Zoe vs. Dough
Not too long ago I saw a post that challenged the reader to reflect on personal experiences and identify when/how they developed the relationship with food that they have. I decided to play along, because it sounded like a good exercise to help me better understand myself. The first recollection I had from my own life was about donuts (hence the dad joke of a title). I used to eat donuts all the time, donut holes were my favorite, but I loved all the kinds. Then one day I heard that “you have to run 3 miles to burn off one donut”......and I have never looked at a donut the same way. I honestly don’t know that I can say I’ve eaten a whole donut since then. I also somehow learned that one donut hole has 52 calories, so you can bet I put those on my list of foods I wouldn’t be touching.
Did I stop eating donuts because I all of a sudden didn’t enjoy the way they tasted? Absolutely not. I stopped eating them because I now viewed them as a “bad” food, and they were off limits to me in every form of dough. I’d love to say that I eat donuts guilt free now, that I even have them for breakfast, and I don’t get anxiety when someone talks about them. But that would all be a lie. The difference is that now I am aware of how and why I feel the way I do about them, and I don’t fear them as much as I used to. I wish that I were able to eat a whole donut right now and not think about it for the rest of the day, but that’s not where I am currently at. Hopefully one day I’ll be able to eat a dozen donut holes with the same joy that I used to feel when my sister and I would eat them, while my mom forced us to go to garage sales on Saturday mornings.
There are other foods that are on my hit list, and I have genuinely talked myself into thinking I don’t like these foods. If I am craving one of these items, I will overthink it and end up talking myself out of it, which only makes me want it even more. Throughout my life I have engrained the nutritional value of certain foods into by head, and it takes up so much space in my brain that I would like to use for other things, but I cannot seem to free up. I don’t want to know these silly numbers and think about them every time I make a food related decision, but it’s like I can’t turn it off. Restricting foods can eventually end in a binge once I do get ahold of these foods, and it ends up worse for me mentally than if I would have simply allowed myself to eat it to begin with. It’s a vicious cycle.
The mindset that we even have to “burn off what we eat” is absurd. We literally need to consume food to live. Calories provide energy, and we need them whether we are running a marathon or laying in bed watching The Office for the 7th time. I struggle with feeling like I need to “earn food,” and it makes me sad that I have fallen into the trap of thinking this way. On rest days, or whenever I don’t work out as hard or long as I think I should have, I often equate it to food. The harder I work, the more food I feel like I deserve to eat, and vice versa. I am doing my best to retrain my mind out of viewing food as a reward for my physical performance. I am all for eating healthfully and knowing your limits on portions of certain foods, but this can become unhealthy if you allow it to control your life. One of the most toxic things I’ve ever done to myself is labeling foods as “good” or “bad.” Food literally cannot be either of those things, and it’s just a silly phrase created by diet culture. If you are someone who has similar uneasy feelings towards what you allow yourself to eat, I encourage you to do the exercise I mentioned at the beginning, where you reflect on your past and try to better understand the connection between your mind and your relationship with food. It won’t completely heal you, but it’s a pretty good place to begin the process.