for money. I don't know that I really want to bake for anyone else, especially if money is involved. (How terrifically selfish, and honest, of me...) This attitude is very likely to keep me from ever improving our financial station, I realize that. I feel quite affable toward that decision.
As it is, baking is enriching my life and making me happy. I am going to let that be enough.
...however, I am a creative, artistic person. I reserve the right to change my mind at any time. ; )
Sunday, December 29, 2013
resolute
 |
| ^ last year ^ |
Now that the year is drawing to a close and I reflect upon it in hindsight, I see that the greatest things to change are the eyes with which I see myself, and the scale by which I measure health. Though I said one thing at the start of 2013, my mental projection was something else, something more specific and narrow - I thought along the lines of weight loss, exercise, diet. Maybe physical strength, too. But in my planning, I neglected the things that were in fact more important to true health: sleep, mental health, self-love, moderation, balance. Thankfully, those important, neglected things were the things dealt with as the year progressed.
I am the healthiest I have ever been, but I am still not healthy. I don't look any different really than a year ago. I weigh about the same, wear the same clothes, I don't run any faster or lift significantly heavier. What progression and changes that have happened, have happened all in my mind and thought life. I can recognize when I am motivated by self-loathing, I can recognize when I am not eating enough, when I am depressed, and I do not feel trapped by these mental prisons anymore. I am not free from them, not yet, but I can at least see them for what they are and change my behaviors in that moment. That is progress.
My resolution this year is to continue on this journey of being my healthiest ever. Even if that means I gain weight. :) My specific goal is to exercise less, and sit with and play with my children more. (This is a huge goal for me, as I am recovering from anorexia athletica, and orthorexia.) I plan on eating all the things that I have spent years feeling guilty about wanting and enjoying. And to enjoy them! I hope to begin to learn how to be present in all things: when I am eating, when I exercise, when I am with my kids, or reading a book - whatever I do, to be all there and not thinking about what else needs to happen or may happen next, or how I look or if I feel fat.
Health is not weight loss, as I thought it was. Health is not the adherence to a set diet of any kind; it is not the exclusion of junk foods, it is not the inclusion of fruits and vegetables. Health is like a long mathematic equation to which there are many, many factors. Having a pristine diet and exercise regimen, but being mentally ill, or suffering from insomnia, or depression, or losing your hair or your period, or developing an eating disorder - these are huge red flags that a person is, in fact, in some capacity, unhealthy. Sometimes, nay most times, the answer is a small subtle change, like not having coffee after noon, or not watching tv in bed, to help you sleep better, or taking a short family walk after dinner every evening. These small changes are not only the easiest to implement, they are the most sustainable. As Galadriel said in Lord of the Rings, "Even the smallest person can change the course of the future." To make it relevant: Even the smallest change can improve your overall health. :)
I wish health and happiness for you all this upcoming New Year!
Friday, October 25, 2013
Leap through the Field like a Flippin' Deer
I enjoy running once in awhile. A couple times a week at most. Any more than that, and I freaking hate it. It becomes a chore. It becomes stupid and I hate it. Did I mention that I hate it? I don't care what sort of health benefits may come from running, I only run when I want to. I will never run a marathon, and I am one-hundred-percent OK with that.
I like yoga. I hate Pilates. I love burpees, when they're all done and over with. ;) I love dancing, jumping, chasing my kids around the house and yard, taking them on long walks. I love being able to move with my kids, and pick them up, both at the same time, without getting (terribly) winded or pulling a hamstring. Most of all, I love variety, so I do all sorts of things, some things never more than once. I try it, and then go on to try something else. That's what works for me.
Back when I was in the painful, controlling grip of orthorexia and anorexia athletica, I ran out of obligation and compulsion. I ate salad and did Pilates for the same reasons: I had to change this body, force it into health and appropriate physique. It was a sad, and decidedly not fun, time in my life. There is a meme out in cyberspace that reads "exercise to reward your body, not to punish it." I like that. Because I am recovering from this and other eating disorders, FUN has become the foundation for how I chose to move my body. If it isn't fun to me, I am not going to do it. Period.
We all need to move our bodies to be healthy, no doubt. The health gurus without agenda will tell you to find a way to move that you love and do that often. (The ones with an agenda, the ones who are wrong, who shall remain nameless because life is too short to waste time talking about what I hate, they are the ones saying you have to move in a certain way, a certain amount of time, blah blah blah blah blah.) The thing is I am allowed to hate something other folks love. So are you. There is no sacred cow of exercise. Crazy, huh?
There is no virtue in moving your body if you hate the way you are moving it. I realize that is a blanket statement quite possibly not backed up by science, but in the grand scheme of things, why waste your time doing something you don't like? I did that, and I made myself all kinds of sick. If you are out there pounding the pavement because you need to lose some lbs, but you loathe every second of it, then stop and try something else. Skip down the road if you want to, leap through the field like a flippin' deer. Or walk. Try Zumba. Try lifting heavy weights. Tell those know-it-all
When we listen to our bodies and move them in a way that we enjoy, there is a vitality, an energy, that starts radiating out of us. It is very contagious - in infects others, it infects us, making us want to duplicate the feeling again. Joy is very healthy for you, by the way. Being happy releases a LOT of endorphins. :)
I am not a medical professional, by the bye, and I am not telling you to ignore the advice of your doctor, if said doctor has in fact given you specific advice. But if your doc has said you need exercise, than find a way to move your body that you enjoy. Exercise doesn't just mean run, or lift, or spin. Move your body in different ways until you find one that you enjoy, or at the very least, don't hate and can learn to enjoy.
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| this is actually an impala, not a deer, but you get the idea. Leap through the field, baby! |
Monday, September 16, 2013
stop hating your body
My daughter turns one in a matter of days. When I think on that, and when I look at her, all that I have gone through in this past year since her beautiful, perfect birth (Zao's Daddy being hospitalized when she was barely a month old, moving twice, acknowledging an eating disorder, acknowledging PPD/A) suddenly becomes a soapbox. I want to change the world for her. I know that to do this, I start with myself, and I start with my family and our home. I want her to be so strong that she never suffers from a distorted body image or disordered eating. I want her to understand in her core that she has a right to exist and live in her body as it is, whatever it looks like, that she already is beauty. She will always be beauty. I want her to understand that we don't have to internalize or accept what other people say about us; that just because something is said doesn't mean it is true, even if it is said by our entire culture. What we think about ourselves, and how we see ourselves, that is all that truly matters. I want to help her view of herself remain strongly positive.
As I said, most of that starts with me. It starts with my attitude about my own body, the words I use both in my head and on my lips about my magnificent person. No more bemoaning my short Eaton legs. (Mom, I know you at least understand what that means! haha!) I have powerful, STRONG legs. And they are beautiful. I remember that, every time I deadlift. ;) No more frowning at my soft tummy. I grew my babies in that tummy. Did you hear me?! LIFE grew within that soft, beautiful tummy. Two gorgeous, precious lives. Miracles. My soft tummy is an effing rockstar.
This isn't wishful thinking, this is changed thinking. This is me, standing up and saying that the media and the magazines and the models and the celebrity moms, are wrong. They are wrong about themselves, they are wrong about women, and they are wrong about me. They are wrong to perpetuate an ideal that few, or no one, can achieve, and that everyone feels subpar because of. Think I am over-reacting? Just glance at the assault as you check out at the grocery store. Just peruse health and fitness sites online. "Strong is the new skinny." (I hate that, on so many levels, for so many reasons...) "Obsessed is the word the lazy use to describe the dedicated." "Real women have curves." "Sweat is fat crying." "Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels."
What an onslaught, from both sides: fat-shaming, skinny-bashing, no one is safe, no one is OK. I get angry at every single one of those catch phrases. Such lies! Manipulation at it's pinnacle.
"Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels." Let me tell you, I ate a hell of a lot of food in culinary school that tastes way damn better than being skinny ever felt. In fact, I never felt worse than when I was skinny. Steak au poivre with a mushroom cream sauce deglazed with brandy, followed by creme brûlée tastes SO freaking good I honestly don't give a damn what the scale says, or what size my jeans are. Ice cream. That's really all I need to say right there. Ice cream dagnabbit!
But I didn't always own that. I am hoping, praying, that overcoming my weakness will be the base of my daughter's strength. I hope that by owning this knowledge now, I can help my daughter understand it from the get go.
To understand that however she grows, she grows beautifully.
That size and shape say absolutely nothing about her as a person. She hasn't failed if she's fat. She hasn't earned anything by being fit. We will not fuel fat-phobias, or skinny-bashing, in this house. We will celebrate our beauty. I want her to know...
...that being beautiful isn't all about hair and makeup. (But sometimes, it is. :))
...that being beautiful isn't just about character and compassion. Though sometimes, it is.
...that whether she loves exercise, or doesn't, has children, or doesn't, pursues a career, or doesn't, that despite size, height, wardrobe, or bank account, her worth and her beauty are constant, undeniably real and true, and she has every right to exist and live her life in her body, and her personality, as it is, out of the box.
I am trying, and I am working towards, this goal in myself. To be the strongest, healthiest version of myself, especially in my MIND. To live with passion, grace, and compassion toward the world, starting with myself.
Want to help me change the world? Let's start with ourselves. Next time you see your nemesis flaw, whatever it is, in the mirror, find a positive adjective for it. It may help to think about its FUNCTION, not just its aesthetic. If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, then behold your own beauty!
I'll end with these words by 180degree.com writer Julia Gumm (if you haven't checked out that site, by the way, go and do it now. Good stuff! Just don't read the comments :P) You can read the full article here. Bold emphasis is mine.
"There is a striking dissonance between how we treat the people we care about and how we treat ourselves. If you aren’t filing yourself under the “People I Love” category in your brain, you can be led to do lots of silly, painful things that deep down, aren’t going to make you feel any better. So the next time you stand in front of a mirror and sneer at your less than flat abs or get angry with yourself for having enjoyed a dessert, ask yourself why. Why is perfection so important? What does it matter and who does it matter to? Remember that exactly who you are has been crafted by eons of evolution and the passion of your ancestors. You are an incredible thing.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Behold. You are beautiful. Go forth from that place. Afford yourself the love and acceptance you grant those dear to you, dear. No one deserves it more than you. No really. You and those big honkin’ thighs of yours."
Friday, September 13, 2013
the search for health, part dos
You can read part one of this series here.
*Please be advised, this post contains potential triggers and open language about eating disorders.
My body is not my enemy.
I can trust my body when it tells me it is hungry.
I can trust my body, and feed it what it is telling me to eat.
My body wants to be healthy, thriving, healthy.
I can trust that my body knows what is best for itself, to achieve a thriving vitality.
All food is good food.
When I first developed and suffered from disordered eating, in my early twenties, it was pretty bad. I had no set parameters, but I limited what I ate severely. I exercised compulsively, most times twice a day, at least once a day, and never took a day off. Never. I stumbled upon cleanses, and detoxes, and other natural things that could rid my faulty body of this evil called the toxic food I ate. I was actually addicted to those stupid natural cleanse pills until right around the time I married my husband. He was the one that encouraged me to no longer buy them, and it is because of him that I first walked away from my disordered eating behaviors. But sadly, I didn't realize how important treatment was, how crucially important it is to seek help and to talk about it in a safe environment. I stopped the physical behaviors, but had no idea that what was going on was rooted in my mind. That's why it came back - not because I did anything wrong, per se, I just didn't know. We didn't know how truly severe and dangerous this thing was. I had no idea that it was so ingenious and nuanced. No clue.
And if I hadn't slowly gotten sicker and sicker, thinking I had fructose malabsorption, then adrenal fatigue, and researched those things in-depth... If I hadn't read this book, this article, this website... I probably would still be there, in its clutches.
There is the assumption that an eating disorder means you are throwing up all your food, or never eating, binge-cycling, are a too-skinny teenage girl. These are stereotypes. An anorexic is just as likely to be overweight as underweight. I never made myself vomit, so that's not necessarily true, either. Eating disorders are no respecters of gender, or age. The most basic of definitions is that an eating disorder is any range of psychological disorders characterized by abnormal or disturbed eating habits.
There is a social stigma surrounding eating disorders, surrounding mental illness and disorders, and they literally drip with shame. We still want to lock ourselves away in the attic, like Mr Rochester's wife. I've lived with that, waded and swam in it for years. Ashamed that I wasn't a good example, ashamed that I had these behaviors. These behaviors must prove I am a messed up human being. Must prove it, because we definitely don't talk about any of it. Ironically, those are the thoughts that helped put me there, in the first place. I am not good enough, and must change. I must make myself change. (It is very nuanced, though... there's that word again.) I must make myself healthy...on and on, yada yada.
What's happened? Why am I talking about it now? I think it's because I had a daughter. That, and I finally moved beyond denial and shame and admitted, acknowledged, named the Truth. I believe that it has to be talked about. The lifetime risk of developing a restrictive eating disorder is about 33%. That's higher than the risk of developing breast cancer, 13%, for what it's worth. (World Health Organization) For the sake of one more person beginning their journey toward freedom and not losing their life, I will talk about it.
How is it that I am not ashamed? That has taken time. Corrie Ten Boom wrote about forgiveness, and I am grossly paraphrasing here, but the gist is that it is a daily practice. Sometimes it is more frequent, or less frequent, but basically every time that shame rears its head, I push it away. It comes back, I push it away again. I say, No, I've already dealt with you. (This is what she practiced with forgiveness.) It isn't that I've had to forgive myself, I didn't do anything wrong, I didn't do anything to bring this on myself - I'm accepting this reality, and pushing away the shame.
Shit happens. We're broken people, sure, but that doesn't mean we can't be mended. It doesn't mean life isn't glorious anyways. It doesn't mean we aren't glorious.
The truth is we all have a monkey on our back, whether you are in denial about it or not is another story. ;) And this is mine is this life. The amazing, astounding, astonishing truth is that the presence of flaws doesn't diminish our value, our worth, our beauty. We are still glorious creations. We are glorious creations because of all these things.
So I will talk about disordered eating, and body image, and all that as I continue on this journey through the maze of recovery. Learning what total health is for me. I want to help others on their journey, by talking about mine.
*Please be advised, this post contains potential triggers and open language about eating disorders.
My body is not my enemy.
I can trust my body when it tells me it is hungry.
I can trust my body, and feed it what it is telling me to eat.
My body wants to be healthy, thriving, healthy.
I can trust that my body knows what is best for itself, to achieve a thriving vitality.
All food is good food.
When I first developed and suffered from disordered eating, in my early twenties, it was pretty bad. I had no set parameters, but I limited what I ate severely. I exercised compulsively, most times twice a day, at least once a day, and never took a day off. Never. I stumbled upon cleanses, and detoxes, and other natural things that could rid my faulty body of this evil called the toxic food I ate. I was actually addicted to those stupid natural cleanse pills until right around the time I married my husband. He was the one that encouraged me to no longer buy them, and it is because of him that I first walked away from my disordered eating behaviors. But sadly, I didn't realize how important treatment was, how crucially important it is to seek help and to talk about it in a safe environment. I stopped the physical behaviors, but had no idea that what was going on was rooted in my mind. That's why it came back - not because I did anything wrong, per se, I just didn't know. We didn't know how truly severe and dangerous this thing was. I had no idea that it was so ingenious and nuanced. No clue.
And if I hadn't slowly gotten sicker and sicker, thinking I had fructose malabsorption, then adrenal fatigue, and researched those things in-depth... If I hadn't read this book, this article, this website... I probably would still be there, in its clutches.
There is the assumption that an eating disorder means you are throwing up all your food, or never eating, binge-cycling, are a too-skinny teenage girl. These are stereotypes. An anorexic is just as likely to be overweight as underweight. I never made myself vomit, so that's not necessarily true, either. Eating disorders are no respecters of gender, or age. The most basic of definitions is that an eating disorder is any range of psychological disorders characterized by abnormal or disturbed eating habits.
There is a social stigma surrounding eating disorders, surrounding mental illness and disorders, and they literally drip with shame. We still want to lock ourselves away in the attic, like Mr Rochester's wife. I've lived with that, waded and swam in it for years. Ashamed that I wasn't a good example, ashamed that I had these behaviors. These behaviors must prove I am a messed up human being. Must prove it, because we definitely don't talk about any of it. Ironically, those are the thoughts that helped put me there, in the first place. I am not good enough, and must change. I must make myself change. (It is very nuanced, though... there's that word again.) I must make myself healthy...on and on, yada yada.
What's happened? Why am I talking about it now? I think it's because I had a daughter. That, and I finally moved beyond denial and shame and admitted, acknowledged, named the Truth. I believe that it has to be talked about. The lifetime risk of developing a restrictive eating disorder is about 33%. That's higher than the risk of developing breast cancer, 13%, for what it's worth. (World Health Organization) For the sake of one more person beginning their journey toward freedom and not losing their life, I will talk about it.
How is it that I am not ashamed? That has taken time. Corrie Ten Boom wrote about forgiveness, and I am grossly paraphrasing here, but the gist is that it is a daily practice. Sometimes it is more frequent, or less frequent, but basically every time that shame rears its head, I push it away. It comes back, I push it away again. I say, No, I've already dealt with you. (This is what she practiced with forgiveness.) It isn't that I've had to forgive myself, I didn't do anything wrong, I didn't do anything to bring this on myself - I'm accepting this reality, and pushing away the shame.
Shit happens. We're broken people, sure, but that doesn't mean we can't be mended. It doesn't mean life isn't glorious anyways. It doesn't mean we aren't glorious.
The truth is we all have a monkey on our back, whether you are in denial about it or not is another story. ;) And this is mine is this life. The amazing, astounding, astonishing truth is that the presence of flaws doesn't diminish our value, our worth, our beauty. We are still glorious creations. We are glorious creations because of all these things.
So I will talk about disordered eating, and body image, and all that as I continue on this journey through the maze of recovery. Learning what total health is for me. I want to help others on their journey, by talking about mine.
What is the destination? There is no destination. When will you arrive? There is no finish line. How can you succeed? It is not measured in those terms.
How very frustrating.
How very freeing.
-Gwyneth Olwyn, Your Eatopia
Thursday, September 5, 2013
the search for health, part one
This is a bit of a long post, but there are some things I want to get off my chest, things that I need to share with those of you who have read my blog at any time, especially my rantings about vegetarianism, and then my rantings about the paleo diet, and my continual rantings about dietary health.
I fell into the pit of believing that changing my diet would improve my health. I believed that to have a healthy diet meant that I would be healthy. The problem naturally arose then, that the healthy diet needed to be defined. And so I read, and tried being a vegetarian, then a vegan, and became very thin, and lost muscle mass. I threw in that towel when it became difficult for me to pick up my (then) one year old son. Eight to ten months after that I adopted the paleo diet full-force. I followed it off and on for a year and a half, and witnessed as my initial pep and vim morphed into a host of food allergies, things from which I had never before suffered, suddenly stealing my life. My health began declining in a multitude of ways.
I was lucky to have the revelation that all this pursuit of health was in fact destroying my health.
It is not an uncommon story these days. It seems to be everywhere, because everyone wants to be healthy, and there are a thousand gazillion fad diets available that promise to get us there. We are a generation, nay - a nation - obsessed with youth, now to a degree never before seen. Disordered eating, fueled by disordered body image, en masse. And that is in fact what happened to me: a woman I looked up to and admired, who in hindsight I am positive had her own eating disorder/body image issues, made a comment about me needing to lose weight. So what did I do? I endeavored to lose weight. And so it began...
The endeavor to lose weight became an obsession, became a driving force in my life. I cloaked it with the mask of health and wellness, so skillfully even I didn't see it for what it was, for many, many years. I cloaked it like a Klingon Bird of Prey, man! So well done, I didn't realize it was still here living with me, it just changed its habits, changed her makeup and hair so I couldn't recognize her. But beneath that, its still the same illness. Telling me that above all, I need to be thinner. It persuaded me that being thinner also meant healthier. That, my friends, is the greatest lie of all.
This past May I sobbed and snotted into the carpet of our spare bedroom, weeping and wailing because I suddenly understood that I once again had an eating disorder, and I had done this to myself. I saw that I actually new NOTHING about health and wellness. That everything I had read, studied, learned, pursued, was a seductively structured web of lies. I was under the thumb, again, of an eating disorder that wanted nothing less than to take my life, slowly but systematically. I wept because I realized that years ago, long ago, as a teenager and young woman I had health, and didn't realize it. I traded my vibrant, glowing, beautiful gift of health for someone else's distorted body image.
Health is like a very long algebraic equation. It is not the result of a healthy diet, and it definitely doesn't coincide with being thin; TRUE HEALTH is a long equation to which belong many, many factors. I restricted my diet, and ate foods that were in and of themselves beneficial, but did I eat enough overall? Lord no. Not even close. I drank too much coffee, I was under massive amounts of stress, I was in denial about postpartum anxiety and depression, I wasn't sleeping well, had blood in my stools and an ever-growing list of food "sensitivities" - all I thought about was what I could and could not eat. I was not able to properly recover from exercise, as I was pretty much starving myself. I remember walking through the grocery store, longing for the past when I could eat Lucky Charms, or bread, or fruit. It wasn't like your basic craving for chocolate once a month or whatever, I was craving effing FOOD. I mean, I ate food: I ate whole, real, organic good for you foods, but I wasn't eating enough. Bottom line. My body wanted more, and I was telling it to shut up because it doesn't know what its talking about. My brain knows better, body! Hush! Eat this meat and sweet potato, stop talking about pasta, and do what I tell you!
On the outside, I looked fit and trim, enviable to some. Oh yeah, laud my "healthy" physique! You, too, can change your body by starving it! (Rabbit trail: Statistically - that means the gathered evidence of what actually happens in real life - being underweight greatly increases your risk of not only contracting various and sundry illnesses, but greatly increases your risk of dying from them. This is statistically not true of being overweight or obese, by the way. Having some extra padding actually makes it more likely that you will survive any illness. Hm. Why isn't that information a little more widely-spread?)
So, what happened? I started eating the effing FOOD. For one month, I ate whatever I wanted when I wanted it, did no formal exercise, and slept as much as I could being a mom to two littles. Vividly I remember the first meal I sat down to with my husband after my sobbing-snot fest. Homemade cheeseburgers on a freaking ciabatta roll with french fries. And beer, I think. It tasted SO good. Now I look by and think, why in the HELL did I ever think a burger was a burger without a BUN? Bwahahahaha! What will these kids think of next?
In eating whatever I wanted whenever I wanted, there are those that assume that means I will therefore eat nothing but junk food forever. And you want to caution me that I need balance! I need to not throw the baby out with the bath water! There are things you need to understand, however. Firstly, I was at a severe nutrient and calorie deficit. Junk, processed foods are high in calories and supplemented with easily absorbed nutrients. Overall, they are easily digested and absorbed. This makes them actually GOOD for a person in a state such as I was at that time. In a bizarre twist, these junk foods became my health foods; they were instrumental in restoring my health. Sugar and salts helped naturally restore my damaged electrolyte balance and my digestion, giving my cells fuel at their level, allowing them to function and do what they do best. Not exercising and focusing on rest and sleep allowed the increase of readily absorbed nutrients to be used to healing, instead of fuel for my workouts.
But honestly, I don't want to go into the finer details of this whole process - I definitely don't want to start arguing nutrition or defending why the process of healing from a restrictive dietary lifestyle is what it is. I will say this: what I did is a by-the-book recovery process. It isn't something I made up (though if I were to, it makes sense: if you've stopped eating and are starving yourself, start eating again and stop starving). 180 degrees. Go the opposite direction.
My junk food cravings stopped within a week. Since then, I want what I want now and again, and I have it. I do not restrict anything, ever, for any reason. I do not label foods good or bad. There is no glorification, vilification, or guilt. Food is simply food. This is an active pursuit for the rest of my life. Disordered eating is a mental illness, pure and simple. It can be treated, it can go into full remission, but it is something I live with always. Like my height, it is what it is. I can wear heels, but I'm still only as tall as I am.
That it will always be something I live with does not depress or sadden me, it is in fact a huge liberation, because I can easily identify those thoughts, attempting to vilify FOOD, as lies. Lies about eating too much, or too frequently, or infrequently, or at the wrong time (come on, weight lifters, you know it's true...), are all told, as rudely as possible, to shut up and take a hike. Knowing those thoughts are lies, knowing the voice is a false one seeking to eventually take my life, gives me a lot of freedom. Just because its here doesn't mean I am in bondage to it. Big difference!
So, all this to say, no more from this sector will you hear praises and damnations of any food, ANY food, whatsoever, ever. All food is good food. All food is healthy. Not all food is healthy to everyone (Zao's Daddy is a diabetic; I completely understand this concept), but barring being a true Celiac, or being diabetic, or etc etc, for the general populace, this statement stands: Eat the Food!
I fell into the pit of believing that changing my diet would improve my health. I believed that to have a healthy diet meant that I would be healthy. The problem naturally arose then, that the healthy diet needed to be defined. And so I read, and tried being a vegetarian, then a vegan, and became very thin, and lost muscle mass. I threw in that towel when it became difficult for me to pick up my (then) one year old son. Eight to ten months after that I adopted the paleo diet full-force. I followed it off and on for a year and a half, and witnessed as my initial pep and vim morphed into a host of food allergies, things from which I had never before suffered, suddenly stealing my life. My health began declining in a multitude of ways.
I was lucky to have the revelation that all this pursuit of health was in fact destroying my health.
It is not an uncommon story these days. It seems to be everywhere, because everyone wants to be healthy, and there are a thousand gazillion fad diets available that promise to get us there. We are a generation, nay - a nation - obsessed with youth, now to a degree never before seen. Disordered eating, fueled by disordered body image, en masse. And that is in fact what happened to me: a woman I looked up to and admired, who in hindsight I am positive had her own eating disorder/body image issues, made a comment about me needing to lose weight. So what did I do? I endeavored to lose weight. And so it began...
The endeavor to lose weight became an obsession, became a driving force in my life. I cloaked it with the mask of health and wellness, so skillfully even I didn't see it for what it was, for many, many years. I cloaked it like a Klingon Bird of Prey, man! So well done, I didn't realize it was still here living with me, it just changed its habits, changed her makeup and hair so I couldn't recognize her. But beneath that, its still the same illness. Telling me that above all, I need to be thinner. It persuaded me that being thinner also meant healthier. That, my friends, is the greatest lie of all.
This past May I sobbed and snotted into the carpet of our spare bedroom, weeping and wailing because I suddenly understood that I once again had an eating disorder, and I had done this to myself. I saw that I actually new NOTHING about health and wellness. That everything I had read, studied, learned, pursued, was a seductively structured web of lies. I was under the thumb, again, of an eating disorder that wanted nothing less than to take my life, slowly but systematically. I wept because I realized that years ago, long ago, as a teenager and young woman I had health, and didn't realize it. I traded my vibrant, glowing, beautiful gift of health for someone else's distorted body image.
Health is like a very long algebraic equation. It is not the result of a healthy diet, and it definitely doesn't coincide with being thin; TRUE HEALTH is a long equation to which belong many, many factors. I restricted my diet, and ate foods that were in and of themselves beneficial, but did I eat enough overall? Lord no. Not even close. I drank too much coffee, I was under massive amounts of stress, I was in denial about postpartum anxiety and depression, I wasn't sleeping well, had blood in my stools and an ever-growing list of food "sensitivities" - all I thought about was what I could and could not eat. I was not able to properly recover from exercise, as I was pretty much starving myself. I remember walking through the grocery store, longing for the past when I could eat Lucky Charms, or bread, or fruit. It wasn't like your basic craving for chocolate once a month or whatever, I was craving effing FOOD. I mean, I ate food: I ate whole, real, organic good for you foods, but I wasn't eating enough. Bottom line. My body wanted more, and I was telling it to shut up because it doesn't know what its talking about. My brain knows better, body! Hush! Eat this meat and sweet potato, stop talking about pasta, and do what I tell you!
On the outside, I looked fit and trim, enviable to some. Oh yeah, laud my "healthy" physique! You, too, can change your body by starving it! (Rabbit trail: Statistically - that means the gathered evidence of what actually happens in real life - being underweight greatly increases your risk of not only contracting various and sundry illnesses, but greatly increases your risk of dying from them. This is statistically not true of being overweight or obese, by the way. Having some extra padding actually makes it more likely that you will survive any illness. Hm. Why isn't that information a little more widely-spread?)
So, what happened? I started eating the effing FOOD. For one month, I ate whatever I wanted when I wanted it, did no formal exercise, and slept as much as I could being a mom to two littles. Vividly I remember the first meal I sat down to with my husband after my sobbing-snot fest. Homemade cheeseburgers on a freaking ciabatta roll with french fries. And beer, I think. It tasted SO good. Now I look by and think, why in the HELL did I ever think a burger was a burger without a BUN? Bwahahahaha! What will these kids think of next?
In eating whatever I wanted whenever I wanted, there are those that assume that means I will therefore eat nothing but junk food forever. And you want to caution me that I need balance! I need to not throw the baby out with the bath water! There are things you need to understand, however. Firstly, I was at a severe nutrient and calorie deficit. Junk, processed foods are high in calories and supplemented with easily absorbed nutrients. Overall, they are easily digested and absorbed. This makes them actually GOOD for a person in a state such as I was at that time. In a bizarre twist, these junk foods became my health foods; they were instrumental in restoring my health. Sugar and salts helped naturally restore my damaged electrolyte balance and my digestion, giving my cells fuel at their level, allowing them to function and do what they do best. Not exercising and focusing on rest and sleep allowed the increase of readily absorbed nutrients to be used to healing, instead of fuel for my workouts.
But honestly, I don't want to go into the finer details of this whole process - I definitely don't want to start arguing nutrition or defending why the process of healing from a restrictive dietary lifestyle is what it is. I will say this: what I did is a by-the-book recovery process. It isn't something I made up (though if I were to, it makes sense: if you've stopped eating and are starving yourself, start eating again and stop starving). 180 degrees. Go the opposite direction.
My junk food cravings stopped within a week. Since then, I want what I want now and again, and I have it. I do not restrict anything, ever, for any reason. I do not label foods good or bad. There is no glorification, vilification, or guilt. Food is simply food. This is an active pursuit for the rest of my life. Disordered eating is a mental illness, pure and simple. It can be treated, it can go into full remission, but it is something I live with always. Like my height, it is what it is. I can wear heels, but I'm still only as tall as I am.
That it will always be something I live with does not depress or sadden me, it is in fact a huge liberation, because I can easily identify those thoughts, attempting to vilify FOOD, as lies. Lies about eating too much, or too frequently, or infrequently, or at the wrong time (come on, weight lifters, you know it's true...), are all told, as rudely as possible, to shut up and take a hike. Knowing those thoughts are lies, knowing the voice is a false one seeking to eventually take my life, gives me a lot of freedom. Just because its here doesn't mean I am in bondage to it. Big difference!
So, all this to say, no more from this sector will you hear praises and damnations of any food, ANY food, whatsoever, ever. All food is good food. All food is healthy. Not all food is healthy to everyone (Zao's Daddy is a diabetic; I completely understand this concept), but barring being a true Celiac, or being diabetic, or etc etc, for the general populace, this statement stands: Eat the Food!
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