The idea of the perfect body is shoved down everyone’s throat whether you like it or not. The societal norm of everyone mutually and silently feeling bad at themselves is horrendous and the need to do better as a community is apparent. there is something feminine about doing your hair and make up in the morning, and it’s tragic that I find the same femininity in skipping a meal to preserve the “morning skinny” before a social event or the act of just not eating.
I am no exception to this feeling and I unfortunately was victim of my own mind in the early stages of my teen years. I let the teacher who called me “tub tub” at 14 get to me, I let my ex step dad’s constant comparison of myself and thinner girls on my softball teams get to me, and I let my family’s idolization of small sizes, despite their good intentions, get to me. When I was 14, I had invited my boyfriend at the time over for dinner and to go on a run with me. I had told my mom about him a lot and told her we had lunch together. At the time, my mom used to pack my lunch and I would give it to him to eat because “I wasn’t hungry” and, like every teenage boy, he was ALWAYS hungry. When I would go home at the end of the day, I would avoid having dinner with my parents with the excuse that I had gotten dinner with my friends before coming home or that I would eat dinner after I showered; I never came back down to eat after I showered and many meals sat in my microwave waiting for me to eat more often than not.
When my boyfriend had come over for dinner, it had been the first time in months that I had sat down at the dinner table for a meal, and my parents made their acknowledgement of this known. My ex step dad commented “this is the first time she’s eaten at home, maybe we need to bring you around more often” as I took my first bite of spaghetti. In response, my boyfriend looked at me while shoving his face with the food in front of him and innocently stated, “this is the first time I’ve seen her eat.” I WAS CAUGHT. with a concerned look on her face, my mom questioned why he had not seen me eat before, we had lunch together everyday after all, and my parents weren’t aware of my grand scheme of giving him my food. Long story short, my boyfriend ended up telling my parents that he was the one eating my food at lunch, accidentally exposing my perfected craft to my ideal weight, and my parents had put the pieces together. From there on out, I had to send pictures of me eating to our family group chat and the gig was up.
the years that followed were just as hard, just as challenging to get myself to feed my body the nutrition it needed. But once I got to college, I knew I needed to start prioritizing my relationship with food; I was no longer eating to just live, I was eating to fuel my body. the beginnings of ROTC training was rough for me. I was still conscious of the food I was eating and I refused to take into account the daily amount of physical training I was going through because of ranger challenge and my regular gym routine. I could feel myself getting weaker and more exhausted the more I didn’t eat the correct amounts of food that my body needed.
luckily for me, I became friends with a group of three of other people on my ranger challenge team that would get breakfast after our pt sessions at the dining hall down the road from the rotc building. We would sit, eat, and laugh about all the intense amounts of training we had just endured or how challenging balancing life and rotc was. Through conversation and good company, I became more and more comfortable eating; this group may not know how much these breakfasts healed my relationship with food, but I will always think highly of these shared moments.
Out of this group, I met Ethan. As my relationship with Ethan grew, so did my love food. It started off casual, getting lunch or dinner here and there, but it eventually grew into one of our relationship’s core foundations being centered around food. while he was at basic training, I revolved my search for good restaurants and eatery around the idea of bringing Ethan to them when he returned. I wrote to him about restaurants I found, he wrote to me about restaurants and foods he wished he was eating instead of the food from the dfac. when he graduated from basic training, I knew my food connoisseur partner was back. Core memories were made through our shared meals: in November, we took a trip down to Tampa and ordered root beers, two main courses with a side of French toast, and two slices of pie, that we ambitiously ordered but ended up canceling because of how stuffed we were. In February, we took a trip to NOLA and went into the city on our own and found different restaurants to eat at; doing our own restaurant crawl, sharing entrees, and watching the Mardi Gras parades and crowd pass us by as we tasted the best things New Orleans had to offer. Ethan made me feel comfortable eating, he never said no to going out to eat with me, grabbing a second dinner, always said yes to appetizers and desserts, and made food enjoyable to eat.
The men in my life now, as adult, have changed my mindset of how I see my body. The friends I have now encourage my muscular build that I was once gaslit into believing that it wasn’t the “ideal” body type. I am reminded of how much my body serves me with every PR I hit, every compliment I get on it’s strength, every impressive physical assessment score I earn, and how my body replenishes itself day in and day out. I found that the way I feel about myself physically, mentally, spiritually, and socially was a direct reflection of the people I surrounded myself with, and I say this in the hopes that you find the people in your life that make you feel just as good in your body as you deserve to feel.
no one likes being hungry, no one likes you when you’re hangry, and no one truly likes looking into the mirror and see themselves slowly turn into an unnourished version of themselves. You deserve to eat even if you didn’t work out, even if you laid in bed all day, even if you didn’t reach your goals, and even if the scale is over a couple pounds than you would like. Give thanks to the body that’s traveled and grown with you since the beginning of your time; you can’t live the life you are meant to live if you’re starving.
with all my love,
♡steff
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