finally, the food post

A note on this post: I've made references to my eating disorder on this blog before but never really explained it. I was reading Shapely Prose today (it was in my head, yet again. God damn I love that blog), namely this post about calories. I was going to explain how I often find myself looking at the calorie content of foods and why that bothered me. And I started trying to explain why I should be loving food now and enjoying it - possibly even more so than most people - and to do so I added some parenthesis to explain. The following is what was in those parenthesis, I've never written about it before and aside from the occasional comment about my "problem with food" I don't really talk about it. My family treat it mostly as a rather awkward joke, now that I'm safely out of the other side and very few of even my closest friends understand much more than "[I] used to be fussy". Take it as you will.

I've had long and torturous struggles with food all my life, it started when I was three years old and continued right into adulthood. I got slightly better at sixteen, around the time I started eating meat but the problem wasn't cured. I just had a slightly wider array of set meals to cycle through. Then, in May of last year, I started eating. Really eating. Not just forcing food down my throat because I had to, or gorging myself on junk because sweets were the only thing that really tasted good but really, truly eating.

I used to have a food phobia, to the extent where if I didn't know, and like, every single ingredient within a dish I would not touch it. That wasn't as simple as it sounds either. The following is a small sample of the foods I did not like

Avocados, any kind of fish, bananas, mushrooms, tomatoes, kiwi fruit, beans, pears, broccoli, lentils, chick peas, sweetcorn, aubergines, courgettes, milk, eggs, brown bread, seafood, cheese that wasn't cheddar, seafood of all varieties, coconut, cherries, coffee, spinach, honey, marrow, melon, squash, leeks, cabbage, yoghurt... That's just the tip of the iceberg and oh yeah, and I was a vegetarian. The presence of any of these items even NEAR something I was meant to be eating rendered it completely untouchable.

But it was more than just that:

I wouldn't eat anything with a texture that wasn't as it should be. Cereal is meant to be crunchy therefore any sogginess whatsoever made it inedible, if I was persuaded to try yoghurt even one lump would make me retch, likewise custard. I couldn't eat icecream if it was even slightly melted and anything with "powdery" texture made me gag - I once didn't eat chips (my staple foodstuff) for two whole months because one had a slightly weird taste.

Even foods I liked weren't safe. A slight bruise on a strawberry would make me feel queasy, once a slice of apple browned it was no good to me (I once sat for nine hours - literally nine, it got dark and everything - at a picnic table while on holiday in France because I refused to eat the last bite of my cheese and apple baguette because the apple in it had browned. Good one Dad, if I wasn't going to eat it then I sure as hell wasn't going to eat it after it had been sitting in front of me for nine fucking hours). Slight charring on anything? Not a chance. It had to be just right, if a meal I loved wasn't served exactly how I was used to it I couldn't eat it. I cannot stress enough here how I'm not talking about wouldn't, I'm talking about actually, physically couldn't.

As you may have guessed forcing me to eat anything I didn't want to lead to me throwing up.

I latched on to any food I liked and would eat it two or three times per day, sometimes for several months, sometimes for a week, until I inexplicably "went off it". There was no rhyme or reason to me "going off" food I just did and nothing, upon nothing could change my mind. My mother, my ever loving long suffering Mother indulged me in this. We ate separate meals anyway (she lived off steamed fish and vegetables for most of my childhood - apparently problems with food run in the family) and it was much easier for her to cook me one of the four (or very occasionally five) meals that I would eat than to battle it out with me. I could happily go without food and an excuse to not eat supper would have actually been welcomed. For several months she baked an uber gooey chocolate fudge cake every single week - complete with fondant icing - because it was the only thing she could get me to eat for breakfast. I was fifteen.

And I got a little better in uni, I could pick bits I didn't like out of my food - or more accurately: pick out the few bits that I did. I developed a few staple dishes for restaurants so that I could always be sure to find something I could order. I hid it well, I managed it.

Food still sucked.

And then a year ago something snapped. It wasn't a gradual change but a sudden switch. I woke up hungover and dazed in the most inappropriate person's home that I possibly could have done. I was at the end of a massive spiral of bad behaviour and self sabotage. I dragged myself into the kitchen and numbly stared at the mug of coffee in front of me, coffee which I did not drink. As he placed the plate of food he'd made in front of me I was faced with my worst nightmare, scrambled eggs, burnt sausages, bacon with the fat left on, brown bread - toasted and charred at the edges and a heap of fried mushrooms glistening with oil. In that moment I had a single thought running through my mind and that thought was "fuck it".

From that day, from that moment I ate everything. I took bites out of things without even looking at them first (while I was digging into a Mediterranean salad in Pizza Express one day last summer my Mother cautiously asked what was on my fork. "I don't know" I replied taking a bite. "It's tasty though." This response brought her to tears), I learnt to cook (which, incidentally I rock at in the most amazing way), I thoroughly enjoy my food.

Which is why I went from a skinny size 8 (US size 4) in college to buying my first pair of size 14 (US 10) jeans last week. And I struggle with it sometimes, longtime readers may remember that at the beginning of this year I went on "a bit of a diet and exercise kick" (read: torture regime), and yeah I lost about 15lbs...by working out for over two hours per day and eating less than 1200 calories. I get obsessive about it - Last November I dropped down to about 800 calories a day. My period stopped, I spent a good two months convinced that I was pregnant and no amount of pregnancy tests could convince me otherwise. My body is not meant to do that. The women in my family are soft, we have curves and round faces and really truly terrible arms. We have boobs and hips and look sodding awful in T shirts. I've started to accept this and, while finding someone who seems to think I'm gorgeous no matter how much I weigh or what I look like in skinny jeans does help, I'm still working on it.

Which is why I get upset with myself when I look at the calorie information on the side of the cheesecake I pick up in the shop, it's why I get pissed with my idiocy when the deciding factor between the duck wrap and the fajita chicken is because the duck has fewer grams of fat (no mayo you see), it's why I hate myself for feeling proud when I wasn't hungry all day. Because my problems with food never, ever, EVER stemmed from my wanting to be thin. Because I had issues and I got over them and now that I can finally enjoy the pleasure I spent almost two decades denying myself I find myself faltering. It's why I read Shapely Prose, and why my copy of The Beauty Myth is dog eared and underlined. I'm still trying to come to terms with all the baggage surrounding the issue but I think, I hope, I'm almost there.

Still, at times like today when I chose the duck wrap, when I considered skipping Naan bread because "I [didn't] really need it", when I feel guilty for having more than one slice of cheesecake because I felt like it I realise just how far I have to go.

on tattoos, beauty and perception

The Boy says:
so welche blog was dem crappy comment?
The Fabulous Miss Odd says:
on mine
The Boy says:
ink and apples?
The Fabulous Miss Odd says:
And I quote:
The Fabulous Miss Odd says:
"I gotta say it. There is nothing more beautiful than a woman's bare back, and there are millions of men who may fall in love with you but will find your artwork revolting. It's a done deal now, but it's a little heartbreaking."
The Boy says:
did u delete it?
The Fabulous Miss Odd says:
No, it's on an old post
The Boy says:
from way back when? why did it upset u then?
The Fabulous Miss Odd says:
http://www.inkandapples.com/2008/04/as-per-your-requests.html
The Fabulous Miss Odd says:
Just cause, it's an issue I've dealt with before. I've been told by male friends that my tattoos pretty much make me hideous
The Boy says:
feh
The Fabulous Miss Odd says:
and it's never nice when someone searches out an old post and leaves a comment to say how sad it is that I've ruined myself
The Boy says:
if someone cannot be arsed to go beyond that then their loss
The Boy says:
heck one day you may get a tattoo I dislike or find aesthetically displeasing but it wont make you hideous ugly or likely to murder babies
The Fabulous Miss Odd says:
hehe
The Boy says:
tho that last point may become necessary to curb the gene pool
The Boy says:
of utter stupidness
The Boy says:
so get a tattoo like that, yeah I like
The Fabulous Miss Odd says:
I was going to say: cause baby murdering totally sounds like something I would do
The Boy says:
but tbh, if you get a tattoo that isnt amazing or that doesnt "work" then.... well it's your choice and peoples ideas of you shouldnt change
The Fabulous Miss Odd says:
exactly
The Boy says:
if someone loses a limb (other END of the scale, i know) does that make them hideous? i doubt it

what I don't understand

Why is it OK for a sixteen-year-old girl to submit herself to anaesthesia, to have her flesh cut and pulled away from the muscle, to have a foreign substance put within the walls of her body, a foreign substance that can be toxic, in order to modify her appearance - to fit in with the Western ideal of physical perfection? How is this desecration of the flesh any different from binding her feet or stretching her lip? If it makes her feel more confident, more at ease in her own skin then we have to ask ourselves why. Why is it that a child, in America still not of an age to be legally able to consent to an adult sexual relationship, should feel the need to cosmetically enlarge a part of her body that is considered a sexual symbol? Why is breast size tied in to her worth as a person? Why can she not be happy with the way she looks until her chest has been cut and stuffed and sewn?

Why is doing that more acceptable than this? Or this?

Is it because it's performed by medical professionals? Because it can look "natural"? Because someone, somewhere said so?

Help me out here.

As to what got me thinking about this: there's an interesting and (dare I say it) almost balanced article trying to understand the motivations behind body modification that was brought to my attention today via needled. Of course any sweeping generalisations concerning tattooing immediately puts my hackles up but this piece made me feel altogether less stabby than usual. It's worth a read.

Oh and if anyone could answer my plastic surgery questions I'd be really grateful. It's bugging me.

breaking news: intelligent and thoughtful news article on dieting, nation keels over in shock

There's a fantastic article in today's G2 called "Losing It". It's an introduction to Kia Cochrane who will be starting a column on weight loss without any diet or exercise tips. Normally I shudder at the thought of any of this "one woman's journey in search of the perfect body" bollocks, and I had my sneering muscles warmed up and at the ready (especially considering the cover proclaims "The Feminist Dieter!" in response to the story) but then I actually started reading the piece. Cochrane is both funny and intensely likable - she's also incredibly honest. She tells how she had always been fairly happy with her weight but then, through a regime of eating "what felt normal, without thinking about it" she managed to put on a lot of weight in a short time.

What normally would follow would be tales of self loathing, a strict work-out regime and a diet of carrots and celery (that helpfully would be provided in a separate supplement decorated with images of a newly svelte Cochrane grinning a glazed and slightly manic "See? You can do this too!" smile) instead the author says the following:

"And you know what? I didn't mind. In fact, as I started to escape the fug I had been in, looked down and noticed my belly, I realised that being fat was kind of cool."

She goes on to explain how being properly "fat" immediately excluded her from the constant comparisons and competitions concerning body weight and dress size that most "normally sized" women are subjected to on a daily basis, conversations that are both understandable in today's society and yet incredibly depressing all at the same time:

"I no longer had to take, or fake, an interest in any of my friends' new diet plans. They simply didn't tell me about them. I was no longer part of that culture that counts calories, compares dress sizes and says, "No carbs after sundown!" as though this is a fabulous motto to live by."

Eventually though the restrictions her weight had put on her, coupled with a family history of heart disease, convinced her to lose some weight; for the health benefits. And, contrary to the majority of articles citing this as a motivator to slim down, Cochrane never talks about herself in the self loathing way that we've come to expect of women embarking on diets or fitness regimes. Throughout the entire piece the reader is given a sense of a self assured (if a little neurotic) woman who is happy with the person that she is. As opposed to the legions of women who state "I'm going to get fit, if I lose weight it'll be a nice bonus" (and I hold up my hand, I was certainly one of them, in fact I may still be guilty of this) she manages to sound sincere in her stance that she admires those who are overweight and obese but still keep fit, and there's no hint of envy in her statement that they are healthier than their "skinny-but-unfit peers".

I recommend that you go and read the article, I'll be keeping up with the columns every other week, I'm hoping that she doesn't disappoint me.

If you don't read the piece the last two paragraphs sum it up perfectly:

"Anyway, hatred of physical jerks or not, hatred of the diet industry or not, hatred of conversations about low-calorie alternatives to cheese or not, by the start of this year I knew that I had to do something about my weight. I knew that this would be difficult for a lot of reasons: said problem with sport; an inability to be told what to do; my psychological association of being thin with being depressed. But I also knew that I was not alone. Though being fat often feels alienating, the reality is that the majority of UK adults are now overweight. This means that there are a lot of people out there like me. People who feel that they should lose weight, but have done so before and seen it all go back on, and then some. People who feel that the diet industry is a vast conspiracy, predicated on failure - after all, if any diet actually worked the whole billion-dollar baby would go bust. People who feel sick at the thought of buying into anything that Gillian McKeith or the countless other preaching, screeching diet "gurus" have to say. A lot of people, then, who know that they have to lose weight, but approach the project with ambivalence.

In writing about my experiences, I won't be including updates on lost kilos (I don't weigh myself). I won't be providing fabulous tips for reducing the size of your behind (what do I know? I just plan to eat less and exercise more). I won't be declaring that Rosemary Conley was right when she said, "Nothing tastes as good as being slim feels!" (Clearly impossible, as ice cream exists.) I won't be providing endless portions of self-loathing, as I don't hate myself - or anyone else - for being fat. I know that many people consider being fat a crime akin to murder. I do not. I shall simply be charting some months in the life of a person who is, at best, reluctant about diets, and, at worst, disgusted by the very notion, but who knows, unfortunately, that something must be done. I warn you: there will be grumpiness."

Absolutely superb. And I can relate: for the first time ever I have given something up for lent. Two things actually, first up: chocolate (I have replaced my daily rations with all manner of other, non cocoa based producs, natch. I'm currently addicted to individual carrot cake bars). Secondly I've given up my scales and I must say that not obsessively weighing myself has done fucking wonders for my psyche.

I'm still exercising, which is some kind of a record as I'm now in my *counts* fifth week of doing it. My super-fit rugby playing flatmate G is very impressed with me and the fact that I seem inclined to keep pushing myself further (I decided yesterday that I need to add weights into one section of my cardio routine to make it more challenging) - he's even using RPG analogies to keep me motivated, apparently continually pushing myself to get fitter is akin to levelling up for the sheer joy of being more badass than everything in the surrounding area. He also reminded me that I'd promised to join a club when I got fitter - level 50 according to him (I really need to stop talking to that boy about my video games). After a club (where I will meet exciting new people and be motivated to go by default) I have to find a sport (if dancing doesn't count I'm screwed) and then apparently I have to get competitive.

Yeah, we'll see how that goes.

Frankly, the fact that I'm still getting my ass off the sofa three plus times per week and actually working out is nothing short of a miracle. We'll see how I feel in another month.

on body image and the rediscovery of feminism

So I'm approaching an important milestone: in 20 days' time I will have been a single girl for one whole year (I obsessively celebrate anniversaries of even the most mundane things, go with it). Now, the ex Mr. TheOdd, while a generally all around bitchin guy (seriously, as drinking buddy material: awesome. As a boyfriend: not so much) was.. how shall we put it: a bit of a chauvinist... actually he was a lot of a chauvinist. He was also one of those freaks who actually exercised for fun, and not the "going running with friends, swimming for relaxation and because my amazingly cute bathing suit makes me look like a bond girl it's high necked with a zip up back and I love it and must wear it at every possible opportunity now what the hell was I talking about again" way but in the "I will lift pound upon pound of steel every single day just to make my naturally wiry physique just that bit more bulgey" kind of a way. He also perpetuated my desire to eat incredibly unhealthily (note: strawberry liquorice and sherbert - not a meal) and that combined with his constant non-understanding about my food issues unintentionally prevented me from making a full recovery from my borderline disorder (Hi, I'm Alex. I used to be dangerously underweight).

So what's the point of all this, and what the hell does it have to do with the title of this post? Well, wade through several more paragraphs of my rambling and I'll tell ya.

I stopped being dangerously thin when I hit about 14. I made halting steps, started eating what normal people would class as "food" and filled out. A bit. No longer scrawny but I was definitely slim, while maintaining one hell of an hourglass figure.

I started eating properly this year. I can actually name the date: it was March 24th. Like most things, it was started by a boy (or maybe I should say "geezer", right 'bama?).

The upshot of this is that now I eat everything in sight; foods that would have made me gag previously are now part of my Sunday morning ritual, I take bites out of things without inspecting them first, I don't hover over someone cooking me food and wrinkle my nose up in disgust when they list the ingredients. I no longer take two bites and then push the of my food around my plate, carefully sculpting it until it looks like an entire meal has been eaten.

I also don't weigh 8 1/2 stone any more, that's 119lbs to those who aren't British. I don't think, in all honesty that I'd want to be that small again - I went down to 112 for a while, around my second break up with the ex Mr. TheOdd (due to a month of vodka replacing food and dancing replacing sleep) and I looked dreadful. People started telling me I'd lost weight with concern in their eyes rather than admiration. But since then I've steadily gained weight taking me to where I am now.

All 5'2" of me, weighing in at 140lbs.

Now personally, I don't think I look that bad, although (in my head) I could stand to be a good 10lbs lighter, if I remained this size forever I'd be far from pissed off. I'm still a UK size 10 (that's a US size 6) but in my head I'll always be "spiritually" super skinny. Although academically I know that many people would kill for my curves I still have that niggling voice in the back of my head telling me I don't look like I "should do". No matter how much I slim down (and I will be half-heartedly attempting to in the coming month or so) I am not built to look like an athletic, long legged skinny chick and a mental makeover is required as well as a physical one. However, due to my past relationship with food, and the fact that in times of stress I slip into highly disordered eating patterns (three meals per day of take-out, or four days of not eating at all) I am very aware that I have to be incredibly vigilant whenever I start any kind of eating plan to make sure I don't slip over the edge.

So this, coupled with my pre-existing interest in the topic led me to reading "Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters: The Frightening New Normalcy of Hating Your Body" written by Courtney E. Martin, one of the regular bloggers over at feministing. The book is well worth a read, if you're interested in the issue. The author is young, and that reflects in her writing style. It's by no means a definitive account and the social methodology is somewhat lacking in places but she's writing from the heart about a subject that's close to her own experience, as a reader you can see what she's trying to do and I really applaud that.

The book also had a surprising effect on me, it rekindled my desire to immerse myself in a pet topic.

I was raised with Feminist beliefs but, due to to my public girl's school education followed by a slightly overpowering ex boyfriend as well as the British college mentality of "don't do or say anything to massively alienate yourself from anyone" (we don't do political activism, it's not our way. The kids who stage demonstrations are generally regarded as a little bit weird and are best avoided), I slowly but surely buried them under a jokey facade of "oh, I've never seen it happening, it's not that important" and bought in to the myths and the rhetoric ("I don't believe in Feminism, I believe in equal rights" which I now consider to be an incredibly damaging sentence). Over the last few months I've been re-educating myself. Reconnecting with my Mother on the subject, having some illuminating conversations with surprising people (the most laid back of my school friends, and generally the most easy going woman that I know looking at me with fire in her eyes and stating that she didn't know "how anyone, in good conscience, could possibly say they aren't a Feminist." I found myself nodding, after all it's just that the majority of my peers don't understand the definition any more) and, probably most importantly for me, reading the literature. It's a scary thing to identify myself with a label like this, and six months ago the idea of "identifying" myself as anything would have been alien to me, the culture I grew up in and the current climate doesn't have a particularly nice view of people who label themselves as anything at all. You can't be just "a person with beliefs" you have to instantly lose your sense of humour, become crusading and have no other interests or past-times. Even those with a particular political alignment are viewed as slightly ab-normal.... but I'm going to ignore this. In fact: I'm reverting. Back to my teenage self who actually cared about things and could muster up more than a disenfranchised "meh" when faced with something she should care about.

But where to start? I have the tendency to become over involved in things, I try to learn everything there is to know about any subject that I am interested in and often become completely overwhelmed with the details. Sometimes the task will be so daunting that I don't even bother to start, missing out, I'm sure, on so very much. So I have to pick an angle, choose a niche that I can fully explore, become comfortable in and then use as a launch pad into other areas.

Because of my past experiences, recent reading material, continuing reading of Jezebel and new and shiny subscription to BUST magazine I've chosen to stick with what I know and go for body image, portrayal of women in the media, obsessions with food... basically this is a warning that I'm going to be fucking insufferable on the subject from now on.

So that's where I stand. It feels good to have something, even something small, to believe in again.

As far as my own personal philosophy concerning my upcoming mini attempt at weight loss goes: I've informed both my flatmate and my Mother what I'm doing. Both are highly (and painfully) familiar with my eating patterns and neither one will fail to call me on my shit should I start being stupid about it (this may seem melodramatic but a couple of months ago I suddenly realised I'd spent the previous two weeks existing on less than 500 calories a day... yeah not healthy and my body wasn't best pleased either. Still karmically it got it's revenge as I then spent 8 weeks completely paranoid that I was pregnant and that every test on the face of the earth was wrong). I'm not doing much: just cutting out alcohol for a month, cutting back on sugar and no longer eating a (couple of) Krispy Kreme doughnut(s) on my way home from work. So actually just being a little bit healthier.

So yeah.