Some thoughts about food

A close friend just shared her reflections and history with eating and food.  It was a powerful email to read and brought me to a space of reflection regarding my own relationship with food. 

I’ve loved to eat ever since I was a child, unfortunately most of my eating habits when I was young were not very healthy eating habits.  I love sour patch kids, fruit roll ups, fruit punch, candy bars, cheddar gold fish, peanut butter fingers, at one point I drank 36 cans of diet coke a week.  I loved sugar and carbs and my body showed it.  Despite being a swimmer and swimming sometimes 4-6 hours a day, I was still on the thick side.  Whether I knew this or not, I can’t really remember. I do remember not every feeling very good about myself.

As college came around, I started to change my eating habits, no more meat, but still lots of bread, lots of pasta, some salads here and there. Breakfast I think was bowls of fruit with yogurt, bagels, in all lots of carbs and lots of fruit juice.  

It wasn’t until I graduated and moved in with Bryan and then Kai and Elana that I changed my eating habits to a much healthier life style.  Vegetarian, other then fish, no more milk, limited amount of eggs, but still lots of carbs and lots of sugars.. Not very good for me as I’m learning now. Then organics came and when Devin and I got together, it became and even stronger part of our lives. Organic, healthy, whole.. but still sugars.. like yummy chocolate chip cookies, and lots of fruit, ruled my world. 

As I think back to my childhood as to why I ate the food that I ate, 1. in some ways, I didn’t know any better. but really, I realize now that I was attempting to fill a void with food.  I would eat when I was emotionally upset, when I was bored, or when I didn’t feel good enough.  Eating was my way of controlling a situation. and unfortunately I became addicted to sugars so thus eating usually meant eating some kind of sugar or carbs. Not very healthy. 

The void that was trying to be filled was a void in my being that lacked love and acceptance.  I wanted to be loved so badly, to be cherished, nurtured, to be supported and felt that I was doing something right.  In grade school, I often was made fun of for liking horses and horseback riding.  I remember the kids neighing at me, making fun of me, calling me a horse.  Luckily there were several other girls, who liked horses and we banded together and became friends.  In middle school I was never a very “pretty” girl as all the other girls were blossoming into their adolescent. I still hated wearing jeans and wanted to be a tom boy.  High school, became a very traumatic point in my life, with my best friend dumping me like a hot pancake for a guy who lied to her and she blamed me.  It was a nasty situation.  And all the while, my parents were too busy with work and their failing marriage to ever really give me love in the way that I think I needed it at the time. 

So I turned to food for a lot of it.  Eat my way through high school and college.  I’m so lucky that I was into sports as heavily as I was, otherwise I would have been extremely overweight, just like my Grandmother and Aunt on my dad’s side, who both lived a “large” lifestyle.

So today, I’m extremely conscious of the food that I eat, especially now as diet is one of the key things to kicking cancer in the butt goodbye.  I see that when I’m in an emotional state, I want food, heavier, dense food, or sugar, like chocolate chip cookies MMMm or chocolate to make me feel better.  Alas now, though, I can not have any sugar, not even fruit, so thus my body and mind are able to tell me even more how my behavioral patterns with food have existed for so long, through my cravings.

I find too, that when I get very busy, moving quickly with a lot on my plate. I eat to ground myself, even if I’m not hungry.  I can see patterns over the last couple of years of when I’ve gained a lot of weight, because I’ve been super busy and stressed, and when I have lost weight because my whole being has slowed down, so I don’t’ eat as much.

 It’s fascinating to me what is going on with my body and it’s processing.  My relationship to food has changed completely.  I now view it and eat it with a sense of reverence.  The food I put in my system, the choices I make about what that food is, is helping me to be healthy, fully.. and I feel it. No longer do I have a stuffy nose, no longer do I get head aches, no longer is my body tired after eating a large meal.  Raw has been a good choice for me.