Food For Thought, Part 2

Every day, passion speaks to us through our feelings. That's why when you allow yourself to become anesthetized by what others think, you literally block yourself from living the life you were called to live. I promise you that if you make a choice that doesn't please your mate, your friends, your mother, or whomever, the world will not fall apart. The people who truly love you want you to love yourself. And as you become clearer about who you really are, you'll be better able to decide what is best for you, the first time around.

-Oprah Winfrey


Since starting this healthy eating and regular exercise routine I've spent a lot of time contemplating my food issues. Let me tell you, they are many. My weight has bounced from an emaciated 118 lbs. on my 5'7" frame to a whooping, none of your damn business! I've been all over the scale. Up, down, up, down and with those ups and downs have come major life changes. I see it now. I now know I seem to medicate with food. I acknowledge it and it will be something I have to work at every day.

It all started at birth. Mom, being the control freak that she is, made all of my baby food. Oh no, none of that Gerber crap, mother ground, pureed and smashed only the best for her baby. As a pre-schooler my mother would throw absolute fits because I didn't eat. She told my pediatrician that I was going to starve to death! Starve. To. Death. Now you mothers out there know that kids have more important things going on in their lives at that age than eating. Hell, Sesame Street is on and the Count is counting and I couldn't be bothered to take a bite of whatever my mother was coaxing me to shove down my gullet. One day in desperation, she actually measured the amount of food I ate and it equaled a whopping 2 tablespoons. Mind you this was one day, not an entire week. In a panic she called my pediatrician and told the good doctor of her plight of a non eating child. The pediatrician's response, "Joyce, don't force the issue. Kids know when they are hungry, she'll eat when she wants. If Krissy wants a cheeseburger for breakfast, make her one! Food is tricky with mother's and daughter's, don't push this issue, you'll create more problems than you are solving." Did mom heed the advise? Well, hell no. By God, she knew what was best for her child! And that my friends, are when the problems started.

I learned to eat, I didn't starve and in the 3rd grade or around age 9 I made the cognitive connection that me eating made my mother HAPPY, therefore, I ate and ate and ate some more. The more I ate, the less she nagged, the happier we all were and I ate till I was plump. Then came the comments from my grandmother, my mom's mom. I remember going to visit her on spring breaks and her putting me on a "diet". When most grandmothers spoiled their grand kids with homemade cookies mine made me boiled chicken and rice. Yum!

As I grew at an alarming rate in elementary into middle school, I thinned out. Puberty was good to me, I grew size C boobs over night and towered over most of the boys in my class. I was 5'5" in the 5th grade, not to mention popular with all that chest! Once I stopped growing, the eating didn't subside. In high school, I was 30 lbs. over weight but grew into my boobs, height and personality. Again, mom being the control freak that she is, couldn't stand me being over weight, so on the first of many diets I went, at 14. I shed the 30 lbs. but I also learned that mom didn't love me unconditionally, she only loved me if I looked a certain way. Everyone loves you if you look a certain way. At that point I believe my life long battle with depression started. All I wanted was to be loved unconditionally by my family, fat, thin, smart or stupid, but it wasn't to be. Consequently, being a plump teenager and being interested in boys was difficult. I had TONS of male friends, but no one person was a boy friend, per se. I wasn't confident enough with myself to be comfortable around boys. I was just everyone's friend.

In 1989 I left for college with a new found independence a few extra pounds, not to mention the inability to make good food choices. Mom cooked all of our meals so I hadn't the foggiest clue how to make decent choices. I'd always eaten what was put in front of me. Most woman gain the freshman "15", I gained the freshman 50! I came home from spring break that year to my mother putting me on yet another diet. I lost a few pounds but went back to the bad eating habits as soon as I was back on campus. If anyone is wondering, large quantities of pizza and beer are not healthful food choices. Moving out of the dorms into the sorority house the rest of my college years was a good move for me. In the house we had our house cook who was also a nutritionist. We ate healthy meals, every meal. I lost those 50 plus pounds and another 30. I watched as my sisters monitored their food carefully, some even doing the binge and purge action, some exercising to excess. I wanted to fit in so desperately that I restricted my food severely. I had to be thin to fit in. I tried throwing up once, but it grossed me out so badly I just stuck with restrictions and lots of studying. I was told by both my mother and grandmother that men loved smart, thin women. I wanted to be loved. Loved by my sisters, loved by a man and loved by my professors. I studied all day every day and I restricted my diet to 1000 calories, no more. It was a chore to seek acceptance all day, everyday.

I eventually graduated, took my first stressful job, met my husband and dropped to 118 lbs. All of my extended family on my husband's side met me at this emaciated weight. They never met the slightly plump or fat Kristin. As the stresses of planning a wedding, new marriage, job, home building, trying to conceive and life in general came as did the weight. I gained well over 100 lbs. as did the husband. He would laugh and tell people he didn't get fat by being lazy, he got fat because his new wife was a good cook. True as it is, we didn't do each other any favors. We both got lazy, busy, whatever and didn't take care of ourselves, not to mention we both medicated with food. Oh there was enabling, lots and lots of enabling.

A few weeks ago, at the fire department supper, husband's cousin said to me, "I remember how cute and thin you were when ya'll were dating." Thanks, I'm fat and ugly now, so noted. Verbalized comments like that sting. They cut. She didn't mean to hurt me, but it did. It's like I was hearing my mother say all over again, "You're not alright with me until you are thin." No one, to my knowledge, has ever discriminated against me because of my size. I'm the loud, funny one in the group, no one can't not like me! Everyone likes the funny, fat girl! Some time ago I was told by a male friend, in the course of conversation, that he wouldn't want to date me. Why I asked him, was it because of my weight? He said no, but somehow I don't believe him. That stung all over again and transported me back to being 16 again. Dejected by a male. Here I was, a bright, successful, happy woman feeling like she was a ackward teenager. In my memory bank of life that will forever stick like the time my grandmother stuck me in the ribs with her finger and said, "Fatty, fatty, 2x4, can't get through the kitchen door." I was 26 and we were in her kitchen, at Christmas. I was fat. When he rejected me I was 34 and I was fat.

I don't know what it is but for woman food, weight, love and acceptance are all intertwined. To men, food is just, well, food, nourishment, sustainence. I'll never understand why it's such an issue for women. Is it our culture, is it tv, magazines and movies? Is it our families? Sunday, my mother saw me in smaller clothes for the first time. She noticed how good I looked right away and said so. It felt good to finally hear something positive from her, but more importantly, I was proud of ME for the change I'd made. I, for the first time in 35 years, am making changes for me, not for her, not for doctors or the husband. Not for anyone. That is true progress.