I feel as if I have been nothing but pretty raw and honest on this blog for the last 4 years or so, and that's really kind of nice for both me and anyone who actually reads this blog. I've written about several accounts of brokenness. So today I really want to address the messy truth of having an unhealthy relationship with food. And it's something that I've had to struggle with all through middle school and parts of high school, and a part of my story that I wish didn't exist. I also didn't realize it existed until this summer, and once I had the revelation that I spent years in a toxic relationship with food, I panicked. How is one actually supposed to act when they realize that they had a problem that they never dealt with? Well, that's a different conversation.
I think I was around 11-12 when I was introduced to the concept of calories. How could I ignore them? Plastered on every single item of our society was the calorie count. I remember the shift of looking up the calories online before going to a place to the calorie counts showing up on the menus in restaurants. I used to look up the charts for fast food places and print them out- having them in a little notebook and highlighting the things that I could eat from that place since they fell under my magical designated calorie count for that meal. Looking back now, that seems a bit extreme. However, as a teenager with no self-confidence- that wasn't enough for me. I had several apps downloaded to keep track of every single calorie going into my body, along with the ones that I was burning with my daily, extreme workouts. I don't think I had any type of Fitbit back then, so I did my best to gauge what calories I was burning during my athletics period. I think the worse of it was that I always felt this extreme guilt for eating. Like, if I ate too many calories, I had to go to the gym and burn them off- even if I had already worked out that day. I distinctly remember being in Lubbock for an LWML conference, and my mother's birthday happened to fall during that weekend. Therefore, we went to Cheesecake Factory to celebrate. After eating dinner (which is totally normal) and some cheesecake (hence, why you go to the CHEESECAKE FACTORY), I remember going to the gym at the hotel and staying there for an hour, simply to try to burn as many calories as possible because I couldn't live with eating one piece of cheesecake. Do I remember my mom's birthday? No. What was I doing? Working out. I feel as if I missed out on so much life simply because I was trying to look better and weigh less.
I used to have what I call "obsessive calorie knowledge" too. I could walk into a grocery store and probably tell you the calorie count of most of the things there. Is that healthy? I personally don't think so. But still, I was obsessed. And you know what? I can't remember how I finally quit. Maybe I let go of the expectation that I needed to look like every single other girl. Maybe it was the realization that I need to start working out because I love my body, and not to change it. The journey of having to escape all of the "food guilt" has been pretty rough, because occasionally I start to slip back into it. And truthfully, that scares me a lot. Trying to count every calorie put me in such a bad place mentally, and I don't want to go back. However, when life is spinning out of control, the need to control my food intake increases. And half of me wants to be this girl who is awed at, and chased after because I'm just that beautiful. But the other half of me knows that I'd rather have a pretty heart rather than a pretty face or body.
Anyways, I learned all of this about myself in the course of 2 hours one night this summer and had a panic attack, but I'm okay now. I wish I had taken better care of my body back then, but all I can do now is love it and treat it with respect- because it's gotten me so far in this life and carried me through so many difficult things. I hope that if I ever have a daughter that we get to talk about her body and her food in a healthy way- because I don't ever want her to freak about a stupid little number on the back of the food packages or the number on the scale.
My value is not tied to my body image. Jesus died for me, and that's that. I'm a child of God, and because of that, I will always be beautifully made in His image.
