Show Notes

Listeners’ Letter

Dear Food,

This is a much needed conversation… I know exactly when our story started to get a little… complicated.

It all started a little bit more than a year ago, I was only 14 (yes, right now I am just 15 and a half ). I know exactly why it started: I compared myself to one girl in my class… She was a gymnast, and really muscular. I was just getting to high school and I admired her body. I’ve always been considered as a “skinny girl”, but at the time I started hating my thighs (by the way, I still do…). That same year, I started being more active and I thought that my thighs needed to be slimmer.

Then, I started to do some research on my own by listening to podcasts, watching youtube videos, reading… I did abs every mornings.
I also decided that I wanted to eat “healthy” and I thought that I had to reduce you Food a little bit… I didn’t starve myself, I was too scared and too aware for this, but I had some “rules”: no bread, no dairy, no dessert everyday, no snacks.

At the same period of time, I lost my period, to this day we (doctors, my mother and I) still don’t know what caused it because I didn’t lose a lot of weight, just X kilos.

I didn’t restrict but something else started: bingeing. And here is my problem, sweetie. I found, and I still do, get so much comfort through you. I was thinking about you all the time, even in holidays, in school, wherever. It gets a little better when I am busy but I still love you so much…

Now, I am much more aware about nutrition, especially gentle nutrition… I eat when I am hungry but sometimes, and it is still very often, I just don’t want to stop eating. And I know exactly why: when I am with you, this is my break from school, or a moment with a friend and family and I don’t want to get back to reality and to face my “responsibilities” (as a 15 years old teenager, of course). That’s why I binge on you. To be honest, I have only felt a few times the real feeling of “I cannot stop eating”: I couldn’t do anything and I would eat and eat and eat (processed sweet food that I usually don’t eat) and then feel so bloated, having heart palpitations and being mentally down. I really don’t know how to heal from bingeing on you… The most stupid thing in all of that is that I know why I binge on you and I am aware a lot of things about nutrition but I feel so trapped.. I know you don’t want to hurt me but I don’t know how to behave with you.

With love, hope it will get better between us

(I apologize by advance if there are some mistakes: I am french :))