My Super Personal Health Journey

I have a confession:

I’m kind of nervous. I’ve been wanting to write this post for months, but I’ve been putting it off (because let’s be real–who wants everyone to know about their personal struggles? Uh, not me.) If I could, I’d paint myself as this know-it-all mighty health guru. You know: “Be quiet and eat your quinoa, or no chocolate avocado pudding for you.”

But really, I’m still learning. I’m not an expert. I’m just someone who is very passionate about healthy eating, and, more importantly, developing a healthy mindset around food. That’s actually why this blog is called The Nourished Mind. Because to be honest, I think that how you think about food is sometimes more important than what you’re actually eating. I know, in my About Me section, I talk a little about my experience with food and what brought me to Holistic Nutrition, but I don’t really talk about my food philosophy or really address disordered eating. So today, I thought I’d share a little more of how I’ve struggled with my relationship with food, and how it looks today. I hope this is helpful for those of you that have (or still do) struggle with food, and I hope it allows you to relate to me a little better!

THE BEGINNING

The first time I thought I was fat was in the sixth grade. I’m serious. I started doing nightly crunches before bed (100 every night) to help tone my totally healthy 11 year old body, and this habit was something that stuck with me for more than 7 years. (Usually, it was something I’d do while watching 8 Simple Rules or Hannah Montana).

I had always been a “healthy” eater: my favourite snack was a tortilla wrap with peanut butter, apples and cinnamon, and I craved vegetables the way people craved cookies. At 13, I had a little recipe box filled with cue cards to make foods that basically required no cooking, but were generally healthy.

HIGHSCHOOL

The 9th grade for me sucked. A lot. I had switched schools, and suddenly had no friends. I was still self-conscious about my weight (which again, was a healthy weight), but now I was self-conscious about fitting in. At my high school, brand names were a big deal, and I didn’t have the money to own an iPod, or wear Hollister. Everything I owned had come from Stitches or Sirens. I felt less than. I was also battling with my sexuality, which made me feel isolated, secretive and dirty. I wanted so desperately to be normal. In that pursuit, I lost my virginity, when I was 16–just like that, to a University student I barely knew–who later sexually assaulted me. I couldn’t tell my parents, and for a long time, I couldn’t tell my friends. And from that shame, came another dirty secret: bulimia.

For more than 4 years I struggled with bulimia. Now sometimes I could go months and be fine, but then there would be weeks where I would just eat and eat and eat, and purge and purge and purge. It was awful. It made me loathe myself all the more. If you didn’t already know, with bulimia, often you tend to gain weight because of the large amounts of food you’re taking in (even though you’re making yourself sick). So I started to gain weight. Again, I wasn’t fat. But I looked puffy, and I hated it.

This made me more self-conscious, and it also made me incredibly distrustful: I couldn’t trust my body. I was always hungry, and yet I was gaining weight. I was crushing on girls and desperately trying to hide it. I felt betrayed and angry with myself. It led me down a really destructive path of binge drinking, sleeping around, eating entire boxes of cookies/muffins/cheesecakes in one sitting and then purging it. I hated myself. Sometimes I would see a bad idea, and that knowledge alone told me to do it. I was so sick: my digestion, naturally, was completely out of whack. I was bloated, tired, I had candida. I felt awful, I had depression. I was eating “low-fat” and I was starving. Really, I was utterly unhappy.

THE CHANGE

When I turned 18, I did something magical: I got off birth control. This one thing, changed my mood so drastically. I stopped crying at my locker every day. I started smiling. From there, I discovered the world of Paleo eating, in an attempt to deal with major digestive problems I was having. I cut out gluten. I dropped 15 pounds.  By the time I went off to University, I was thinner and excited to get out of the small city I grew up in. 

For me, Paleo helped me control my bulimia. If I had to guess, it’s probably because the lack of carbs caused me to lose weight and stop feeling bloated, and the fat intake let me finally feel full and satisfied. This was amazing for me.

But it didn’t solve all my problems–I was still distrustful. While my diet helped changed my physical symptoms, I wasn’t doing anything to address my mental health, which also needed healing. I took the same “good food vs bad food” eating approach and just applied it to a whole foods philosophy. So I remained really restrictive. I refused to eat carbs and for 4 years (cause apparently I work in 4 year cycles) I didn’t eat foods like oatmeal or bananas. I ate a lot of bacon and eggs though. And coffee. And I smoked. But everyone told me I looked thin, and that was a great motivator for me to keep trucking along. 

The problem is, the more I learnt about healthy eating, the less I would eat.  Suddenly, I couldn’t eat fish because of the mercury, or my apples because they weren’t organic, or carbs because I’d gain weight. I started to fear my food. I couldn’t eat anything because I was convinced I’d get sick and die. I became really paranoid: I was at the doctor’s office every other month to get tested for every disease under the sun. I called my mom every day crying that I was sick. I didn’t know what to do. So I drank more coffee, and started just eating peanut butter. Not even organic, natural peanut butter. I ate plain Kraft Peanut Butter because it had a long shelf life so I couldn’t get food poisoning, and I only needed to eat a few bites to feel full. I did that for months. And then I developed a sensitivity to peanuts, broke out into hives, and had a real melt down.

Brutal. At that point a couple things needed to change. And they did:

1. I went to a Cognitive Behavioural Therapist to help me relearn behaviours around food.
2. I came out.
3. I dropped out of school to go the Canadian School of Natural Nutrition.
4. I moved back home.

These didn’t all happen at once. And it certainly was not an easy transition. But every step made me a little more comfortable with food. I started to let go of this idea of perfection. I stopped forcing myself to eat any which way. I started to get curious about food. I ate bananas again, and then beans and legumes. And baked goods. And clams. And foods I never thought I would like, I wanted to try them!

Eating healthy was still a huge priority for me–I love filling my body with wholesome, nourishing foods. But healing my body didn’t just mean fixing my diet. What I really needed was a dose of self-love. The more I accepted myself, and stopped following the plan I thought everyone wanted me to take, the more at ease I was in my own skin. When I eat a piece of cake now (still gluten-free, mind you), I really enjoy it. That’s not to say everything is all sunshine and rainbows. When I get stressed out, about work or money or my relationships, my anxiety around food starts to rear its head. Because I still have anxiety. And this is how my anxiety manifests itself. So when I stop taking care of myself, and my needs, I still feel it.

But now, unlike before, I love food. I have a sense of adventure, and playfulness and joy around food. I use food as a tool to nourish my body and my spirit. Too woo-woo for you? It’s okay. I just want to show that being healthy isn’t just about your diet. It goes so much deeper than that.

So maybe after hearing this, you think, uh, why would I want to take health advice from someone who has had so many problems with food? Totally fair question. And the answer is: because I’ve been there. I know what the struggles are. I know how it feels to hate your body and to hate the food on your plate. And I also know what it feels like to move past that. The freedom you get when you heal that relationship and break down those barriers that keep you feeling trapped. Eating to lose weight is totally fine, but not if it comes at the expense of your well-being. I know it’s uber cheesy, but love should come first. It may not be an easy journey, but it is oh so worth it.

I know this has been a long story, and a messy one at that, but the experience has been truly life changing. My anxiety is still there, but now I can manage it, and I can address it–which means I can continue to eat real food, instead of a jar of processed peanut butter. You’ll find that I don’t really fit in to any one diet–I eat a little bit of everything, and I feel good about that. It’s been about 5 years since I last made myself throw up. I can’t remember the last time I weighed myself. My digestion is great, my anxiety is manageable, and I feel so connected to my own body.

I hope that my story can be one of hope: you don’t have to dread eating, or hate yourself for over eating. And also, I hope it brings awareness that although I post a lot of healthy foods on my Instagram and Facebook, that’s not always how I eat–it’s a single snap of a moment of my life. I like to showcase the lattes and baked goods also, because I eat those things. I mean, you only live once, and I, personally, don’t want to live in a world without cupcakes.

And that’s how I want you to feel. I want you to know enough to make healthier choices, and also to love yourself even when you’re eating a chocolate cupcake or drinking a few glasses of wine. Health is not a one size fits all (thank goodness).

Thank you for taking the time to read this. I’d love to hear your thoughts or your journeys when it comes to healthy eating. Please share in the comments or send me an email at tisha@thenourishedmind.ca !

With love,