What is your relationship with food?

[superjane]

I obsess over food too. I do not have an eating disorder and I eat healthy, but I think about EVERYTHING I eat- how fattening it is, calorie count, what vitamins am I getting or missing, am I getting enough protein, etc. And if I eat something with fat in it, I make sure that everything for the rest of the day does not have fat in it so that I don't eat too much. I feel guilty eating too much food and I feel guilty about eating before bed so sometimes when I'm hungry I just chug water.
It's really annoying, but it was like this when I was still an omni, but went to college and gained weight. Then my obsession with not getting fat started.

[jacfong]

" I think about EVERYTHING I eat- how fattening it is, calorie count, what vitamins am I getting or missing, am I getting enough protein, etc. And if I eat something with fat in it, I make sure that everything for the rest of the day does not have fat in it so that I don't eat too much. I feel guilty eating too much food and I feel guilty about eating before bed so sometimes when I'm hungry I just chug water."

i totally know wht u mean, superjane! maybe we should all try and support each other here and encourage each other to think positive???

[soilman]

I'm fairly certain that if you limit your diet to raw foods, you can eat as much as you want without getting fat. That includes high-fat raw foods such as coconuts, avocados, and hazelnuts (filberts).

I mean you can choose whatever you want and eat as much of it as you want, and do nothing but eat all your waking hours -- as long as you make sure everything you eat is raw -- and you won't become overweight. If you are willing to hate cooked stuff, and decide to not even consider it to be food -- and as a consequence entirely avoid it -- you can feel free to love raw food -- and thus love all food.

[CharityAJO]

Hey Superjane, I've been there. It's not worth it! All that obsessing just makes life hell. If you just eat what makes your body feel good (and pay attention to what your body is saying, not your brain or the nutritionals chart), then you'll be doing the best thing, and you'll feel awesome and energized.

[soilman]

I not obcess over what plant matter I eat and what nutrients they provide me with, but I obcess over what the plants that this plant matter comes from, eat, and what nutrients are in what they eat. That is, I obcess over what I add to the soil.

[Ntelligentidiot]

Food is my friend, but it's not my best friend. I try to keep my amount of food somewhere between "not enough" and "too much."

[Azalea]

Messy. I've had an eating disorder for about three years, mostly starving, restricting, obsessing, sometimes binging. So this December my heart couldn't take it anymore, had chest pains almost daily, sometimes it wouldn beat as if I had run a marathon.
My parents made me see a doctor, and I'm currently talking to thsi councellor at a ED-center in the city once a week. I'm still counting every calorie, but my calorie intake is much higher (still a little lower than it should be, though. I often go to bed at night regretting that I once again failed to let myself eat enough).

I love food, -too much maybe-, I spend more time cooking, reading recipies, browsing grocery shops than I should, I wish I could be more careless and casual about food than I am.

[SystmDwnGrl]

wow Azalea that story sounds very familiar. I too came to the point where my body couldnt take my eating disorder anymore. That was about a year ago. I was hospitalized and my body was an absolute mess. I am happy to say that I am very healthy now and the eating disorder that I had been battling for 8 years is on its way out of my life. Not completely, because some of the damage it did cant be reversed. But I certainly do not have the struggle with it that I once had. It really helped that I dealt with the issues causing me to lash out at food as well. Being vegetarian gives me control as well over what I eat and a cause that I really believe in to help support(Animal Rights).

I too love food, meals around here are a little crazy sometimes because I am often on the run. But I love to play with food and invent things.

[Vegankat]

Originally posted by DeeYahMK
It used to be a pure hate thing with me. I hated food, I hated to eat, I hated the comments that I heard while I was eating, I hated the starving (when I was anorexic), I hated the guilt and pain I was causing, I hated trying to get healthy again afterwards, and I hated that I did this to myself in the first place. It was all hate. Hate, hate, hate!


That's exactly how I feel, most days. I hate it all.

I've been getting better at enjoying food, and eating things that I really do love. However, I get cravings now and then, and I refuse to eat anything that isn't what I'm craving. I think that's my ED talking to me. I'm going to start tuning it out...

[Katieq]

Originally posted by superjane
I obsess over food too. I do not have an eating disorder and I eat healthy, but I think about EVERYTHING I eat- how fattening it is, calorie count, what vitamins am I getting or missing, am I getting enough protein, etc. And if I eat something with fat in it, I make sure that everything for the rest of the day does not have fat in it so that I don't eat too much. I feel guilty eating too much food and I feel guilty about eating before bed so sometimes when I'm hungry I just chug water.
It's really annoying, but it was like this when I was still an omni, but went to college and gained weight. Then my obsession with not getting fat started.

superjane...i feel like i could have written this myself...word for word, it is the story of my life and exactly how i feel, too....

[Ntelligentidiot]

I am also one of those people who counts every gram of fat. I feel really bad if I have too much fat in one meal and then try to make up for it by eating something really low fat the next meal. I always use a very small amount of margarine when I put it on food, and did the same thing with mayonaise when I ate it. I also use less peanut butter than a serving size. I read the nutritional label of everything. I'm sure i'm eating enough food though, I have three good-sized meals and one or two medium or large snacks a day. And it's not like I don't eat any fat, it's just that a low percentage of my calories come from fat.

[soilman]

jacfong writes:
==============
but every so often, I feel terribly guilty about eating
=====================

superjane
=======================
I feel guilty eating too much food and I feel guilty about eating before bed
===================

in re to this comment by superjane jacfong writes
============
i totally know wht u mean, superjane! maybe we should all try and support each other here and encourage each other to think positive???
===============

bethanie
=======================
I no longer suffer the guilt of eating a three pack of hostess cupcakes in the car at midnight
==========================

DeYahMK
=================
I hated food, I hated to eat, I hated the comments that I heard while I was eating, I hated the starving (when I was anorexic), I hated the guilt and pain I was causing, I hated trying to get healthy again afterwards, and I hated that I did this to myself in the first place. It was all hate. Hate, hate, hate!
=====================

I'm lost. Why guilt about eating? Why is guilt considered something negative, presumably, rather than something "positive"? Guilt is a good thing to feel after you've done something that you later realize was morally bad. Is it ever morally bad to eat? Yes, if it involves taking food away from someone who doesn't have enough, in order to supply yourself with more than enough.

But one doesn't feel guilt about doing something that turns out to be, say, harmful to one's property, or turns out not to have produced as much success as one would have liked, at achieving some goal. That is, one doesn't feel guilty about making a technical mistake. For example, one may eat too much, or too little, or eat the wrong food. A technical mistake in regard to ones nutrition. One may regret such inadequacies of action, such mistakes, but one doesn't feel guilty about them. Are you all using the word "guilt" as "code" for something else? It doesn't make any sense in the context it is being used. This whole thread is puzzling to me. I get the feeling that I am listening to space aliens talking to each other, or people using the English alphabet to phonetically approximate words in another language -- it looks like english letters and english words -- but it is really some other language. What is going on here?

[jacfong]

soilman: i don't know about the rest but i feel guilty for eating cos i think i am fat although people tell me i am thin, and i feel like i do not deserve to be eating because i need to lose weight. guilt, in this case, is not a good thing, because we are not "taking food away from someone who doesn't have enough, in order to supply yourself with more than enough." for the current / recovering anorexics, they do NOT have enough.

azalea : it is good to hear that you are seeing a therapist and getting help. you might want to see if he / she can refer you to a nutritionist who can help you eat properly to gain the weight that you need for your body to function properly. that was wht my doctor did anyways.

someone said something about the permanent damage anorexia has done to her body. i know what you mean, for i suffer it too. i cannot digest many types of food properly ( i get all sorts of aches and other problems all the time) and am intolerant and / or allergic to many foods that i was fine with before becoming anorexic.

i do not fully understand my reasons for becoming anorexic in the first place ( i have many guesses though ) and i do not know why i cannot have a healthy relationship with food and accept myself as i am.

[Vegankat]

I'm not going to speak for all people with EDs, but for me, there is a moral guilt. When I deprive myself or purge food from my body, I feel guilt that I am wasting food that people in other countries would die to have for their families. I feel guilty that some people starve to death because they can't afford food. I feel that these people deserve the food I waste more than I do.

[Vegankat]

I throw up already-chewed food, often. I don't think someone would appreciate me giving that to them.

And, when I go without, I pretend I eat it so I don't make my mom cry. It often ends up in the trash, hence the moral guilt.

[soilman]

Actually vk, what you are saying is dif than what the others are saying. You are saying you feel guilty about wasting food -- reserving it for yourself but not being nourished by it. The others were saying they feel guilty about eating -- reserving it and getting beneficial nourishment from it.

Even if the nourishment is, intead of being beneficial, excess, as jacfong says it seems, jacfong's explanation of why she feels guilty about using the food only increases my lack of understanding of why she feels guilty about eating. Now she is saying she feels guilty because she needs "to lose weight," and because, being anorexic, she doesn't "have enough" to eat. What? Soilman does a double-take. It rained all night the day I left; the weather it was dry. Makes the same non-sense.

[freemouse]

soilman, I can only speak for myself. As for me, the whole ED issue goes far beyond food. It's about CONTROL. As many researches have shown, many anorexics are perfectionists. They (we) usually have very strict principles and rules about pretty much everything. For me, at least in the past, there was a very clear body shape that I HAD TO achieve, and, accordingly, there was very strict diet plans that I MUST follow. However, we are not saint. When you were only a girl who have sweet tooth and a demanding tummy like all your friends, you fell off the track every now and then. At least in my case, the major response I had (still have) is NOT "oh I wasted food", sometimes NOT even "oh I would gain 10 LB by tomorrow", but "I AM A LOOSER". And I would feel like a looser in GENERAL----my thoughts would be "I have no will power, I fell for mundane desires like all those mundane people, therefore I only have poor control over everything, therefore I am a looser a looser a stupid looser"......and it can go on and on....until there's no longer hope to become this perfect princesses anymore-------depressed, guilty, guilty, guilty :(

BTW, I am (with cheers from all my VB friends) putting up a fight w/ my ED and I am determined to have a healthy relationship with food and myself.

[Azalea]

Jacfong- my weight is okay , I'm actually eating quite a lot, even icecream and such occasionally. I'm aiming for 1100 cal on week days, 1200 week-end. It's not easy to estimate what I'm really getting, I eat so messy, nibbling at one thing and the other, it seems like I cannot be around food, or even in the kitchen, whitout eating something.Like today ; I can go from semi-anorexic to compulsive overeater in one day, carefully measuring out every ingredients in a salad at one point, then quasi-binging on chocolate cream the next, even though I allready had eaten dessert ( soy chocolate icecream with raspberries). I seem to have no control, the downside by ignoring hunger for so long is that it becomes too easy to ignore fullness as well.

It is indeed a shame that eating has become a matter of guilt and negativity for so many in our western society. Life's too short for this, the unnescessarity of all this fuss about food for those of us who has enough to eat at any time, replacing the joy of eating, saddens and bewilders me. And yet I somehow seem to be cough in the same web.

[Vegankat]

I can't necessarily pinpoint my causes. It was a progression of things, really. I've broken it all down as follows:


I've been told all my life by my father that I'm fat. He used to tell me (beginning when I was about 8) that he was embarassed for his family in Minnesota to see me because they'd think I was an ugly pig.

I danced in a professional ballet company from ages 3 to 14. All the girls were tiny compared to me (though I was a rather small child), and the headmistress told my mother that I had to lose weight or I'll never be worth anything. My mom made me leave ballet behind. I dreamt of becoming a famous ballerina...enter the cliche teenage body-hatred and inadequacy.

In middle school, all the kids picked on me. A certain boy came up with the creative nickname of "Cow" for me. Of course the name stuck, and all the other kids, and sometimes teachers called me that. They may as well have thrown stones at me, it hurt so badly. I'm crying just thinking about how it felt.

When I was 16, that certain boy who began calling me "Cow" became my boyfriend. It was my first serious relationship. Being with him reminded me of the way he used to treat me, so I assumed he still thought I was a cow. I began limiting my food intake, not thinking it had anything to do with an ED. It escalated, due in part to my OCD habits. After he moved to Georgia, I began eating normally again.

Things got bad this school year, because of college applications, the IB program, school stress, etc. There's still that body-image problem too, of course. In the past few months, I've actually had bulimic tendencies, though I swore to myself I wouldn't. But I'm getting better. I sort of had an epiphany recently, and I got a lot of my strength from people I love, namely The_Gazumper and my best friend Taylor, not to mention the Eat to Live thread, and I'm trying to get myself out of this horrible habit.

[kristadb]

Azalea,

1100 calories? ACK! :whack:

Currently, my relationship with food is as follows:
"Mmm"
"Oh baby"
"That was so good, I may need to start smoking"

[CaptainSwab]

What is wrong with all these men telling you guys that you are fat? What the heck is wrong with men? Do they not realize the emotinal effect they have on women when they say things like that? Arrrggg. That makes me mad.

[superjane]

When I was a kid I was always the skinniest kid and I ate like there was no tomorrow. I could pig out on whatever I wanted and still be skinny. Then I went to college when I was 18 and gained 10 pounds in like 3 weeks! Then I started going to the bar and I'd see all these skinny girls in mid-riff baring shirts, and I was jealous because my tummy was too fat to wear clothes like that. I continued to eat lots and although I was never overweight, I could not get rid of my love handles. Then one summer I drank beer and ate steak every single weekend and was 30 pounds heavier than I had been in high school, and that's when I started obsessing over how much and what foods I eat.

I still eat healthy, so my body is not suffering, but talk about mental stress!
I even have obsessive-compulsive tendancies. Like, I can't eat a sandwich unless I eat all the crust first. I always leave a little bit of each different food on my plate so that I can eat it all in my last bite. And if a food is longer than it is wide, I have to bite of both ends before I eat the middle. When I eat pizza, I take a bite from all three corners of the slice first.

[CharityAJO]

I'm kind of obessive-compulsive in the same way. For instance, I have a *specific* way to eat a sandwich. First, it must be cut diagonally. Then I eat the side with the more rounded corner first, biting the two end corners first, then working down to the big corner...

I think everyone kind of does something like this though. (Can we all share?)

That movie with Barbra Streisand, The Mirror Has Two Faces... Her character goes on about "the perfect bite" with just the right mix of everything on your plate. When I saw that movie I was shouting "That's me!!"

[kristadb]

I don't want to share my crazy tendencies, as you'll send white-coated men after me ;)

[soilman]

Maybe you mean shame -- which is not the same as guilt. When you try to do things perfectly, and expect yourself to do things imperfectly, but fail at it -- what you feel is not guilt, but shame. Maybe you are confusing the 2 things.