Show Notes

Listeners’ Letter

Dear Food,

Where do I begin? I hate you. I love you. You nourish me, yet you cause me feelings of utter guilt and shame. Do I sound crazy yet? I have been struggling with an eating disorder for over ten years. It started out innocent-as it always does! Just wanted to lose a few pounds here and there. But then the weight loss became addicting. Consume less? Move more? The weight melted off. Okay, I thought. This is working. Years down the road I am faced with a number of health problems. Electrolyte imbalances, the bones of an 80 year old woman (I am 27), weakening of my heart muscle, low potassium, and oh did I mention the depression and anxiety? With all of these consequences of my eating disorder, I found myself pushed into saying enough is enough. So, I went to treatment. I left there feeling great. Then I relapsed. I went back to treatment. Here I am weight restored, relatively “healthy” besides the issues I can’t reverse. I follow my meal plan every day, listen to my body, eat when I’m hungry, don’t over exercise. It is literally a full time job committing to recovery, food. So you can imagine my frustration with the world when I am all of a sudden being bombarded by the latest diet trends EVERYWHERE I LOOK. Wrap yourself skinny! Drink this superfood shake! Don’t eat that processed crap! Join my fitness accountability group! Do I need to go on? What is happening? I’ve spent years in treatment trying to develop a healthy relationship with you food. Trying to let it sink in that you are not BAD. That it’s all about balance and getting the nutrients you need to feel your best and yeah, that also means not denying myself a cookie or a damn muffin when I feel like it. I’ve been trying to be okay with eating how I truly WANT. Not how others think I should. But I can only take so much of this diet stuff. I can’t have a conversation with someone, log into my Facebook, go to a coffee shop without calories, weight loss, or some new “get skinny quick”‘scheme being thrown into my face. The problem is, the logical part of me who wants to stay in recovery knows that these schemes are bullshit. But the eating disorder loves this. It loves to just kind of tap me on the shoulder sometimes and say “hey..why don’t you just order those shakes? It could be a healthy replacement for lunch if you’re on the go.” Or “hey you really don’t get enough exercise these days, why don’t you just order that new insane fitness program everyone is raving about?”  My question is, food, how in the world am I expected to stay on track to a healthy, balanced life when everywhere I turn there is a tempting reason for me to go back to my old ways? I know that trying one of these diets, cleanses, programs will only restrict what I am “allowed” to eat, thus ruining all of the progress I’ve made. BUT IT IS SO HARD, FOOD!! Are these people right? Are there foods I need to stay away from? It’s so hard not to be tempted or convinced when I am feeling so vulnerable. Would trying any of these programs hurt me or can I do it in a way that is healthy?

-Tired (but tempted) of the diet industry