My Journey With Food – From a Dark Place to a Peaceful Coexistence

I grew up in a home where what we now consider to be healthy eating would have been considered strange and even lacking. Vegetarian, gluten-free, natural, organic, meat substitutes, low fat or reduced sodium foods were mostly unheard of and certainly not popular. As the youngest of five children of an orthodox Rabbi and Rebbetzin, I did not realize until adolescence that there was something wrong with the way we were eating. My father was very overweight and unhealthy. He had heart problems and eventually developed adult-onset diabetes. As a young child, overindulgence in sweets (my mother’s homemade goodies were so good!) did not affect me that much. When I reached middle school, however, I realized that I weighed a lot more than many of my classmates and I did not feel good about myself. Compounded by the examples I saw in the media and promoted by the fashion industry, I knew I had to do something. I did not know then that this would be the beginning of a crazy roller coaster ride of emotions revolving around food, size, body image, and feelings of self-worth.

At the age of twelve, I discovered an article in Ladies’ Home Journal about a 1,000 calorie-a-day diet where you would eat five snacks a day that were 200 calories each. Sounded simple, right? Although not the right choice for someone who is still growing, I embraced this concept and severely cut down my calories. I often overestimated the calorie count and ate less. I also started doing some home exercises like toe touches and sit-ups in the morning and at night. I lost a lot of weight, but I didn’t feel very energetic. I would get tired easily and I lacked energy for most activities. I felt threatened around a lot of food and no number of attempts to persuade me that I did not have to starve myself could convince me that this was not the right course of action for me. Unfortunately, I did not realize that I was preventing myself from important aspects of growth. I did not get my period until age 19 and I did not need a bra until I was about 15.

There were times when the pressure to lose weight overwhelmed me and I ended up overindulging and binge eating, and then getting sick. I tried other diets, including the Stillman diet, where one eats only protein. This did not last too long for me, and I eventually switched to Weight Watchers, a much healthier choice. However, I did not do well with the rules of the program and constantly feared the weekly

weigh-ins. I was not a happy person and food was no longer enjoyable to me.

Over the years, the cycle continued with following a weight loss program and feeling good about myself, then having a difficult experience which led me to binge eating, and then getting sick and starting the cycle all over again. The binge eating became more frequent as I dealt with many challenges through being a teenager and a young adult. Food, especially sweets, became a drug to turn to whenever I felt upset or frustrated. The slightest incident where I felt uncomfortable with something someone said or did, or when I could not pass up a certain food, or something unexpected happened, could all become triggers for me to go on an eating binge and become more depressed. What I did not realize at the time was that these incidents and challenges were a normal part of life and not something that should dictate my eating habits and my self-image. My personal life was a bumpy ride, like it is for so many others. Often, we don’t realize that a lot of people struggle just like we do, and we are not alone.  One of the biggest triggers of my eating binges was the feeling that I was the only one who did not fit in and who had personal challenges in life.

Fast forward to my getting married and having two kids. Something happened that helped me to change my mindset about food and find peace with eating. I found a job teaching at-risk young adults at Job Corps. The week I started the job, there was staff training. One of our sessions was with a substance abuse counselor who helped the Job Corps students with their addictions. He said something that set off a “light bulb moment” in my head. I am sure he had no way of knowing its impact, nor did anyone else. He made a comment that many of the students do not realize that their bodies cannot handle the level of alcohol and drugs they are taking and injecting. I suddenly realized that this applied to my food intake. Controlling what I ate was not about pressure to conform to fashion standards, be a slim image or anything else that was what others expected of me. It was about what was healthy and what my body could handle. My body couldn’t handle excessive amounts of food at one time. Binge eating needed to stop in order for me to function. Once the focus was about me and not about others, controlling what I ate was no longer a struggle but rather a conscious choice on my part. 

I decided that I could allow myself to have the