Recipe for Success, Story Time

A Tale of Two C’s        

Part I

A middle-aged woman had been obsessed with the secret to good health most of her life, starting in her preteens. She battled poor body image that entire time as well, but health was always a focus. She learned at a tender age that her body, once self-described as strong and very healthy, was actually considered soft, overweight, and lacking the desired features of the time, namely thighs that did not touch, a concave belly, and a small backside. The strange thing was, most of her family looked like her, many carried significantly more weight, and they seemed to be doing just fine. It was drilled into her head that that was actually wrong, and that most of the struggles witnessed in other family members’ lives could be attributed to their larger body size. For example, social struggles, and any and all health issues. She was eventually persuaded of the “fact” that those issues were their fault and entirely within their control to fix. It was such a toxic attitude and one that she would spend years fighting against in our society.

Her parents maintained their own weight fairly well over the years, gaining some and then adopting a one meal a day strategy. She didn’t really see this as healthy though. For many years, their one meal was the same every day and all they ate until they were satisfied again. They also walked a lot. Their solution to maintaining their children’s weight was controlling food access and restriction. Again, it worked . . . until it didn’t.

She started working at the age of eleven. Her first job was as a waitress/cook’s assistant in a very small town’s only café. With her own money, she started to make more of her own choices. That tender age was when she discovered that she had a "problem" with her weight.

She seemed to struggle with her weight without reprieve for decades. Some things worked better than others, but her constant companion was not feeling good enough in her own skin. Even after discovering the whole food plant based eating style, which was evidence-based nutrition that reversed all sorts of health issues for her and helped her to drop a significant amount of weight fairly effortlessly. The place where her body seemed to “settle” was still not good enough in her eyes. She swung between being super proud of herself and thinking she was not doing enough.

Eventually, old obsessions tried to re-emerge. The desire to do ANYTHING to lose those last few pounds. She knew in her mind that she was fit and well. She even felt vital, attractive, and comfortable, but the social conditioning still hammered away at the inside of her mind. “That number is too large, your arms, tummy, etc. is still soft, you won’t be taken seriously at that weight/size.” And so on, and so on.

A new idea had come to her; she needed to heal her relationship with food! So, she stopped being so regimented and rigid in her eating and decided to intentionally choose to eat things she never would have considered before, or if she did have them, she would have flayed herself alive with her negative thoughts. Food trigger warning: things like chips, nondairy ice cream, and vegan convenience foods started to become part of her plan. It actually worked! Her relationship with food healed over time. Unfortunately, she also started to feel wretched.