Diet Culture is Fake News
I just got off a zoom call with my nutritionist/therapist person today, and wow . . . dieting has become so ingrained into my life that I don’t even know that I’m doing it. I sorta thought it had gone away, banished the moment I said, “NO! I will not count calories anymore” back in 2017. Alas, I still judge food as good or bad. I still will let myself be hungry until I can’t handle it anymore. I still find the low-fat, low-cal, low-everything version of every single product I eat. And for what? Thinness? I’d like to think that goal was also banished! Then this happened:
Nutritionist/therapist: Why do you think that is?
Me: What?
N/T: That you felt like a failure for eating the bagel. You were in the airport. There was nothing else around.
Me: I guess I felt bad that I couldn’t keep it up?
N/T: What?
Me: Perfection.
N/T: Ah.
Me: I punish myself for not being perfect.
N/T: It’s why you don’t eat that much. It’s why you put food in categories. Perfectionism is connected to black and white thinking.
Me: I don’t know how to be gray. I’ve had to protect myself for so long, I don’t know how to ever be gray in anything.
I punish myself for not being perfect. I guess I always thought it but never consciously notice it. I’m 33 and I don’t think I’ve experienced a life without dieting in some way, shape, or form. And this sucks! This sucks because consciously that isn’t who I am. But I forget that this stuff doesn’t just go away. It’s so connected to everything we do and who we are. Perfection has always been my goal, overachieving will always be apart of my life, doing more will always a thing for me because I fear that if I’m not perfect, I’ll be judged as lazy purely on face value.
I wonder if you feel the same way. And if you do, how does it manifest in you?
A lot to take in! But even more to deal with. Got a question about how I’m dealing, recovering, reworking it all? Write me a comment:
Allostatic load is the wear and tear on the body which accumulates as an individual is exposed to repeated or chronic stress. This isn’t about weight or food or size that causes this umbrella of a health issue — it’s the amount of stress a person experiences on a daily basis by just existing. I’d like to submit to the jury this, this, this piece of evidence that explains that body size stigma is more harmful to a person’s health than their size. Sizism is like walking through air pollution and being harmed by it overtime. I have to remind myself that we have been taught to hate ourselves, and it’s all not going to go away tomorrow.
Cottage Cheese & Cantaloupe
Cottage cheese and cantaloupe reminds me of June. Growing up, it was the time I spent with my grandparents — humid Bronx summers when all there was to do was walk to the park or wait for Mister Softee’s big, dumb jingle to round the corner of the block. My grandfather would get a 7Up Float with whipped cream and a cherry on top. I had no idea what it would cost. He would get it and sneak me sips when no one else was watching.
That citrusy, vanilla burst saved me.
Most days during the summer, I ran laps in our concrete backyard, did 100 crunches every morning, 100 jumping jacks, and ate steamed spinach, cottage cheese, boiled eggs, and cantaloupe every single day until I went back to live with my mom in Virginia — praying to god I would be thin by the time the first day of school happened. I didn’t make New York friends during those summers. I didn’t play outside or have sleepovers or join a club. I just did crunches and ran and ate cantaloupe and cottage cheese from June to September.
I want to be a Jillian Evelyn girl.
Found Found Found
@fatkyliejenner in a @patrickchurchny dress.
@yrfatfriend’s newest thread.
This pappardelle recipe — sans anchovies.
cakes with threatening auras.
Trader Joe's Raw Shelled Hemp Seed. An excellent product.
Currently Reading: Fattily Ever After: A Black Fat Girl's Guide to Living Life Unapologetically by Stephanie Yeboah
Temporary Stay / p3
Clip-clop-clip-clop. The woman’s chunky heels signaled everyone in the area that she was making her way down the street. Her hair was dyed a bright blonde that was pulled up into a black, rectangular clip atop her head. She had clearly just gotten out of bed yet still looked like she had perfected this look before sauntering through the street.
The woman sat at one of the outdoor tables of restaurant, her red coat popped against the dark wood. She didn’t even try to catch the attention of the servers — they were already at her table placing down utensils, water, and a wine glass. She didn’t even say anything and her wine glass was filled with a red. Marion tried to look at the rest of the scenery, the flowers, the typography on petite store fronts, the people passing through. But she couldn’t. The woman was too fascinating to stare at anything else.
Marion took another sip of her cappuccino and flipped the page in her notebook. She started to draw lips over and over. So many lips that the page looked like it had been kissed by multiple people. She felt silly — to be drawing something so elementary when the entirety of anyone who has ever sat at a French cafe probably wrote sensual poems to one of their many lovers.
Marion was too careful.
Marion was too concerned.
Marion was caged bird.
Marion was too careful.
What was being alone in Paris going to do for Marion if she didn’t act on impulse?
(part 4 to come)
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