vicious cycle
Lately I’ve been hearing some very bad nutrition advice coming from the mouths of young women. I grew up with a mom who was a kinesiology major and a major health nut, and I have written and edited a lot of articles about nutrition, so I guess I just assume certain things are common knowledge.
That is why I wanted to pull my hair out during these conversations:
Girl 1: I’ve been trying to lose weight, but it’s just not coming off. I don’t understand. I’ve cut my calorie intake down to 800 calories
Girl 2: Maybe it’s supposed to be lower. You are a smaller person.
Girl 1: Yeah, that must be it. It’s hard. I get so hungry.
Holy mother of God! Eight hundred calories? No wonder she wasn’t losing weight. She’s eating the caloric intake recommended for an infant. Her body is probably going into starvation mode and holding onto every calorie for dear life! Keep it up, honey. Soon the hair will fall out, the skin will dry out, and you’ll be looking smoking hot in that bikini.
Girl 1: OMG, I can’t believe you’re eating that for lunch. That has, like, so many fat grams in it.
Girl 2: It says it only has 14 grams.
Girl 1: That’s TWO servings.
(It wasn’t; it was individually packaged.)
Girl 2: Oh my gosh! So it’s actually 28 grams?
Girl 1: That’s like a DAY’S worth of fat.
Me: What anorexic told you that? You’re supposed to have more like 60 grams.
Girl 1: What?? No way. You would be huge!
Perpetuating those myths and buying into that mentality can lead to dangerous places. Why do I care so much? I guess you could say it’s a sore subject with me. Despite knowing what I do about nutrition, I have had a love/hate relationship with food my whole life. It developed into anorexia at about 11 or 12, progressed into bulimia around 13, and I went back and forth with that off and on for…well, honestly, sometimes I still struggle.
With a lot of divine intervention, I’ve managed to keep it under control for the last seven years or so. But sometimes when I go through a difficult time and everything else seems to be out of my hands, it feels like what I allow into my body is the only thing I have control over. That’s when it gets really hard not to slip back into old habits.
It’s a frustrating condition to struggle with. You allow yourself to believe so many things that you know can’t be true. Most days, I can look at myself in the mirror in the morning and think I look great. By lunch, I will be depressed and discouraged thinking that somehow – in the last four hours – I have gotten fat. Where did that arm bulge come from? Did my stomach get bigger? Are my legs thicker? Was the lighting at home somehow different than the lighting in the office bathroom? Yet each time I step on the scale at the gym, there it is: the same number it has been for months, as if feebly attempting to prove to me that I’m going insane.
I hate how much I obsess about food. It really seems to rule my life sometimes. I plan out every calorie, every bite, for days in advance. It’s a difficult addiction to have. You can live without drugs and alcohol; you can’t live without food. You’re forced to deal with it all day, every day.
The point is, this is not something you want to play around with, and I wish people would get their facts straight before spouting off nonsense. You never know how one comment might stick in someone’s mind; it could be just the push they need to fall into that destructive cycle. It happened to me.
July 22nd, 2008 at 3:28 pm
So you are saying 500 calories a day is a bad thing, then??
July 23rd, 2008 at 12:19 am
This is an excellent post!
July 23rd, 2008 at 9:28 am
LG - Lucky for you, I know you’re kidding. I wouldn’t want to have to smack you
Tootsie - Thank you very much!
July 23rd, 2008 at 11:28 am
Oh boy. Thank you for having the courage to post this. I too am in recovery - and I think it is a lifelong dialogue/process. I finally allowed carbs back into my life. How? I started cooking, then baking - then what? I started a food blog! If you had told me 6 mths ago that I’d be writing a food blog or that I’d be BAKING or that I’d be EATING some of that baking - I’d have told you that you were a nutball, period. Oddly, it helped me turn a corner that I didn’t even know existed. Truly therapeutic. THANK YOU for sharing.
July 23rd, 2008 at 1:17 pm
Ann - Wow! Thanks for visiting! Your kind words mean a lot. I am so glad you’ve been able to find a way to take control. And your blog looks delicious
July 24th, 2008 at 10:49 am
Amen. I was on the under 1200 calories a day anorexic diet. I finally got help. I weigh 50 pounds more (seriously..50) now than I did at my most anorexic. I still struggle with it. I wonder if you’re ever completely cured?
July 24th, 2008 at 11:02 am
Jenny - I have wondered that too. I don’t know if you are. Even when you’re not actually doing those things that hurt you, you still think about it ALL the time. I weigh 40 pounds more than I did at my most anorexic/bulimic. It’s crazy. How on earth did we think we were fat?
July 27th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
I’ve been there too. I still struggle sometimes. It’s hard to reprogram your brain into thinking “normal”. It’amazing to hear your own thoughts reflected back at you, years later.
I know I must have sounded as crazy.
Congratulations on your Good Mom/Bad Mom status!
July 28th, 2008 at 7:53 pm
I’m a few days late on this one, but obviously I have to say:
GAH! GAAAHHH!!!! I wish we lived in the same area because OMG would I make you meet me for coffee a lot - especially when the anorexic (no, really) in-laws are around. It is so tough for me sometimes on two levels: On the literal level of, “I feel like doing this sooo badly because I know it will be easy and familiar,” and also the level of, “Dammit, I’m intelligent. I know the answer here, so why aren’t I doing it?”
I remember going into intensive treatment for the first time, and the nutritionist giving one of our groups a nutrition quiz. It had questions like, “How many fat grams does the average diet require per day? 15, 30 or 60?” Pretty much everyone - except for the girls who were just about out - answered 15. I won’t even talk about the calorie counts we guessed at as “appropriate.” HILARIOUS. But not… at all… which is your point.
July 28th, 2008 at 10:04 pm
I am loving these comments. Thank y’all so much for sharing.
JenK, it’s amazing what we can convince ourselves is normal. *sigh* The things I can rationalize sometimes. (P.S. thanks and welcome!)
Ali, I have wished we lived closer before too while reading some of your past posts. It helps to be able to talk to someone who knows just what you mean when you say “food makes me feel dirty.”
July 28th, 2008 at 11:35 pm
Something good just happened here. It needs to keep happening.
August 4th, 2008 at 10:47 pm
Huh. This is all really interesting. I’ve never given calories or fat grams too much thought (though i should more than I do) and it’s fascinating to how differently people’s brains work. You’re right, it is some sort of addiction.
March 1st, 2009 at 3:13 pm
[...] I’ve talked about before, this is a subject close to my heart. I spent years abusing myself for the sake of the illusion of [...]