HOW I BEGAN HEALING MY RELATIONSHIP WITH FOOD
Truth be told, I used to struggle with having the most toxic, insanely tumultuous, and all-consuming relationship with food…
How was it possible that I could love something SO much and then hate it with every fiber of my being at the same time? My obsession with food had a life of its own and in my mind, I felt like it took up a solid 90% of my available brain space.
My poor brain lived in a constant tornado alley of “What should I eat next?” – “When do I get to eat again?” – “Where am I going to get dinner?” - “Will anyone notice if I grab another?” – “Oh I can’t eat that” – “I don’t eat donuts” – “I should probably get the salad” – “I need to eat healthier” - “I don’t want to eat in front of other people” – “I’ll just pick at my dinner out and then grab a pizza on the way home” – “I’ve got to start my diet again tomorrow” – “Why can’t I stick to a diet? What’s wrong with me?!” “Oh God, I have to go to the grocery store again, that means a stand-off with the ice-cream section, bakery, popcorn aisle, pretty much the whole effing store really… Gah, landmines everywhere!”
I mean, can you imagine? It literally took over my entire life – all day, every day! In some of my darkest days, I remember wishing I could’ve been an alcoholic or drug addict instead, because then at least I could’ve just given it up cold-turkey… How freaking screwed up is that?!?
Although some people develop dysfunctional relationships with food later in life, my Mom told me I came out of the womb hungry. So all through my childhood, I was always the one who couldn’t get enough to eat and gorged on food any chance I could get. I have so many childhood memories of sneaking and hiding food, whether that was at my own house, at a friend’s house for a sleepover (bless their parent’s hearts as I ate them out of house and home!), or when I went to any family event or party. I always thought or hoped my parents didn’t notice, but of course they did… When your Mom has to have cute clothes specially made for you because you can’t fit into any of the pants in the Girl’s department at Dillard’s, you are utterly humiliated, but don’t know how to articulate or process that at 8 years old...
So I ate and ate and ate and my poor parents got totally overwhelmed and didn’t know what to do... With the “help” and advice of some pretty shitty Pediatricians, I was sent to nutritionists, enrolled in a hospital based children’s diet-program, and participated in school sports, even though I absolutely hated it all. But in the 80’s, that’s what parents and health professionals thought they were supposed to do with “husky kids!” There wasn’t a lot of self-awareness or “woo-woo” emotion-processing chatter going on in a small, southern city, like Shreveport, Louisiana… And I know in my soul that my parent’s love for me was SO BIG and all they wanted for me was to have a healthy and happy life; but damn, did all of that ever screw me up…
Throughout the next 20+ years, I gained and lost multiple hundreds of pounds, went on countless fad and yo-yo diets, developed and recovered from Binge Eating Disorder and Bulimia, sought inpatient treatment for 75 days at an eating disorder recovery center in Arizona, hired and fired multiple personal trainers and counselors, and gave up on all of my dreams because all I could ever think about was freaking FOOD!!!
When I woke up and decided I wanted to move to Seattle over six years ago, it was primarily driven by this deep, nagging feeling in my soul that I absolutely HAD TO change my life or I was going to die… Whether that was by health complications as I tipped the scale at nearly 300 lbs. or from living a life full of self-inflicted misery, I knew the change needed to be really big and really drastic. Pretty much everyone thought I was totally insane for wanting to pack up and move across the country with no job, no prospects, and no friends or family anywhere nearby, but I knew it would all work out somehow. It kinda had to…
And it did, although the journey has been hella rocky… I went on to lose 130 lbs. through diet and exercise alone and was SO PROUD of my achievement! At the time I thought this was the biggest feat in the world! I mean, I had finally overcome my past and was a new woman for crying out loud! It felt so incredibly satisfying hearing the compliments and wowing people in my hometown with my transformation, but it was all fleeting and totally superficial. I eventually came to learn that just because you lose a ton of weight and feel the healthiest and fittest you’ve ever felt, it doesn’t mean you have a healthy relationship with food or your SELF… I held the preconceived notion so many other people do that life would be so much easier if I were thin. Gorgeous men would line up around the block; I would get my dream job and immediately start making tons of money; and I would never have another issue with my self-esteem or confidence ever again! I was going to be “Thirty, Flirty, and Thriving!,” or at least that’s Jennifer Garner said…
Another thing I didn’t anticipate was that I would be living in a thinner body, but still would be totally consumed by food, now just a mere 50% of the time... I became obsessed instead with meal tracking, macros, and how I could exercise off that whole pizza I ate the night before! I weighed myself obsessively and was scared to death of gaining weight again, all while telling others I was totally fine and even healed! I also didn’t anticipate the whole host of other issues that came along with having a smaller, adult body, such as still having horrible body image, never feeling thin enough, obsessively pulling at my saggy skin, and being pursued by men for the first real time in my life… God, what a mess that was!
I went to countless hours of talk-therapy trying to uncover why I STILL couldn’t get a handle on my relationship with food and although it was all incredibly helpful and healing, it still wasn’t enough. I finally realized that if I didn’t start taking ACTION, nothing was going to change! Fortunately, one of my therapists discovered my love of homework and gave me a book, written by Geneen Roth, and encouraged me to read it over the next few weeks. Up until then I had never heard of her before, but have since discovered she is a total WIZARD and a pioneer in the world of emotional eating and how it relates to self-worth and the internal struggle. I immediately bought one of her most famous books, “When Food is Love,” and will never forget the passage where she advised a bewildered mother to give her little girl a pillowcase full of M&M’s to carry around with her… And although I knew rationally that that my lifelong war with food had to do with how I felt about myself, I still couldn’t figure out how to really start changing that, until I found Geneen.
Over the next month, as I inhaled several of her books, she taught me that in order to truly break the “Binge and Restrict Cycle,” you have to first break down the “Scarcity Mindset” your subconscious has been operating under, most likely without your knowledge… You see, when we’ve had a history of yo-yo dieting and an on-again, off-again relationship with the “Food Wagon,” we’ve subconsciously told ourselves that that cookie we’re eyeing over there, is the last one we’re ever going to be able to eat… Now, you and I both know, that sure as hell isn’t our last cookie, but your subconscious doesn’t know that! It’s been pre-programmed to assume you could start restricting again at any moment! It’s also kept finely detailed records of all the times you wouldn’t let it have something, so the little hedonist better act fast! Also, when you’re constantly binging and restricting, however that looks for you, there’s a little rebellious part of you that just says, “Screw it, I do what I want!” and “Treat yo’self, girl!”
So how did I beat that “Scarcity Mindset” down? Well… I became the little girl with the M&M’s! I started allowing myself to buy whatever I wanted at the store, order whatever I felt like at a restaurant, and didn’t give a damn whether it was healthy for me or not… I’m not gonna lie, it was terrifying at first, but I was determined to give this a go! Geneen has a hilarious story in her book, “Feeding the Hungry Heart,” where she ate nothing but chocolate chip cookies morning, noon, and night for two freaking weeks! Yes, her body felt like total garbage, and so did mine for a while, but then things started to slowly shift… I started learning how to trust myself and my intuition again, started eating more intuitively and listening to my body for the first time ever, developed actual hunger cues (even for vegetables!), started feeling like I actually had more control, versus less of what I was eating, and also started to free up some of that previously occupied brain-space I so desperately needed to move forward! It was totally incredible and such a game changer for me! I also realized when I finally let go and set myself free, I was also able to start healing a still very broken part of me, which was my relationship with "little Catherine," aka my inner child.
Now whenever I tell that story to my clients, they all kind of freak out a little on the inside… Most of them think, “Oh my God, I’m going to gain so much weight!” – “I can’t do that! What will people think?!” and “How do you stop once you start?!” And you know what, of course they think that; I did in the beginning too, for crying out loud! But that’s because we’ve been trained to think we can’t be trusted around food. That we have to be in a dieting mindset for the rest of our lives. That women don’t get to eat what they want. That “nothing tastes better than being thin feels…” It’s all completely toxic and NOT OK!
And yes, in the process of all of this healing, I have gained weight and it does still freak me out a little from time to time; but what freaks me out even more is the idea of obsessing about food for the rest of my life… The idea of passing this on to a daughter or son one day… The idea of never fully participating and thriving in my LIFE because all of this B.S. is in head and in my way!
Sorry - not sorry, but whether I’m a size 6 or a size 12 doesn’t matter in the long game of life. What matters is how I feel about myself, how I choose to show up in the world and serve others, how I use my experience for good and help other women break-free and let-go too!
That’s the stuff that matters and no ice-cream or pizza should ever be given the authority to hold that kind of POWER over me or you, ever again…