It’s been a hell of a week.

In case you didn’t know, this weekend marks the end of National Eating Disorder Awareness Week. This is a topic that I’ve toyed with touching on for months and months now, but I’ve never been able to put my thoughts into words. 

But, if there’s ever a time to try, I feel like now is that time. So I’m going to give it a go.

The first thing I’ll say is that I am NOT a professional when it comes to this sort of thing.

I’m not a dietician.

I’m not a nutritionist.

I’m not a therapist. 

I am, however, a 24-year-old journalist who has a bad relationship with food. 

And this is a hard blog post for me to write, so I’m going to just share with you an assortment of thoughts I’ve had this week about eating disorder recovery, disordered eating practices, and body acceptance. 

It may not be cohesive. It may sound like I’m rambling (shocker). 

But I hope it provides some insight into my personal experiences with food and gives you a little something to think about after we’re done here. 

• I read an article once that said that in order to train your body to be less hungry, drink a ton of water. Apparently, if you fill your body with water, it tricks it into not being hungry as often. Well, I’ve done this. It didn’t work. All that happened was that I was hungry ALL THE TIME and I had to pee every ten minutes. 
  • You don’t need to trick your body into not being hungry. If your body is telling you that it needs food, you should listen to it. You owe it that. 

• I’ve found that eating throughout the day is better than eating nothing throughout the day, and then bingeing on a bunch of food in the evening. When I do that, I just feel even more guilty. Snacking throughout the day on stuff that can fill you up is healthier and I’ve found that it helps with the guilt. 

• Cultivate your social media feeds to immerse yourself in body acceptance, intuitive eating and self love content. Trust me on this one. Seriously. If you want a list of my favorite accounts on Instagram, please message me. I will send them to you. This has helped my mindset tremendously. 
  • Look: we all follow SOMEONE who makes us feel bad about ourselves. Maybe it’s a celebrity or an influencer. Maybe it’s someone you know. Whoever it is, give some serious thought to erasing them from your feed. 

• Looking at old pictures of yourself is hard. Really hard. I’ve seen pictures of me from high school and thought, “Oh my GOD, look at me. I was so thin. I could be that thin again.” 
  • The voice that’s saying that to you? Ignore it. Tune it out. You are a different person now. You carry different troubles. You have a different life. You have different obligations, stressors, and worries. Your lifestyle is probably very different. You are not the same person that you were in those pictures, so you are going to look different. And THAT, no matter what the little voice in your head is telling you, is okay.

• This is a bit more personal, but it’s easy for me to keep my own struggles with food a secret. When I’m out with friends, I eat “normally.” I talk about food “normally.” I even make jokes about being the friend who’s “always hungry.” In person, I’m also a smiley gal. I laugh easily. I love to joke around. Even on social media, I present as someone without a care in the world sometimes. 
  • It’s when I’m by myself in my own apartment that the guilt and the shame creeps in. Actually, they don’t creep in. They kick the door down and yell “HEY LIL MAMA LET ME WHISPER IN YA EAR!” It’s when I’m alone that I restrict. It’s when I’m alone that I tend to withhold food from myself to punish myself for the eating I did when I was with friends or family. 
  • Here’s something to note: eating disorders and disordered eating practices come in all shapes, sizes, genders, backgrounds, etc. You never know who might be having an issue. 

• Stress can make your relationship with food worse. I thought I was so much further along with my growth from these issues until the pandemic began last year. If your issues have gotten worse within the past year due to stress, loneliness, etc., you’re not the only one. 

• Bread isn’t the end of the world, I promise. It doesn’t matter what you grew up hearing about carbs. Bread and pasta are not the devil. Eating an egg on toast versus just an egg by itself is going to make ZERO difference.

• I’ve seen the phrase “food is fuel” about a million times this week, and all I’m going to say is that food doesn’t always have to be for “fuel.” Sometimes, eating some ice cream or Chinese takeout just because you WANT TO is needed. It’s fuel for the soul, right?

• Coffee does NOT count as breakfast. Read that again. Did you read it again? Now read it AGAIN. You need to eat throughout the day, but you damn sure need to eat in the morning. Lots of people (myself included) restrict in the morning because “Hey, I don’t need breakfast. I’m just gonna have my coffee.” 
  • Again, tell that little voice to shove it. Your brain tells your body this lie, and sometimes your body believes it.

• We live in a society that glorifies weight loss. We congratulate each other on it. It’s hard not to make the jump from “low number on the scale equals good” and “higher number on the scale equals bad.” We might not be able to change society quickly or easily, but knowing that glorifying thinness is a pattern, and recognizing that pattern, can help. You may not be able to change the world, but you can damn sure change YOUR world.

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• It is okay to have bad days. You don’t always have to wake up in the morning and love every single inch of yourself. Back to the social media thing, it presents an idea that you should love every bit of yourself always, but keep in mind that social media usually only shows the happy, the fun, the content, the exciting, the sparkly. It’s okay to not feel like that 24/7. 
  • What isn’t okay is taking it out on your body and punishing it for not feeling like that. 

As I was doing yoga this morning (yeah, THAT’S another post for another time, because I’m giving it a real go but, like, bending? Not my thing. Breathing deeply? Hmm, not likely.) I was thinking about my body.

 Not in a “I love my body” or an “I hate my body” kind of way. Just as a functioning unit. And it occurred to me that I will only be alive on this Earth, in this body, one time. Once. This is my only body. I’m not going to be getting another one. This one, which is 24 years old right now, is going to age. It’s going to get (even more) rickety. It might develop issues down the line. It might eventually even stop working. Who knows?

But I know that this morning, while I was doing yoga and feeling my stomach expand with every inhale, feeling my feet planted solidly on the floor, I realized I have one lifetime with this body. I need to listen to it. Feed it. Respect it. I’m lucky and blessed to be here, in this body, even if sometimes I lose sight of that.

So that’s the thought I want to leave you with. With this weekend being the end of Eating Disorder Awareness Week, it doesn’t mean the awareness can end. 

If you don’t have a good relationship with food, you’re not alone. There are resources out there to help you. Professionals who specialize in this sort of thing. People you can talk to.

Your body is only going to be yours for this lifetime. I’m not telling you what to do moving forward. I don’t even have my own house in order to even BEGIN to tell you what to do if you’re struggling. 

All I can say is that you’re not the only one. We can take it day by day together. 

Your Just-taking-it-day-by-day Servant,