Dear Foods,
I will not let you beat me. For years you have ruled me, as I have battled with a toxic, dangerous mix of binge eating disorder, bulimia, and anorexia, though never all three all at once. I blamed it on genes, on the media, on two abusive boyfriends, on many of other boyfriends' infidelities, on how good you taste... but really it's all on me, both the blame and the cure.
You are not a punishment, and you are not a reward. You are something that gives me happiness in my taste buds. You are the fuel to my hard working muscle and my now well conditioned heart. Some of you can prevent cancer and some of you can cause heart disease-both over time. Some of you bolster my immune system, and some of you are an aphrodisiac. Yes, DeMet's chocolate turtles, I admit that if I wait a long time in between eating you, I almost come when I have one. You are the best lover I've ever had. But I will no longer hurt myself with you. I will not deprive myself of you, and I will not use you against me. I will drink all the green tea I want, and I will stuff myself with frozen yogurt (the good expensive kind bursting with probiotics) and ripe strawberries all I fucking want, and I will not feel bad when I want to drink coke or eat a whole fried chicken; I simply won't eat it, except on prescribed cheat days.
To the processed foods... it's not the fat or the sugar (everything has calories and they are not bad. Neither is fat), it's the chemicals. And I will stay away from you for good. I train my body hard up to two hours in the gym six days a week, and I will feed myself accordingly. I will not play with my body's unique processes, and I will never force it into starvation mode again.
Mind over matter, mind over food, and baby if you don't mind then it don't matter... I will eat only what will feed my psyche and the war torn sinew that I tear through every single day and I will post picture upon picture of my strong naked back and my six pack all I want, and that will be award enough for me. I will be in love with myself, and with the life I'm given, instead of with you, Food. You have been a solid companion, giving me comfort and solace when no one else would, and never giving me any shit or trouble really when I forced you back up again when you were just starting to get cozy. You have been a worthy adversary, giving me the evil eye back while I stare at you inside your homey little fridge or cupboard as I push myself another few hours,
one more hour one more hour one more hour!
without eating, but there is always victory for you when our relationship is like that, my friend. Always. Because in the end, need wins out, and I am eating again, gratefully, wondering how in the world I'd ever left you to begin with. Then I catch a glance at my thighs or my belly or whatever body part I hated at the time, and it'd begin again... Maybe it'd take a comment or maybe I didn't get complimented that day, maybe someone shot me a cross look and I thought, spiraling, worrying, "Why did they look at me like that? What's wrong with me? Do I look BAD?" and it began again, always, an endless cycle, until I fell in love with weight training instead, and I left you, former lover, behind.
I will always be fond of you. I will always need you. But our relationship will be healthy now, and I pen this knowing it is true, because I have no negative feelings toward you. I am armed only with the reality of knowing that indeed I do need you, but not to reward myself or punish myself for the short comings I was born with anyway. I wasn't comfortable at first, talking to you, regarding you again. I shut you away somewhere like a dirty secret, inside my subconscious, saved like a cookie for later, but I've lost ten pounds and I don't care. I'm a size two and I don't care. I can lift 65 pounds from behind my head and clear over it with no difficulty, no noise, and I do care about that, because that's all me. I worked for that. And I know now that I can't successfully work away from you for long without dying... I no longer wish to die. I wish to live. My zest for life has set me free, and I guess I should thank you for teaching me what it is to want to die, to be ungrateful, for it is a good lesson to learn what it is to be nothing. But now I am everything, and I am free.
And hungry.
Ever your humble servant and friend,
Brittany
