stephanie14's Journal

exposing
Aug 29 2007 09:31

This is weird for me. I don't usually write personal things that people can see. I'm a journalist by nature and trade, I guess. The stuff I write about me usually goes into some journal that is stored into a drawer somewhere. Anyways, I guess this isn't really that kind of journal.

Food and I have just recently developped a better relationship. I used to love it to the point that I just wanted it all the time. This was for most of my life, it didn't really hurt me, I played sports everyday all year round. I was active in everything and even when I wasn't playing a sport I was always moving around.

I ate everything and anything with passion and gusto.  My mom, who has watched her weight her entire life, would cluck her tongue at me and say "you're going to have to start watching it Stephanie. You're short, it won't take much for it to catch up with you." Long story short, I would get mad, scream at her for thinking I was fat and vow to never eat again.  Little did I know that when I looked at super skinny celebs, heard horror stories of anorexics and saw girls my age and younger starve themselves into almost oblivion, it wasn't normal to look at these people and think "I could do that..", but that's what I did, every time.

I went to university. I stopped playing sports.  I ate the same and worse than I ever had in my life. McDonalds has never entered my childhood home. Fried foods, white bread and pastas, creamy sauces and loads of butter have always been a BIG no-no. At university, though they were everywhere and I attacked them with every fibre of my being. I wanted food all the time, from anywhere...and I wasn't playing sports, which was the only way I had ever "worked out" in my life...so I didn't know it was a calories in, calories out thing. I just figured I was one of those lucky people who could eat and not gain weight. Not so. I gained the freshman 30 pounds in 3 months. I got my pictures back from Christmas dinner and didn't even recognize myself. I am 5"3 and during high school had managed to maintain a very muscular 135 lbs. I was now 5"3 and a very non-muscular 165 lbs.  After getting my pictures back I decided it was time to start paying a little closer attention to what I ate and start exercising. So I started going to the gym and running and going to aerobics classes for the first time in my life. I loved it, the weight was falling off, I was eating healthier and feeling more energetic, my clothes were looser and I didn't feel the need to wear baggy shirts to hide my weight gain in. I was back down to 140 within 2 months and I was loving it.

 Then the bottom fell out of my world. I lost control of every other aspect of my life.  One of the men I loved most in the world, he was like a grandfather to me, died. It threw my whole sense of fairness and justice into a tailspin.  I was devestated and I remember thinking, after the funeral, that this wasn't the last person I would lose that I loved so much. I was going to have to go through this multiple times and there was nothing I could do about it. I lost it and subconciously I guess I figured that the only things I could control was the amount of time I spent studying, exercising and I could also control what I put in my body.  I figured the first 25 lbs had come off so easily....I could lose more no problem. So I threw myself into exercise, essentially stopped eating and threw up everything I did eat and to distract myself from my hungar pains... I studied and studied and studied. I even studied when I was running or biking.

Food and I entered the second phase of our toxic relationship. I hated it. I hated it so much. I wanted it to know that I had complete control over it, so I stopped eating it. I can remember standing over a loaf of bread in the cafeteria, willing myself to pick up one slice. Telling myself that one piece would not make me gain weight and I couldn't do it. I physically could not pick up one piece of bread. So I got angry at food and I ate salad with lemon juice on it. One plate. Counted every calorie, go back to my dorm and throw it up.  Subtract about 60 calories. At my lowest point I was taking in 252 calories a day. And throwing it up.

When I came home from university my parents were shocked. They had just seen me at the funeral 3 months before and I looked healthy and happy and in shape. Now I was this lifeless waif who cried when my mother offered me a grilled cheese sandwich made with wholewheat bread and fat free cheese. I cried and screamed at her that my whole life she wanted me to watch what I ate and now that I was it wasn't good enough. I told her she was jealous because I was smaller than her now. My dad, who is a phys. ed teacher and avid coach and athlete told me he knew what was going on and that I was going to have to start eating and stop losing weight or I would be hospitalized where they would force me to eat and not exercise and I wouldn't go back to school. He said he would help me and we would increases my calories and that I could keep exercising and not to be shocked when my weight went up after eating just a llittle bit more because I had restricted for so long. I'd lost all my fat, but also, all my muscle and my perosnality. I was 100 pounds and I looked like a prepubescent little girl. My dad and I worked together and there were times that I fought him tooth and nail. But I trusted him.  He told me what to expect and we slowly got me back up to 120 and now 125 where I want to stay.  My mother, brother and boyfriend also had infinite patience with me. Allowing me to make my own food. Not go to restaurants and later only go to restaurants that I knew the calories. I didn't eat junk and I ate every slowly and tentatively. But I increasingly developped a diet that I can stick to for the rest of my life.

This was almost 2 years ago now. And I would say I'm 97% recovered. I still freak out sometimes. Internally, though. The other night I found myself very angry at a waitress for offering me dessert after my meal. I shocked myself by feeling that way and I quickly talked myself out of it.

Food and I are doing better now. We've worked through our differences and I have a lifestyle and a diet that I can maintain forever.  Our relationship is not as passionate as it once was, but nor do I hate it with the same passion I loved it with. I think we've achieved a good balance.

Goals:

Try a new type of cardio exercise.

Increase the amount of sit-ups I do.

Try a new type of fish.