It’s embarrassing for me to write this. Why? Because I haven’t “come out” to a lot of my friends & family that I go to Weight Watchers meetings, and have been for awhile now. This is the first time I’ve written about it on the blog, too. But in the spirit of keeping things as open and honest as possible, here goes.

I’ve struggled with eating and exercise for a long time. I remember feeling “fat” as early as fourth grade, when my best friend at the time was a super-skinny girl. I remember sitting at lunch with her one day, and talking about how much we weighed. She said she weighed 40 pounds. I told her my weight: 65 pounds. I was embarrassed. In fifth grade science, we did a height/weight analysis of the class (almost as cruel as running the timed mile, in retrospect). I weighed 75 lbs; my lab partner (and the boy I had a crush on) weighed 70. I lied and said I weighed 70, too.

All throughout my childhood, although I wasn’t overweight, I overate, especially on starchy/sugary food. Diabetes runs in my family and I’ve always had problems with low blood sugar (and trouble controlling myself around sweets!). I remember being 8 years old, eating a pasta dinner with my family, and lying down on the couch afterwards because I’d eaten too much. I remember raiding the cupboards and eating an entire box of Nutrigrain bars. After Thanksgiving dinner I always felt comatose. At Mexican restaurants, I ate chips until I was full, and still ate my main course. Even at the time, at a relatively young age, I wished I didn’t feel that way.

In high school I became more active, started weight training an rowing, and remember weighing 125 lbs. at around 5′7 and being happy about it. I also remember looking at my arms in the shower and being really happy that I could see muscle. I felt strong, for the first time really. Then, sometime during my sophomore or  junior year, my body changed, and I was curvier. All of a sudden I was 5′9 and weighed over 150 pounds. I was not happy. I remember being unhappy with my first round of SAT scores, and going to the drugstore to buy a Symphony chocolate bar. Not the healthiest reaction. I bought my own girl scout cookies and hid them in my closet so I wouldn’t have to share them. Every so often, I would go on a self-imposed diet, drink tons of water, eat only salad, and do sit-ups and leg lifts every night. This never lasted long.

I went to college without a happy relationship with my eating or exercise habits. I didn’t adjust particularly well at first, and started spending a lot of time at the gym. I’ve read about “exercise bulimia” since then, and it reminds me a lot of my habits: eat something, then feel like I needed to exercise off the calories that I’d consumed. I started running, 4–5 miles every night if I could, plus other cardio machines and weight training. This exercise schedule wasn’t necessarily unhealthy, but the emotion going into it definitely was. The workouts didn’t really show, though, because I found it very hard to control myself in the all-you-can-eat dining halls.

My second year of college, I decided to make a change. A close family member had just passed away while I was visiting her, I was going back to school after the Christmas holidays, I didn’t want to be there, I felt uncomfortable in my own skin, and I knew, somewhere inside, that I was going to get smaller. How? By being hungry all the time. I’d get up, eat oatmeal for breakfast, and then try to eat as little as possible throughout the rest of the day. I went to the gym every afternoon, and sometimes mornings too. If I didn’t go to bed with my stomach feeling like it was eating itself, then I felt like a failure. If I woke up in the middle of the night hungry, then I knew it was working. At the time, I lived with a few other girls who were going through some tough times and also taking it out on their bodies, and I think we fed off each other’s negative energy. 

I lost around 25 pounds that semester, but when I went home for the summer, I had no clue how to keep it off. With family and friends around me again, I was distracted from that “voice inside” that told me not to eat. I felt like everyone was taking that power away from me, so I withdrew. I spent that summer living in Colorado with a friend of mine who was busy with work and her boyfriend, and basically spent every day trying to exercise as much as possible, eat as little as possible, and read as much as I could about different diets and how they affected the body. I saw some amazing places out West that summer, but I was consumed with the feeling that I wasn’t small enough, had no self-control, and wanted to disappear completely. I became vegan for the first time, discovered the raw food diet through a job at the local co-op market, started working with an ultra-thin raw food chef, and began eating mostly raw food in an effort to “purify” myself. Recently I’ve read about “orthorexia,” and it reminds me of this behavior, which was not motivated by health, but rather by the idea that it would rid me of my excess and make me a better person. If I gave in ate “too much” (which usually meant a bowl of oatmeal or some cookies) I either tried to purge (never succeeded), skipped a meal, or went running. When I went back home after that summer, I could tell that not everyone approved of these choices and my further weight loss (some were more vocal about it than others), so I withdrew more. I didn’t need food, I didn’t need people, I didn’t need anything.

Back at school that fall, I remember waking up in the morning and thinking, first thing, “I hate myself. I can’t control anything.” I had a lot of dinners of plain lettuce and grapes, tried to skip breakfast (and sometimes succeeded), and ran every day. But the demands of school were more than the demands of summer, and I found myself “slipping” and giving in to hunger more and more. I gained 10 pounds over the course of a few months and felt like a failure again. I went to free therapy sessions for a few weeks at the school health center, but never opened up about my struggles with food and exercise and barely scratched the surface before I left school for the holidays.

Soon thereafter, I studied abroad in India for a semester and started doing yoga regularly. Yoga was wonderful for me in that it taught me to appreciate what my body can do rather than loathing it for its “shortcomings.” Also, because yoga associates physical movement with prayer, it gave me a deeper reason for wanting to practice. However, yoga also reinforced my tendency towards self-denial (practiced as fasting by many yogis) and focus on a strong spiritual/internal life (practiced as meditation by yogis), which I translated into further withdrawal from people. It was an amazing experience studying in India, but one that I will forever associate with withdrawal and self-denial. Physically, I had never felt better, but mentally and emotionally, I was spent.

For a long time I thought I should try to find the “root” of this problem, and there are a few strong contenders: my mom was always dieting when I was growing up (and has struggled a lot with body image herself); I’ve had a lot of friends suffer from eating disorders; I’m not naturally skinny (I’m more of an hourglass) and so, because of movies/magazines/etc., I feel like I need to fit in. But really, I think these struggles are just symptomatic of a larger insecurity: that “who I am” isn’t enough, and I need to send a message to the world (of being “in control,” “healthy” or “fit”) through the skin I’m in. There’s a great blog post on this idea here.

When I came home from india, I let everything go. The self-denial, withdrawal, everything. I stopped exercising and started eating pretty much whatever I felt like eating. I came out of my shell a lot, and felt a new confidence in my mind and spirit. I met and started dating my current boyfriend, who loves me regardless of what size I am. I became more involved in literacy and music, things I’m very passionate about. There was only one problem, though. After a few months I found myself at my highest weight ever, unfit, and ashamed of my body. 

I’ve made periodic attempts to “get in shape” and “assert control” since then, but none has lasted longer than a few months. I finally realized that I have no clue how to have a sustainable, healthy relationship with food and activity—one that energizes me and makes me more confident rather than burning me out and contributing to my insecurities. After having a conversation with dear friend Status Quoman about this very thing, she confided in me that she went to Weight Watchers meetings and asked me if I’d like to go.

I went, and I am SO glad I did. The meetings have done WONDERS for my self-confidence and relationship with food. Not for my weight so far, but honestly, that seems secondary to me at this point. By reaching out and going to meetings, I found the tools to stop eating until I feel sick, denying myself food until I feel weak, and withdrawing from people. Meetings have “evened me out” in ways that I couldn’t even imagine before. Now, more often than not, I seek out community and ask for help when I’m feeling distraught or despondent. I know that the human body requires a certain, measurable amount of food to sustain itself, and I need to give that to my body at bare minimum (trust me, counting points every day is WAY less stressful than constantly thinking “did I eat too much?? am I too full?”) And finally, long after I first started going to meetings, I am ready to small changes that will leave me with a body that reflects a healthy, balanced life. And that’s what quitting my gym (and becoming vegan again) are about: making small changes that will send me in a direction that’s healthier for my life right now. 

I’m so glad I discovered health/food blogs because it’s incredibly therapeutic to see people make healthy choices, day after day, that add up to a healthy life. It took me awhile to learn that health is not about how much self-control you can exert, how little you can eat, or how much you can exercise; it’s about balance, listening to your body, and nourishing it.

I only hope I can give something back with this blog. Nobody should have to feel alone if they’re struggling to gain a healthy relationship with eating or exercise (or any of the complicated offshoots of those two things!) Please leave a message if you ever have a question, thought, or just need someone to listen.