My Life in Food

January 2024 update: 

Please note that many posts in this blog are a record of a person with multiple eating disorders who sought questionable care, was excited about dangerous lifestyle choices, and believed in achieving absolute health through eating (which is something that cannot be done and is often more detrimental to one's overall health).

I do not recommend following any posted advice or using the person I was in these posts as an example for anything related to food. If you're experiencing issues related to food and feel yourself in the grip of diet culture, I suggest seeking care from a counselor who focuses on eating disorders and, in the meantime, gently challenging preconceived notions of health and wellness through your media choices. A favorite of mine and a pillar of my treatment these days is the podcast Maintenance Phase.
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Original post:

When it came to food (and, for that matter, most things), I was an exceptionally picky child.  One of my strongest early memories is the time when my mom said I couldn't have dessert (ice cream) until I finished the beans in front of me. I don’t know what actually happened, but in my memory I cried and choked down a single bite and cried some more and then eventually I ended up getting the ice cream anyway.

It's hard to force a kid to eat something they don't want to eat.  And I didn't want to eat most things. My parents always encouraged us to make our own decisions, and unfortunately, my resolute refusal to eat what Mom cooked stalled my eating habits for the first 18 years of my life.

Cupcakes. How they tortured me.

My typical sandwich consisted of lunchmeat, pickles, and mustard, nothing else. This was true from elementary school until high school, at which point I added cheese and sometimes some potato chips for variety. The best days in middle school were those when I could eat two microwave pizzas for dinner. Once, my brother jokingly bet me I couldn't eat the whole container of ice cream. I proved him wrong.

The staples of my childhood diet:

• Bread
• Pizza
• Ice cream
• Hamburgers
• Hot dogs
• Cheese
• Fries/potato chips
• Chocolate/cookies

Literally the only produce I ever ate:

• White potatoes
• Carrots
• Bananas
• Apples

My diet was so limited that people used to ask me what the heck I ate. Once in a while I got it into my head to try to eat healthier, but I had no idea what I was doing. The grocery store session that yielded fruit-flavored V8 and 100-calorie snack packs of cookies was what I considered a success. Once or twice, I counted calories for a few months (those pizzas? 540 calories apiece) and lost weight, but I wasn't eating healthier; I was just eating smaller amounts of the same crap. The weight came back on, obviously. 

I found this rather hideous memento of a cookie-making session in the depths of my computer.

I'd been unhappy with my body ever since I hit puberty, but my exercise efforts were as halfhearted and ill-informed as my diet tweaks. The problem was that I was extraordinarily resistant to actual change.

The night before my high-school graduation. With customary ice-cream cake.

When I got to college, some accumulation of knowledge, mindset, and environment came together to begin to trigger that actual change. I started going to the gym. I was so excited when I ran on the treadmill for 20 minutes that I called my parents and raved about it. I read FITNESS magazines in my spare time. One of my best friends ate a lot of produce with every meal, and suddenly I was seeing my own pizza- and cake-laden tray through different eyes. I had to write a bucket list as a creative writing assignment, and one of the items on the list was to try new, healthier foods.

That same best friend essentially held my hand through this initial transformation period. I was afraid to try any new fruits or vegetables. Afraid. I would start to feel queasy and anxious, as if I were atop a roller coaster’s highest point, just from having half a grapefruit on my plate. On the first day of trying new foods, in March of my freshman year, I speared a slice of canned mandarin orange on my fork, and it stopped halfway to my mouth as if there were a forcefield in the way. My hand shook. I took a deep breath, steeled myself, and ate it. 

It was the beginning of a gradual but massive change. I'm forever grateful to that friend for not laughing at me when I asked her how to peel an orange. Not that I was suddenly a paragon of perfect eating habits—on many an occasion, I'd come back from a brief run and grab an ice cream and some chocolate-covered pretzels to eat in my dorm room.

Look how happy I am to be eating crab on Spring Break in Florida!

 And then Crohn's.

The first symptom was painful stomach cramping at every meal. Then came a whole host of other obnoxious/embarrassing/terrifying digestive issues. I went to the student health center and did tests at the local hospital and came back with an unhelpful diagnosis of "could be IBS or food allergies but probably just stress." For eight months I tried my best to go about my business, but at the end of the summer of 2011, just before my third and final year of college, I was fed up and actually wanted the colonoscopy that gave me the real diagnosis.

Between "something is really actually wrong" and "colonoscopy," though, came Skinny Bitch. I read this book with a discerning eye, but it did make me realize that perhaps a radical diet change could help—and that it was actually possible. I decided that same night to eliminate most food allergens from my diet and become a gluten-free vegan. Though I later found out that food allergies weren’t my problem and that diet supposedly does not have a direct effect on Crohn's, I was already devoted to the lifestyle change and thought that at the very least, it couldn’t hurt.

Colorful and beautiful, yes? That's nature for you.

So then I was a gluten-free vegan.  It was a diet almost as far from my previous diet as it could've been. I lasted a few full months before I learned that I can no longer eat quinoa, because it hurts like heck to digest (it joined the sad ranks of popcorn, seeds, nuts, apple skin, and carrots as things that I cannot eat again ever) and had to get some other source of protein. So I added salmon and became a gluten-free "pescovegan." I’ll never forget the time I decided to test myself by eating at Wendy's, and the hamburger tasted like rubber. I haven't had another hamburger craving since.

I have, however, had relapse after relapse, some planned and some not, during which I binge on donuts, cookies, sourdough bread, cheddar cheese, and pepperoni pizza. I was seeing a play once and read a book during intermission in which the characters ate some bread. I spent the entire second half of the play thinking about bread and yelling to myself that I should absolutely not buy some. I did, though. These are my food addictions, things I cannot eat in moderation because the moment I get a taste something snaps in my brain and I eat and eat and eat. My goal is to abstain from them entirely, because I am absolutely sold on the benefits of eating primarily produce and primarily unprocessed foods (the latter because, as I've found out, it's also easy to binge on premade vegan junk food).

Wendy's fries. I don't miss you.

Over the past year and a half, I've struggled, but looking back, I’ve continued on an overall upward trend of increasingly healthful eating. My 20^th birthday dessert was not cake but fruit salad with candles on toothpicks stuck into chunks of melon. 

And then a step backwards with this lovely gluten-free vegan cake for the next birthday.

I would rather have Brussels sprouts drizzled with maple syrup than any candy. And now people have started to ask again just what the heck I eat. The difference is that this "restrictive" diet is one that nourishes my body rather than destroying it. And when I eat clean, instead of feeling lethargic and heavy, I feel light and energetic and strong.

I'm a pineapple head.
What strikes me most about these "food photos" is that my life is already so rich and fun,
and the junk food doesn't add a darn thing.

My favorite foods now:

• Salmon
• Brussels sprouts
• Garnet yams
• Sunchokes
• Bananas
• Dark chocolate
• Cultured coconut milk
• Bell peppers
• Onions
• Gold beets
• Cauliflower
• Asparagus
• Kiwifruit
• Chocolate almond butter
• Garbanzo beans

I desperately wish I could change what I ate during my formative years. Grease and sugar are not exactly the foundation for a long and healthy life. But I've come so very far that it's almost mind boggling to those who knew me then. And I've learned that it may be a long and scary journey, but it's never too late to take responsibility, reclaim health, and make a change for the better.