Optimist Week 4 - I have feelings about it

Well I haven't been the best and keeping up on this. The flip side to that is my absence has really alotted for a lot off deep introspection into this process and behaviors in general surrounding food.

What I can say honestly is I am still fucking starving for food, both in my gut and in my brain.
I was thinking about this on my commute home (which by the way is where I do all my best thinking) and here is what I came up with:

• Not eating real food for a long period of time is totally and absolutely unnatural so I am going to stop giving myself grief about being hungry and thinking of food.

• My unhealthy habits surrounding food have developed from a couple different things, and separating myself from food has given me some an opportunity to think about that (I will expand on this in a sec.)

• While I feel like this program really works, I do have some feelings about what it represents (and when do I not have feelings about things? Never. I am 100% a scorpio)

So, before I dive into all my feelings and thoughts on the above, lets chat about this week.

I did awesome considering what I went through in the last 6 days of my life.

But I did eat a piece of mushroom pizza on Saturday night.

I have decided not to feel bad about it, which leads me to the talk about feelings....

So, first off one thing some people might not know about me is I grew up in a very unconventional circumstance surrounding food in my youth, that helped to shape the person I am in some ways.

My dad is a very controlling person. He himself has some pretty deep rooted issues surrounding control and food, that I do not think he will ever admit to in his life due to his inability to self reflect...because in his mind he is never wrong.

Growing up in my house looked like:

• Depravation from specific foods just because my dad kept himself at the top of the hierarchy and that meant he got the specific foods that were part of this depravation plan from the rest of the family. We did not have a lot of money, although I am not really certain that we were kept from these foods due to funds. I truly believe that it was about control, because control is my dad's middle name. This depravation has lead me in my adult life to covet several foods and put them on a pedestal in my mind. Breakfast foods like eggs, hash browns, bacon, certain sweets, chicken breasts, avocados, cheese.... all the things my dad held for himself and not the rest of the family
• Soda's were counted and that meant if you drank one it was known and there was verbal abuse that followed. Ironically I don't currently have an obsession with soda, but for many many years I kept a case of Diet Coke in my trunk because I drank 4-6 cans of it a day.
• Food was portioned and counted so much so it was known if you ate too much of anything... and you got into trouble. Again, this was always under the guise of money was tight, but I do not really believe that was the sole cause of this

Growing up I dreamed of the day I could eat breakfast with potatoes and bacon and not have to wonder why I was eating discount cereal and powdered milk while I smelled bacon cooking for someone else. I dreamed about the day I could go to a fast food restaurant and order something other than 1 .99 cent item, while my dad ate 3-5 items, but I also went through a phase of being so under the thumb of the dictatorship I lived in, that my dad's voice got really loud in my mind. Before I knew it I was not good enough, or thin enough, or smart enough.... I began to starve myself until I could not anymore, then would binge and purge and get in trouble for eating foods that were not supposed to be eaten until I moved out of the house.

Once I moved, when I could afford to I would treat myself to whatever I wanted and it was glorious! Smoothies, bagels, bacon avocado cheeseburgers. I would make one my favorite child hood meals that I would most often get the drumstick and not the breast for: chicken breast bbq shake and bake, corn, and rice a roni and I never had to portion myself. I could eat all the tuna helper I wanted! All The egg rolls I wanted... It took several years to catch up to me.

I really did not see a big weight uptake until I was about 20 years old. But I was still young, and still thin so I was not even thinking about it really. 

At 21 I got pregnant and once my daughter was born, I pretty much fed her a similar way to the way I grew up minus the depravation. Lots of food from boxes, bags, and cans.

Once I got into my late 20's I started to really learn about food and recognize my eating habits were way out wack. I started eating things my dad would never dream about letting in our house like spinach and was loving this new change. unfortunately my genetics and probably my previous programing was catching up to me and it was more noticeable to me by this point. I began to make my way into the body shame spiral.

The voice of my dad was still loud and proud in my head and I started the yoyo diet process that has lead my life up to today, in addition to surfing the highs and lows of anxiety and depression on and off until I was about 38 years old.

This yo yo diet process leads to me the second half of my feelings conversation:

Diet Culture. One of the most damaging thing to women that I can think of.

Diet Culture in the primary reason I have what I think is an unhealthy relationship to food because I have been on so many diets for so long, it is so hard to separate food from the "Good Food" "Bad Food" association in my mind.

Diet culture is the reason this program was invented. Its the reason I cried ashamed of myself after I ate 1 single piece of mushroom pizza because I got busy, and was off track with my product schedule and I had not eaten in weeks any real food.

In fact diet culture is the reason I chose that piece of pizza. It was easy to snag, easy to hide while I scarfed it down. 

Diet culture is the reason that I feel terrible when I think about how much I miss real food and how I cannot wait to eat it.

Diet culture is the reason I need to loose this weight and went on this program in the first place.

I am not saying I do not take responsibility for my actions. I absolutely do. But I also know how deep the thought process is rooted in the brains of millions. I know this culture creates a lucrative business for many people, including nestle, the makers of optifast.

So... I have conflicted feelings about this whole process at this point. One one hand, I am grateful for the opportunity and experience this program offers because I did need to hit the reset button, and loose a significant amount of weight as a jumping off point on a path to improved health.

On the other hand I hate that this program exists and what it insinuates that we need is to take a break from food because we are too fat to deserve to eat and that's the only way we have to get better...and that feeling starving all the time is what we need to endure.

I wonder how many other people on this program are really thinking about this. I bet not a lot as a fat person for almost 20 year now, I know the stigma and the shame that is placed on us for being fat by society.

Everyone from your co-workers, to your friends, to your family thinks they have an answer for you, thinks they have perspective on your situation that you don't know. Thinks they can cure if you, if you can only have the will power....

Everyone just assumes you are so unhappy as a fat person and that being skinny is the yellow brick road to happiness and a better life, so much so that 9 out of 10 fat people have bought that same narrative hook, line, and sinker.

I have had the benefit of really being able to do some deep work over the last 4 years to help me to realize just how untrue that narrative really is. I have loved myself and been happy at my largest weight to date. Worn a bikini and a fuck you with rolls and cellulite out and have not feel bad about it for a second.

But I still made a choice to loose wright because I felt pain in my body, and I really longed to do physical things I just wasn't capable of. I think what the real kicker is that I had to return to the dark side to achieve it. Im grateful for the ability and the opportunity to do what I want, but I don't love that this is the way that it has to get done.