Eating on the Clock

Contains discussion of weight loss.

So I’ve been seeing variants of this story for the past day or so — that people who consume the bulk of their calories earlier in the day lose more weight than do people who consume more of their calories later.

I’m not disputing the study or that the difference between groups was statistically significant. (Now with ~25% less fatness!) I have thoughts, but I’m sure others will tackle that.

I am, however, peeved by the way it’s being reported. The linked article, for example, had a teaser line that read, “When you have lunch could make you fat.” And the article itself quotes “an important 5-pound difference.”

I know a lot of people — fat people, thin people, large people, small people, people who have tried to lose weight repeatedly, people who have seldom or never tried weight loss, people who think weight loss is important and admirable, people who are indifferent, people who are apt to regard weight loss with suspicion.

Now it may be that my sample is biased, but none of them would regard 5 pounds as the difference between “fat” and not.

I mean, if it is — Lack of PMS Bloating an Important Factor in Weight Loss! Or — Is Your Full Bladder Making You Fat?

Getting a Better Body

[Note for discussion of diet and weight loss.]

It’s that time of year again, when the New Year’s resolution weight loss ads outnumber even the regularly scheduled weight loss ads. I don’t watch standard TV, so I’m safe there. But I do listen to the radio, and they’re there. I change the station; they follow. I glance at the magazines in the grocery store check out. Suddenly I find myself staring at the tabloid headline “Elvis Sighted in Overturned Port-a-Potty” because that seems like the safest news ever.

And the Internet? On the Internet, they are everywhere.

The ones I’ve seen this year mostly follow themes of “getting a better body” and “creating a new you,” and I find myself thinking, None of that is true.

I mean, I could make a lot of dietary and exercise choices that would impact my body. I could, if I wanted, alter my diet (at least in the shorter term) for outcomes such as weight loss, increased physical endurance, better blood chemistry, more thorough pain management, or steadier emotional health. Each would have some kind of effect.

But they wouldn’t create a “new” me. Nor would they get me a “better body.” However I try to influence it, for better or for worse, this body is the only one I’m going to get.

So much of the rhetoric I see surrounding diet, weight loss, and some mainstream fitness plans (which often sell the promise of weight and/or visible fat loss as a perk) seem predicated on the idea that we can somehow “trade in” our bodies. Like if we log enough miles run or crunches crunched — or enough low carb meals or few enough calories or whatever — we’ll somehow qualify for a corporeal upgrade.

Only, that’s not the way it works. I could follow all the trick diets and all the trendy exercise routines, and I will still have this body. I could overload on simple sugars and deny myself exercise — both of which are pretty well guaranteed to make me feel like shit warmed over — and it would still happen within this body. I could eat and exercise in the ways that best balance all my health needs — and the end result would still by my body. I probably would not look or feel precisely the same with each choice, but some parameters would simply not be altered — or alterable.

Not that I think people can’t make dietary or exercise changes for good, solid, realistic reasons. But I think the reasons people are trying to sell me right now are none of those. They assume that if I do all the “right” things — in other words, pay them enough money — I can somehow behave as if a new body is coming, as if this one doesn’t matter.

When in fact, this body is the only one I’m going to get. I can love it or not, accept it or not, treat it well or not — but there is no exchange policy.

[Notes: The video I'd like to end with includes discussions of sex, the word "fuck," and discussions of disordered eating.]

[Margaret Cho from Notorious C.H.O.]

It’s hard to turn down food.

Discusses food choices, eating habits, diet talk.

Socially hard, I mean.

One of my students’ common elective classes had a potluck/party one day this past week. (I don’t know more than that — e.g., reasons why — but I do know that student consensus is that this elective class is harder and more work than are any of their core classes, so I don’t think it’s cool to begrudge the students or this teacher one day off — if it is even a full day off.) Because I am Everybody’s Second Mother at school, this meant that my classroom was used for food storage, both before the potluck class (depending on when in the day each one had it) and of leftovers afterward. In turn, this meant that every student who brought food into my classroom offered some to me.

Now, despite having normal blood glucose levels, I don’t do well with sugary foods in quantity or on their own. And for whatever reason, all of the potluck-associated foods that I saw were of the sweeter variety: cupcakes, doughnuts, whipped cream fruit salad, cookies. While most of them looked delicious (bright neon icing has not done it for me since I was about six years old), I knew that if I wanted to avoid feeling like crap after eating them, I needed to limit myself to one — and then only right after my lunch, when I’d eaten something with substantive amounts of other nutrients. Left to my own devices, I would have easily declined most of the food because, based on my own needs and preferences, I genuinely didn’t want it.

My own devices are one thing. Social pressure, even well-intentioned social pressure, is another.

“Are you sure you don’t want a cupcake? They have chocolate.”

“Who doesn’t like doughnuts?”

“What, my cookies aren’t good enough for you?” — a student in mock indignation.

And my favorite, spoken by a coworker in the faculty cafeteria, where some of the leftovers had migrated:

“Don’t tell me you’re on a diet again.”

Which is interesting because while I’m no stranger to dieting, I actually don’t think I’ve been on — or implied I’ve been on — any form of calorie or food group restriction since I’ve known this person.

But even more interesting — or frustrating — is the fact that all of these were said to me after I’d already been offered food and declined the offers I didn’t want. (I mean, I did want a couple of cookies at the end of my lunch, and so I had them.) Like, it’s not enough just to not want something, say no, and have that no accepted.

I get that there’s often a social and communal element to eating. I like going to the cafeteria every lunch, not just because it gets me out of my classroom, but because I prefer eating with others to eating alone. I love to cook, and I love to share my cooking with others.

And I’ll admit, I’ve often laid on some consumption encouragement of my own. “Please, eat as much as you want; it would be awesome if I didn’t have to take any of this home.”

And it occurs to me that some of this is about permission. When I share food with others, my instinct is to give blanket permission — “eat as much as you want” — and to more or less let the chips fall where they may. (I recognize that adding the bit about not wanting to take any home isn’t keeping the permission completely neutral, though I like to think it doesn’t single out any individual in a group.) But when I want to share others’ food, I often come up against internal or external guilt; in times like that, my instinct is to seek permission. And if other people are eating the food in the same quantities as I’d like to eat it? My mind definitely perceives that as permission.

I’m wondering now if this isn’t somehow — secretly, unspoken, unconsciously — predicated on the idea that all the members in a communal eating group have a shared desire to eat all the food. Or all the dessert food or cheesy food or salty food or whatever the named other “bad” food is. Which is sometimes true, I’m sure, but isn’t always.

I’m also wondering if some people — adults here, people who’ve had time to analyze media and diet talk and body shaming — want to interpret my body as their permission. As in, because I’m often the fattest person in any given eating group, if people aren’t looking to me as a stand in for whether it’s reasonably okay to “give in” and eat a particular food. Or even — I wonder if some people want to use anyone else as their permission, regardless of body size.

Which, it would certainly be nice if people accepted my declining any given food at any given time for what it is: an individual choice. It would also be nice if people recognized that my body, my eating habits — or anyone’s bodies or anyone’s eating habits — are not a stand in for permission to eat because nobody needs permission just to eat food.

Extra Weight

Dear print, radio, and Internet advertisements (thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster I have stopped watching TV) that keep trying to convince me to shed my “extra weight,”

I have tried so many of your programs. They failed miserably, all of them in the long term, a good deal of them in the short term as well.

Therefore, I propose a couple of possible conclusions:

One, your products and/or systems are scams, in the style of medieval alchemists promising to turn lead into gold. Also for convincing me that the proverbial “gold” here — in other words, a thinner body — was something worth chasing.

Or two, none of the current weight on my body is “extra.” It is all a part of me, and therefore, I never needed your product in the first place.

Personally, I am a fan of three — all of the above.

Signed,
I would invest in some AdBlock software if it didn’t provide me so many delightful opportunities to deconstruct y’all. Also, it is hard to find AdBlock for all the rest of my life.

It’s Just Me

Note: This post contains weight loss talk and references to disordered eating patterns.

I was talking recently to someone close to me, someone with whom I have a little trouble enforcing boundaries. In the course of our conversation, I mentioned needing to shop for a few items of clothing soon because mine no longer fit me.

Interestingly, I was referring to my need to get new bras because my new birth control has decided it would be fun to go up a couple of cup sizes. (Note: While I appreciate that this may in fact be fun for some people, I am at the stage when the sizes have run out and the novelty has worn off.) She, however, instantly became concerned about the fact that I “can’t seem to lose weight.”

“How’s your diet?”

A dangerous question, considering I have problems with restriction. I guiltily recalled the cream cheese on my bagel this morning, the chocolate I asked my partner to bring home earlier this week. Then I told myself, Fuck it. Reasonable diets get to include the occasional slice of cake and smear of cream cheese.

“Fine.”

“Have you tried doing low-fat or cutting out carbs?”

Yes and yes, if you want to know the truth. Suffice it to say: I cannot think with insufficient dietary fat, and I cannot poop with insufficient dietary fiber, which I get — surprise! — from carbs. But I didn’t want to turn this into a conversation about the evils of food.

“I told you; my diet is fine.”

“Are you sure you’re exercising?”

No. I just now realized that what I had mistaken for yoga practices and runs might actually be massive hallucinations — hallucinations I sometimes even share with other people.

Because, realistically, while I am right now not exercising as much as I would like, I am still probably exercising more than the average USian. When I can and when it feels like I’ll like it, I exercise even more.

“At least a little, almost every day.”

“Do you want to try this DVD I have?”

Not really, if it’s the one you rant and rave about regularly, the one that focuses every second breath on how many calories you’re burning, how much fat you’re losing, how you can feel the pounds just melt off. I do not want to feel like I’m melting when I’m working out, thank you. You can keep that one.

“Really, I’m good with what I have.”

“But if it’s not working for you — “

Who decided it’s not working? Not me.

“– when was the last time you had your thyroid checked?”

“Last month. It was normal.”

For people who are informed about these things, it was truly normal by any sense of the term. My TSH was 1.19, and I have no symptoms (e.g., heavy menstrual periods) that aren’t pretty clearly explained by other diagnoses.

“But if your diet is good and you’re exercising but still not losing weight, then there must be something wrong with —”

“No. Really. There’s not. There’s nothing wrong with me. This is just me. At the size I’m supposed to be.”

“But have you tried — “

“I’m not saying you have to approve of this size, not for me or anyone else. But that’s not going to change reality, and I’m a little bit past the point where I’m looking for your approval.”

Saying Goodbye to Skinny Jeans

When I was younger, I would occasionally watch my mom clear out her closet. Some of the clothes were ones I’d never seen before and that clearly dated from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s (before I was born). Some, on the other hand, were clothes I remembered her wearing, though not for a while.

“Mom,” I asked once, “why don’t you wear that anymore?”

“Because it doesn’t fit me anymore,” she replied.

I was young enough that I only associated “doesn’t fit me anymore” with the process of becoming a “big girl,” which to me meant growing up and was very much welcomed as a good thing. Later, however, I realized that becoming too big for clothing was sometimes seen as a negative. I started to notice the wistful tone in her voice when she said, “I can’t wear this anymore.”

Later still, I started to hear the advice.

“These are only one size too small, so I should keep them for when I fit into them again.”

“I wore these a year or so ago, so keeping them isn’t a far away goal.”

Eventually, “You should always keep a pair of skinny jeans in your closet, to remind you of the size you used to be because that’s the size you could become again.”

I was cleaning out my closet this new year, and I thought about my mom’s words. Keeping a pair of closet pants doesn’t strike me as all bad. For instance, they would serve to remind me:

• Of a time when I was less strong than I am now.
• Of a time when I conflated weight with health.
• Of a time when I set a great store by being a societally acceptable size.
• Of a time when I needed to master the fine art of saying, “Fuck you very much.”

With respect to the last point, at least, its time has come. I cleaned out my closet and found zero clothing that was one size too small. However, I found articles of clothes that were three, four, and five sizes too small.

When I looked at them, one part of me wanted to keep them. Not because I entertained delusions of fitting into those same jeans but because I associated those jeans with some awesome memories.

The jeans I bought when I’d been out of my previous abusive relationship for ten months? Wonderful.

Jeans I found that worked with my curves instead of causing vacuous ass gap? Fabulous.

The jeans I wore for nearly a month straight right after my dad died, when most of my mental stability was rooted in hay and sweat and horse shit? Irreplaceable.

But I’ll never wear any of them again. Because the body I had then is not the body I have now. This is not a bit of present mourning, mind you, because I love the body I have now. But it hurts to let go of the memories and the image of self that accompanied those memories. So it’s tough to look at those old jeans.

Still and all, they’re just jeans — and there are people in my area who could use those jeans at those sizes. The thrift store business is thriving in my neck of the woods, and turnover rates are amazing. I can’t account for specifics, of course, but as a general rule, it seems that people need whatever I can donate.

And I can donate these jeans, these jeans I’ll likely never wear again.

So it has come to be that my closet is devoid of skinny jeans. All the clothes that do not fit have moved on to greener pastures. All the pants I own are in sizes that fit me now. My mom, I think, part of her would be disappointed that I do not aspire to be a smaller size, not even in so small (pun intended) a way as hanging on to a single pair of skinny jeans.

I can only hope that is balanced by the understanding that my mother’s daughter loves herself as she is, in this moment, right now, nothing contingent on a smaller ass size.

Diet Advice Circle

An amalgam, only slightly exaggerated for humor, of most of the diet advice I’ve received (solicited or un):

Them: You don’t need to restrict calories to diet. Just eat sensibly, avoid processed foods, and cook whole foods at home.

Me: I eat sensibly, eat processed foods infrequently, and do most of my cooking at home with whole foods.

Them: Hrm. Maybe you just need to avoid [carbs/fat/meat/sugar/dairy/etc.].

Me: I eat foods that help me get the nutrients I need to feel healthy. Besides, I thought you said it wasn’t about restricting foods?

Them: Oh, you don’t! But you can use [bar/shake/frozen meal product] and it’s so easy and convenient!

Me: So it is about processed foods?

Them …
…
…

Them: Have you tried exercising more?

Wellness Oops

Remember the work wellness challenge I posted about a couple of weeks ago?

If you’ve forgotten, it basically goes like this:

1. Challenge consists of some food and exercise mini-challenge as well as an overall weight loss challenge.
2. I contacted the organizers, saying I was uncomfortable with the weight loss part but would be interested in participating in the other challenges.
3. They clarified that employees were welcome to participate or not participate in whatever challenges they liked.

I was tentatively optimistic.

Then there was silence. I heard no specifics regarding times, locations, or procedures for any of the other activities. So I emailed again.

Turns out? They based their “who’s interested” overall contact list on who signed up for the weight loss challenge.

*headdesk*

Fat & Food

Briefly, for the people who are clueless and need to read it.

Fatness and disordered eating are not mutually exclusive.

No, not just for compulsive overeating or binge eating disorders.

No, not only for bulimia and other binge-purge related cycles.

Also for restriction, compulsive exercise, or other behaviors that might result in a diagnosis or orthorexia (ED-NOS) or anorexia, were weight status not a criteria for the latter.

Certainly, this is not true for every person with a BMI not to your liking. But there are fat people who eat too little and exercise too much.

It’s not me anymore. But “anymore” says a lot.

Why I’m Frustrated by Jennifer Hudson’s Weight Loss

Not because she went from a double-digit size to a single-digit size. She is the boss of her body.

Not because she’s prouder of her weight loss than she is of her Oscar. Again, it’s her life, and she’s free to value her accomplishments as she sees fit.

But because this:

I don’t think there’s an inherent disconnect between loving one’s body at any size and making an individual choice to lose weight. I do think there’s an inherent disconnect between I love my body at any size and I recommend you purchase this diet plan.

In advertising with “I don’t know why you wouldn’t want to do Weight Watchers” and “Join Me,” Jennifer Hudson’s weight loss is no longer only about Jennifer Hudson. It’s become a product that Weight Watchers and their spokespeople are trying to sell to me, which tries to make someone else’s weight loss a value judgment about me — and that’s not okay.

Work Wellness Challenge

At work right now, we’re having a wellness challenge, where the overall challenge is made up of several dietary and exercise challenges. (It seems this wellness challenge lives almost entirely in the realm of physical wellness.) A lot of the mini-challenges — like an exercise log and recipe invention — fit very well with my likes and needs. A few of them — like a food journal — make me a wary. And the overarching challenge for the series of events is a weight loss challenge.

I shouldn’t have been surprised since the weight loss challenge has been an annual event since I’ve been here. And the supposition has always been that one participates in the other events as part of the weight loss challenge. But this year, I was taken aback at the strength and surety of my own reaction. “Why did they have to go and fuck that up?”

Certainly, I can see the appeal that weight loss holds for a lot of people. However, setting it as the lynchpin in a wellness challenge is a flawed strategy for wellness.

1. Even if all participants performed exactly the same on all the other food and exercise challenges, individual bodies are going to respond differently. Weight (loss or not) isn’t a reliable indicator of participation in the other activities.
2. Some people may have their weight remain the same or even go up as they begin or continue to practice healthy physical habits. It would be disingenuous for a wellness challenge to focus on weight loss at the possible expense of healthy practices.
3. For some people, dieting and weight loss are emotionally fraught issues. It would be dangerous for a wellness challenge to focus on weight loss at the expense of mental and emotional health.

And it’s not cool to exclude some of us from conversations and activities about wellness because we don’t want to lose weight.

I asked about this last year, tentatively and without revealing any personal stake, to receive a tepid response. The organizers were perfectly polite but apparently operated on the assumption that the other challenges existed to make the weight loss “more enjoyable and engaging” — to support the weight loss because who wouldn’t want to lose weight? — rather than as legitimately “enjoyable and engaging” activities on their own, independent of any weight loss goals.

Last year, I ended up not participating in most of the activities and feeling pretty bummed out because of that. Whatever larger problems exist in the world, or even in my workplace, it’s ostracizing to feel like something fun is happening but that I’m not welcome to participate in it because I don’t want to lose weight.

This year, I was more direct and personal in voicing my concerns. “I’d love to participate in some of these challenges, but participating in the weight loss challenge would not be healthy for me. Is there a way to participate in some activities but not others?” I did not get a direct response. However, later that day, the organizers sent out another email explicitly clarifying that employees could participate or not participate in individual activities as they chose.

This is a step in the right direction, though I’m sure I’m still setting myself up for some coworkers asking me:

1. Why I’m participating in the challenges if I don’t want to lose weight?
2. Why don’t I want to lose weight?

At the moment, however, being part of a group where I can talk about it trumps feeling excluded from the group so that I can’t.

The SHEER WILLPOWER Diet

This post discusses fat shaming, dieting, and disordered eating patterns.

Recently at The Curvy Nerd, Alexa expressed her frustration with other Internet commenters who evangelize (and cast judgment) via the “sheer willpower” diet:

And, for the record, the SHEER WILLPOWER diet of which I speak is the imaginary one that Not Fat People tell us about: “Oh, don’t you know that all you have to do is eat less and exercise more? Put down the Big Mac!” Oh, jeeze, I didn’t know it was that simple!

And certainly, it did take a lot of willpower to restrict my caloric intake to an amount that was — while not low enough to constitute a starvation diet — was significantly lower than what my body needed to maintain reserves of physical stamina, mental concentration, and emotional stability. It took willpower to shun, in any amount, the foods I perceived as unhealthy. It took willpower to select exercise activities with the sole goal of calorie-burning efficiency rather than discovering and respecting my body’s needs and mind’s desires.

It took even more willpower to reorder my thinking to believe this was healthy. And it required a metric fuckton of the stuff to silence my doubts that I was happy in this life where I pinned my hopes on the slimness of my body.

But as Curvy Nerd commenter Robin pointed out:

One thing I think a lot of people don’t understand is that no matter what size you are, it takes a lot more willpower to accept yourself than it does to starve yourself. Denying onself food is easy, learning to have a healthy relationship with it is much, much harder.

It’s taken more willpower to experiment with exercise until I’ve found types I enjoy and negotiated ways to fit them into my daily or weekly routine. Yes, really — because it’s meant trying a variety of exercises that I don’t enjoy and giving myself enough time at each one to determine whether the culprit is the exercise or the unfamiliarity. It’s meant setting goals for myself that go beyond body measurements.

It’s taken more willpower to give myself permission to eat or not eat a food as I want — to refuse to guilt myself for it afterward, to untangle myself from assigning morality to foods.

It’s taken more willpower to deconstruct the bodies I see represented as normal and good television, movies, and advertisements. To realize that when a very narrow range of body sizes is presented as all of the bodies that we’re going to label “good” — it’s an artificial standard that a lot of people have a stake in perpetuating. To try to remove myself as a stakeholder on a daily or hourly basis — that takes even more willpower.

Even with that revelation, it’s taken two metric fucktons of willpower to stop judging other people’s bodies — to check myself and try again whenever I fuck up and body-shame. It takes three metric fucktons when that body is my own.

On my computer right now this instant, there are seven different articles and ads reminding me of all the ways society and consumerism wants to tell me that my body is not good enough. It takes SHEER WILLPOWER to tell them to fuck off.

No Blame

“I blame my parents.”

I’ve been talking with a few people in real life about body image and struggles with weight. The above sentiment seems to be a common thread. While the specific connection varies, at least a few people I know link their current body size to their parents.

In some cases, this link involves genetic disposition, which I think makes sense. When I look at myself in the mirror, I see:

• the blue eyes of my father’s father
• the broad shoulders and wide hips of my paternal grandmother and her daughter
• my dad’s nose
• my maternal grandmother’s jawline and cheeks
• the dimple in my chin that came from my mother’s father
• my mom’s hands

(I grew up being told that I didn’t look like anyone in the family — at least compared to my brother and sister, who more clearly take after my dad’s appearance — so these recognitions are important to me.) It makes sense that some of the traits I inherited — like bone structure — might correlate to a higher body mass for my height. Similarly, I can see where other traits — like full cheeks and a strong jawline — might lead to a fatter appearance, regardless of their negligible affect on my weight.

And if that’s true for me, it’s likely true for at least some others. Some of the blueprints in our genetic codes influence the body shape we present to ourselves and the world. At this point in life — when we don’t get to choose our parents and as we already exist in the world — it might be a matter of playing the hand we’re dealt.

In other situations, folks I talked to spoke of blaming their parents for childhood eating habits. In the interests of full disclosure, these are people who — as adults — have settled on a basically whole foods diet (not restricting or counting calories or other nutrients but basically trying to avoid processed foods as much as possible) and basically have the access (money, time, and proximity to quality grocery stores) to sustain it. So — particularly assuming that they grew up with a socioeconomic status equal to what they have now, which I don’t know to be true — it’s maybe more understandable that they’re critical of parental choices to prepare, pack, and serve more processed foods.

I will say this: For a number of years, I was functionally the oldest child living in the house. I learned to cook pretty early on, and a good number of the meals I was expected to prepare included macaroni and cheese, hot dogs, Spaghettios (with franks!), and — if I was imbued with an extraordinary amount of trust on any given day — canned tomato soup and grilled cheese. In the whole foods scheme of things, none of these meals was particularly nutritious, but all of them shared two redeeming qualities: 1) they were simple to prepare, mostly only requiring the ability to warm ingredients; 2) each had a shelf life of approximately forever, meaning that my parents could purchase them in quantity each payday without fear of them turning rancid before we ate them.

But mostly, in terms of parents and body size, what I remember is my mother. Not that I remember her as a fat woman or a thin woman because over the years, she’s been pretty much all the sizes. The vast majority of who she is — her friendliness, her enthusiasm, her intelligence, her compassion, her sociability, and most importantly her worth as a person — hasn’t changed the whole time. Just the color of her hair and the shapes of her body.

However, when I think of my mom and her attitudes about bodies — specifically her body, my body, and my sister’s body — I don’t remember what she looked like at any given point in time. I just remember the actions and reactions. The months, perhaps post-New Year’s resolution, when all artificial sugar was banned from our diets. The mixed messages of being told to “go out and play;” told that we should exercise because it was good for us, where “good for us” implied achieving or maintaining a “skinny” weight but never being joined in activity for the fun of it; the inability of my body to meet her approval.

I remember one time, I was in middle school, and my mom was helping me find a themed outfit for some type of school spirit day. She dug through her closet and trunks and found some kind of maroon jumpsuit. (I don’t remember what the spirit day was, so I have no idea if it was at all appropriate for that.) I tried it on; it didn’t fit, too snug in the shoulders, ribcage, and butt.

Mom frowned. “I don’t know why you can’t wear that. It fit me in college; I can’t believe it doesn’t fit you now.”

I’m not sure if she intended it maliciously. Probably not. But the message that statement sent was that my body was fatter than it should be.

I want to be clear here. While I do think that my mother’s attitude was likely a causative factor in my own developing relationships with food and my body, I don’t think either of my parents are to blame for my current size. Because, quite simply, I don’t see my weight as anything deserving of blame.

My Diet & My Feminism

I recently found The Curvy Nerd and on it, a post titled Is dieting anti-feminist?. I suspect that my current incarnation with dieting is not what the author means when they talk about the term. Also, I think I will ramble and reveal massive insecurities — hence posting here rather than as a comment over there.

About a month ago, I was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease and endometriosis in my rectum and sigmoid colon. (The endo diagnosis itself isn’t new, but the additional location is like a bonus feature of the most unwelcome variety). Via doctor-recommended elimination diet, I’ve discovered that my body is much happier when I remove dairy from my diet. Well, this is true at least for my gastrointestinal system and the portions of my reproductive system that have taken up residence within my guts. For the rest of my reproductive tissues scattered throughout my pelvic region — who knows what they want anymore? But my poops are manageable again, so that’s something.

On a very carnal level, giving up dairy has been tough and frustrating. Whether I’d ever consumed excessive quantities of dairy before, I can’t deny that my emotional attachment to some very specific food items:

• Milk or half and half for coffee. I like my coffee, I need my coffee, and unless it is exquisite coffee (most isn’t), I need it with cream. Powdered or other non-dairy creamer does not cut it. I figured out (via lots of help!) coconut milk is my preferred substitute, but guess how easy that is to find?
• Milk chocolate. The kind of chocolate that’s most abundant in my everyday life, the kind I’m most likely to be offered by someone who might not understand why I’m refusing. I’m not trying to lose weight; I’m trying to lose gastrointestinal distress.
• Cheese. Outside my home, cheese is on everything. Perhaps nearer and dearer to my heart, cheese is on pizza. No lie: I have not been in a pizza place since eliminating dairy because I’m just not ready to face that reality.

Going deeper, I can’t help but think this is linked to how my mom regarded food while I was growing up — and, if I’m being honest with myself, even now. She tended to restrict herself and us (my sister and me) from certain “bad” foods (the exact foods could vary depending on her target diet at the time) for weeks or months, then purchasing them and eating multiple portions of them at a time, then feeling guilty and so restricting them again. When we were younger, my sister and I weren’t privy to this periodic eating of the “bad” food in quantity, so mostly what I remember is the restriction. And I remember very vehemently that I did not like the restriction. It felt…

It felt, not like saying, “This food is bad for your body,” but rather, “This food will make your body bad.”

I won’t say I’ve never restricted foods or calories of my own volition, but I have never done so in a healthy way or at a time when I was physically and mentally healthy otherwise.

I did it in high school, eating “cool” foods — in our lunchroom, that was candy bars, Mountain Dew, and tater tots — while the people who mattered to me were looking but restricting to “make up for” my “junk food habit” when they weren’t.

I did it in college, after I was assaulted. I knew I couldn’t keep food down normally most of the time. Instead of trying to get at the heart of that — which, in fairness, I was maybe not ready for just yet — I skipped meals, stretching out my portions (e.g., holding over a cookie from brunch to get me through dinner) and limiting myself, when I could, to bland foods (toast, bananas, etc.).

I did it after my last relationship went (visibly) bad, and my ex started making passive-aggressive comments about how he hoped I wouldn’t gain any more weight. “Because rule number one is no fat chicks.” I’d skip breakfast and eat salad without dressing for every lunch just so I could come home and eat whatever (I cooked) for dinner to prove that his bullshit commentary wasn’t getting to me.

Except, of course, it was. They all were.

I have a long history with the idea that commentary about my dietary choices is a commentary about my body, about me.

There was a moment I recognized that and a process of growing to live with it. I did a lot of experimenting, determining which foods I actually felt good eating (black bean salsa, ahi tuna, the first perfect cup of coffee in the morning) and which I ate out of boredom or ubiquitous availability (potato chips, iceberg lettuce, ranch or Italian dressings). I experimented with eating for nutrition versus eating for physical satisfaction versus eating for emotional satisfaction — and decided that for me, healthy eating involves a balance of all three.

Now, as that balance shifts, I’m observing and adjusting. Certainly, eliminating dairy is aiding my nutrition (as it’s reducing the amount of GI inflammation). And to a certain extent, it’s helping my physical satisfaction: It’s harder for me to feel satiated by eating the same dish sans dairy (which makes sense, since it removes some calories from the meal), but at the same time, not having jet-propelled feces is a plus. In terms of emotional satisfaction, though, that’s where I’ve had the most difficulty.

I bristle at the idea that I need to eliminate a category of food entirely; that brings to mind the “your body is bad” ideas I internalized over two decades ago. Even if it’s a food I ate only in small amounts or only infrequently, it still feels stifling to decide I’m not going to eat it at all. Even if I’m the one making that decision.

Moreover, it occurs to me that each of my lamented dairy examples is part of a food ritual for me.

My morning coffee is about more than the caffeine: It’s about the aroma that wafts through a Midwestern winter house, coaxing me to be up before the sun. It’s about coming in out of the cold — shoveling snow or shoveling stalls — and finding warmth to refuel. It’s about an excuse to meet up with friends and family — “Hey, want to get a cup of coffee?” With that same line, it’s a reason to extend a fantastic first date.

Milk chocolate is pretty much my school’s go-to comfort food. I’m notorious for keeping some in my drawer, available for first year teachers and anyone who’s had an exhausting day. It’s smooth and sweet and a shared experience: When I bite into a Hershey’s mini on a PMS day, I’m getting the same physical comfort from someone who does so a week earlier or later on account of non-hormonal stress. I can still keep the chocolate on hand for others, of course, but on some level, opting out of the food opts me out of that shared food experience.

And pizza. For me, it has always been a celebration food, whether it’s a birthday or promotion or making it through the entirety of a school semester without once cussing in public. And yes, for that celebration food to have the same emotional impact, the cheese has to be on the pizza, just starting to crisp golden brown and to dribble down the pie, all melty-like.

That food ritual is important, and it hurts to let go, but giving it up is my choice. Still, I don’t think it’s fair to say it’s not at all related to my appearance. My primary reason for restricting dairy is the hope of eliminating projectile poo, yes. But I’d be lying if I said I’d be sad if eliminating my GI inflammation didn’t reduce me a waist size or so. Because a small body size was conflated with a “good” body when I was young, because that’s the image mirrored back to me in so many advertisements and movies now, because talk of weight loss is so prevalent in current societal discourse, it’s hard not to want that.

And I think, if I can’t escape that want via a doctor-prescribed diet for a non-weight-related issue, then I think it’s not fair to ask for more from others.

Whether others can diet while feminist? That’s their call, not mine. Whether I can diet while feminist? Yes, but that doesn’t mean that my diet always falls in line with my feminism. Because some part of me conflates “food restriction” with “not good enough,” and no matter how hard I try, I can’t get away from that.