These Things I Hold True-It’s Time We Have a Conversation

These things I hold true about food:

Food is never your enemy.

Moderation is a thing that exists.

Food should make you happy. Food should not be a punishment. Food is not a reward.

You are not defined by what you eat.

No, actually, one Big Mac or one Peep or one whatever will not kill you.

Food is not your enemy.

Food should not cause you guilt unless you did something terrible to acquire it.

You do not have right to dictate another people’s food choices. You very rarely even have the right to comment on people’s food choices.

FOOD IS NOT YOUR ENEMY.

These things I hold true because I’ve been at war with food for years. When I say years, I mean I have been at war with food since the first time someone called me fat as a child.

My name is Katie, I believe in working towards full honesty.

My name is Katie and I’m a food blogger with an eating disorder.

I was diagnosed with DE/EDNOS while I was working on my Master’s. What it means is that my eating habits are highly disordered. What it means is that at the time my therapist did not feel that I had Bulimia or Anorexia. What it does mean is that will weaponize food. I will use food as a way of hurting myself. I will use food as a way of gaining control over my environment. You can not control the world. You know what you can do? Control what goes in your face, and for me, that means not eating. For days.

Why? Because you can. This is the nasty truth of it-there’s a massive power rush from standing at a mental position of ‘I know I need to eat, I mean, I know I need to eat because I haven’t consumed ANYTHING in 20 hours and bodies, even fat bodies, like calories to keep moving forward, but [pardon the language] fuck you body I’m strong enough not to give you what you’re screaming for.’

These are the nasty things we don’t talk about because it’s not polite.

Polite is overrated.

What it means is that when under stress I calorie restrict to the point of passing out. What it means is that I’ve found myself on the floor because I was living off half of a granola bar a day…for weeks.

Yes. I’m a fat blogger. Yes. I’m a fat blogger with an eating disorder. These things happen. It doesn’t really matter if you believe it or not, your acceptance of a thing does not change the reality of it.

This conversation makes me angry…which tells me it’s time to talk about it.

Do you think when a person makes an unhealthy choice with food they honestly have no idea that what they’re eating isn’t the best choice? Did you know that there are times when sometimes a person is eating a thing literally to make sure that they’re eating something? There is a saying in the recovery community-heavy nutrition or heavy calories. Sometimes you’re going to grab a burger because yes, that’s a 1.500 calorie burger. Which means that if you eat only one thing-you’ve just hit your calorie needs for the day. Because this going to be the ONLY thing you eat.

Do not look a person and pretend you understand what they eat. Especially don’t look at a person on the Internet and pretend that you understand. If you want to know a person’s thoughts, ask them.

The truth is rarely what you think it is.