Here's an article I just wrote for a local magazine...enjoy!
Food can be so central to our lives. Think about it. Whether we’re at a wedding or a wake we are fed. Food can be celebratory, life sustaining, can drown our sorrows, nourish our joy, mark the beginning of a relationship or the end, and even provide a livelihood for some. As a society we have formed an emotional bond with food that at times borders on unhealthy. Some people see food clearly for what it is, a source of nourishment, like a car having its tank filled with gasoline. At times I know I have been envious of people who seem to harbor no emotional connection with the act of eating. But let’s be real, if we really treated food that way, there would be no ‘would you like to have dinner with me’ first dates, or family dinners, or Thanksgivings, or baby showers, etc.
When I reflect on my own relationship with food I can see a long history of emotional eating and eating to celebrate or mourn major event in my life (like my wedding, high school graduation, team basketball win/loss, getting my drivers license, buying a new pair of shoes, taking a shower, loading the dishwasher…).
I probably always ate WAY too much. But I was lucky; I was 3-sport high school athlete and a college basketball player. Consuming 5 slices of pizza and 1 liter of soda was perfectly normal and my weight stayed pretty consistent. At 5'10" I was a size 10/12, muscular, strong and happy.
All that changed when I stopped playing sports and got married. Cooking exactly 4 dishes (all ‘favorite’ dishes from home and all filled with 1000’s of calories and dozen of grams of fat), and going out to eat 3 nights a week didn’t help. When I stopped burning the extra 1000 calories a day my waistline grew and grew fast. I added between 10 and 15 lbs a year, slowly replacing the 12 with 14, 16, 18, 20, 22, and finally plateauing at a 24/26.
I lied to myself. I would look in the mirror naked and say, ‘oh I have a very proportional figure’ (somewhat true, but it was still morbidly obese). I would justify that society was just obsessed with super skinny girls and that truly evolved people did not care what I weighed. Worse I even convinced myself I wasn’t eating that much. But I was, it was the pint of ice cream here, the big popcorn with butter at the movies there. I could justify going out to dinner or lunch as a time or over-indulge because it was ‘a special occasion’. But it wasn’t. Never have I ordered a healthy option at dinner and felt I had less fun than if I had had the 20 oz. steak or lobster with 5 Tbsp of butter. Yet fried food, dessert, appetizers, wine, mixed drinks, ribs, the breadbasket, eating the entire plate of food at the restaurant was my norm.
I did manage to lose weight by working out a lot. And I felt great, but was still quite overweight. Then I had Sarah and everything changed. Sarah was born 6 weeks premature. Our placenta had ruptured, we both almost died. My doctor told me my body was toxic. I felt such shame for putting this innocent little baby into a position where she was starting out behind in life. I desperately wanted to make things right. The best thing I could do for my preemie was to breastfeed her (liquid gold the NICU nurses would say). As I tried to pump as much milk for her as I could each day I contemplated what would provide the healthiest milk for my little baby. When I wanted to reach for French fries I would think to myself, ‘do I want my baby eating this crap?’ Slowly I began to incorporate more healthy ways of eating into my diet.
My preemie baby Sarah came home and got healthier and the next step in my transformation began when it was time to give solid foods. I began thinking, ’how can I justify eating this in front of Sarah?’ knowing I would be her most important model in life of how to eat appropriately.
While I had a decent knowledge of nutrition I felt like I needed more tools in my arsenal. I bought myself Anabel Karmel’s book, ‘First Meals’; the book showed me how to make my own fresh baby food. & it also reminded me of the importance of giving our children and ourselves ‘real food’/ whole foods. For instance, how many times had I reached for fake lower-cal spreads instead of real butter.
I joined a CSA (community supported agriculture program) and began picking up vegetables every week (many of which, I had never heard of before, yet alone prepared!), the farm was organic, which wasn’t something I sought out, it just happen to be the only CSA available in our neighborhood in Jackson Heights, Queens. After witnessing the healthy families and interacting with them each week through volunteering and socializing I realized that organic food was something I should take more seriously.
I began to read about and learn about the benefits of eating organic food; while we are not a fully organic family, I would never have taken the time in the past to find mostly organic produce, and the ‘dirty dozen’ takes on a whole new meaning now! Slowly and surely I felt like I was feeding my family and myself in a more healthy way, eating more whole foods, eating more fresh vegetables, eating less preservatives, less junk food, etc. What was funny was that when we did have cake, or ice cream I enjoyed it so much more.
We had another baby, and again, I was nursing and was reminded that everything I put in my body transferred to the baby. Does little Zoe need potato chips and Pepsi and a hot dog while I watch this baseball game? Does Zoe need extra cheese on the pizza? Has Zoe eaten enough vegetables today?
Then another epiphany moment hit me. Why could I do these things for my baby, but not for me? Certainly no one else was going to put me first. I am worth taking care of, I am worth being healthy for. Moreover, I kept having this overwhelming feeling of responsibility to these 2 little girls. Never in my life had I felt like it was ‘do or die’. I had watched family members and acquaintances get sick and die from preventable diseases….I could not let this happen to me. Sure, my hubby could always get a new wife; but as a daughter myself, I knew and know that no one could ever replace me for my daughters. I had a higher calling now, it was not about being skinny again, it was about being healthy again…..
Do I have it all together—hell no! I make all kinds of mistakes. I probably over think things (like when we go out of town and my mother-in-law comes to stay with the girls and I prepare a full menu, complete with breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, appropriate eating times and a list of ‘off limits’ foods), and conversely sometimes I under think things (like when it’s 3PM and we’re at the zoo and the kids are crying and I have no idea why—duh! They’re hungry! Did mommy bring any food, no. Is the food at the zoo healthy, NO!). I overeat and I eat the wrong things still. But overall, I feel like I have a healthier approach to food and there is no race, no finish line. I will live to eat another day, and I am fully capable of making decisions that are right for me (and my family) and I feel good about that!
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