Ice (S)cream
I recently thought of a wild, random, somewhat irrelevant memory I have from college volleyball. Throughout the season we would do certain things to earn a “pocket ice cream” which just meant that our coach owed us ice cream, but we couldn’t just stop practice to go get it (don’t know why). I’m pretty sure we got up to like 10, so essentially there was no room left in her pockets. I’m also pretty sure we never actually got all of them...but that’s besides the point.
I remember one day during off season my sophomore year we got a message that simply had an address and told us we needed to meet there at our scheduled practice time. Naturally, everyone was suspicious and we tried to look up the address, but it just came up as a random building that no one could identify. All of us automatically assumed the worst, and everyone was joking that we were going there to do conditioning. Everyone except me. I was lowkey hoping it was some type of physical activity or conditioning. There was also talk that we might be cashing in one of the infamous pocket ice cream’s that we had saved up, which brought me overwhelming anxiety. In the off chance that this was the case, I began to come up with an alternative workout plan for myself that would take place right after we left the ice cream shop. I was also dead set on either not ordering anything, or just ordering something small and not eating all of it.
Spoiler alert: we ended up getting ice cream, no physical punishment attached. I’ve never compared notes, but I’m almost positive I was the only one on my team upset about how this mystery played out. I realize that this is probably such a weird moment to remember, and in so much detail. I haven’t sat around and thought about this moment since it happened close to 4 years ago, but all it took was one recent experience involving ice cream and volleyball for the flash back to come rushing in.
I don’t remember this because it was such a fun experience with my teammates, because the ice cream was that good, or because I had a day off from working out. I remember it because it was the opposite of all of those things, all of which were self inflicted. It was a moment in my career that was supposed to be fun and lighthearted, but I used it as a way to punish myself by having to “work off” all of the ice cream I ate (which I’m sure wasn’t even that much). Of course I went straight to the field house after so that I could go workout, because I was so caught up in my body and what I thought a day off, or a scoop of ice cream would do to me physically. Truth be told, it harmed me more mentally than any amount of ice cream could have ever done to me physically.
I’m not telling this story to ~scare~ anyone out of eating ice cream. I’m sharing it to show a real life example of how detrimental diet culture, disordered eating, and body dysmorphia truly are. To show how these issues can turn what was supposed to be a fun off day into an anxious spiral filled with self induced punishment. And to try and convey how prevalent these issues are within sports, even though this event had nothing to do with my sport itself.
This isn’t the only time I have ever allowed my disordered eating to ruin a fun time, nor was it the last time I’ve experienced this. I still deal with this type of thinking and have to face similar situations weekly, if not daily. If something possibly gets in the way of my normal eating pattern, or I’m invited somewhere with an unknown or “unhealthy” menu, I am extremely hesitant and have declined such offers multiple times. I’ve missed out on so much in my life because I’ve put my fears of certain foods above everything else.
I’ll be the first to say, it’s hard to get over these ideas and beliefs around food and exercise. It’s hard to stop viewing workouts as a way to “burn off food” or as a means to determine how much food I allow myself to eat. I still fight this way of thinking, but at least now I’m aware of when these thoughts occur. If I could re-live that random spring day in 2017, I would eat multiple scoops of ice cream in the presence of my teammates and best friends. I wouldn’t immediately sneak away to the gym right after either. I wish I could have that simple moment back and experience it the way it should have been, along with many other moments.
Diet culture and disordered eating can take a lot away from you, and can make you feel trapped inside your own mind and body. I couldn’t tell you a single exercise I did in my punishment driven workout that day, which goes to show that it didn’t really matter. What mattered was being present in the moment during our spontaneous ice cream adventure, which I was anything but that. I no longer want to be so caught up in what’s on, or not on, my plate that I’m robbed of fully experiencing the things in life that truly matter.
Ps: If any of my teammates are reading this, I’m ready to cash in the other 9 pocket ice creams when y’all are.