On food and food talks

Pony cornered me in the kitchen and told me that I'd been losing a lot of weight during the summer, and that coupled with my complaining that Hemingway feeds me too much has made her worried that I was falling off the wagon with my eating habits. I assured her that I wasn't, saying I didn't feel like I was sick at all. "I believe you, but see, that's the thing. That's exactly what you would say if you were sick as well."


I hate to worry anyone, especially someone with so much on her plate as Pony. Granted, we have very different bodies - hers refuses to function unless it's given a lot of fuel and she's hungry a lot, while I can easily forget to eat if I don't make a conscious effort and still feel fine for quite a long time. When I moved into the apartment I was at the largest I ever have been (which wasn't big, but definitely more curvy due to being on the pill than I have ever been without) and my slimming down makes me look pretty different in comparison to what I did then, but I still feel it's important to treat her concerns seriously.

I had to stop and think for a moment about how I feel about food. When we were in Greece, I was still emotionally and mentally exhausted, and like always with times like that, I revert into a controlling behavior which typically leads to me controlling everything I eat. It's a general sign of unhappiness I guess. Now that I'm feeling a lot more rested and back to my usual self, I haven't been thinking all that much about food at all. I eat when I'm hungry and everything's fine. I'm happy with my body in ways that I haven't really been, and while I will read the nutritional value of stuff that I buy mostly out of habit, I don't measure everything precisely like I used to or fret about getting the granola with 5 kcal/100 g less than the one that looks like the tastiest one. It's been a slippery slope, and like I've stated before, I'm not sure if an eating disorder ever goes away, but if it's not taking up a lot of vital space in my head, I like to think that it's not so much a problem anymore.

Honestly I think I downplay the significance my eating disorder had on me when I think about it. Pony said she would describe me as 'someone who's had a serious eating disorder in the past but now has it under control', and I never really thought of it as that serious as I got out of it myself, without anyone ever stepping in to intervene. My family commented later on my gaining weight as a good thing, saying that I used to look unwell ("You look so much healthier now! You used to really look like a vegetarian before," was my brother's response), but no-one ever really took any measures while I was skinny. Maybe because I never had the skeletal look where people look seriously scary - I was just really thin for my height, but my brain was following the same patterns as all those other girls.

This bullshit.

I have pretty much no clue what my body looks like, objectively. I can't tell that I've been losing weight except in the way that my clothes fit (or don't). What I do know is that lately I've been happy about the way I look. I don't cringe to have my picture taken all that much anymore. I think it's more attributed to not being completely miserable anymore, but I also like thinking that it's a sign that this stupid food- and body obsession is losing the hold on me it used to have. People who know about my food issues will obviously always watch what I eat, and how much I eat, and I'll find that annoying as I find anything that encroaches on my personal business annoying, but it's from a place of concern for my well-being. The bottom line is that it's cool that people care, I guess.