just alisha things

Content Warning – Disordered Eating and Body Image Issues

At a time of celebration and excess, Christmas can be a double edged sword of a holiday for many people. The normalisation of overindulgence paired with the “New Year New Me” culture is a complete minefield for people who struggle with their body image and have an unhealthy relationship with food. So how do you make it through the holiday season in one piece?

Here we go – I’m going in at the deep end for my second blog post. I contemplated whether to write about this or not because while I’m a chronic oversharer in a lot of ways, when it comes to talking about weight and body confidence I’m pretty meek, because it’s where it hits me hard. The idea of writing about my deepest mental struggles with food for everyone to read is extremely daunting, especially for someone usually so private. But, I’m hoping in sharing this that I can find strength from this vulnerability.

~deep breath~

For a lot of my childhood weight wasn’t an issue, which is the way it should be. I was more concerned about my constantly bruised knees and keeping my Nintendogs alive. While I can’t pinpoint the exact shift in my brain regarding my image, I do know that it was when I was about eight years old. My sensitivity regarding my weight heightened ever so slightly and I started to become increasingly aware of how I looked. I was getting heavier and I didn’t know why, and the difference between me and other girls made me feel like it was some sort of punishment. I overheard a boy in my class call me fat once, and while I was maybe nine at the time, I still feel embarrassed thinking about it as a twenty three year old. The sad truth is, my life has been full of these microaggressions that affected me to such an extent that I can recall exactly how they made me feel even now.

In the above photograph I had just turned eight, and despite being so young, this is the first time I remember being self conscious. I am definitely a bit pudgey, and I tried to cover up at every given opportunity. It was a sad feeling, and I felt like a little ugly duckling who drew the short straw in the game of genes.

So began the still ever-present battle in my head. I would seek comfort the only way I knew how as I got older – food. In high school, I would starve myself all day when I was in front of friends, and then binge eat later on when I was the first one home. A classmate I thought was my friend called me fat in dance class once, and all those emotions of feeling like some chubby little freak came flooding back. I wore vests under my school shirts so I didn’t have to bare skin getting changed for PE, I wore Spandex knickers at the grand age of fourteen and I convinced myself that everybody was laughing at me and I was the brunt of the joke. I remember blowing out the candles on my birthday cake when I turned 12 and wishing that I’d become slim.

I spent years lying about my clothing size, wearing baggy clothes to hide under, taking selfies of my face only at the right angles and untagging myself from photos other people had uploaded to Facebook. I’m the first person to tell my friends they’re the most beautiful beings that roam the Earth but I treat myself like I’m the exception to the rule. The thought of going on holiday is terrifying because it means wearing the dreaded bikini, one of the scariest places in the world is the high street changing room and I close the bedroom door when I get dressed so my boyfriend can’t see me naked.

I’ve tried fad diets, I’ve kept a food diary, I’ve drank detox tea like my life depended on it. I joined sports clubs at university and kept to rigorous exercise routines to the point where it made me miserable. I’ve done it all, and it only damaged my relationship with my body more in the process. So eventually, I reached a point where I no longer wanted to be plagued with shame and self loathing. It had taken over my life so much already, and I refused to surrender another year of my life to the little voice in my head telling me I wasn’t good enough – so I tried being a lot kinder to myself.

It’s really not easy, and I have my bad days too. I’m certainly not about to write a self help book on how to love your body. I’m new to this way of thinking and developing new habits along the way. It started with refreshing what content I engage with on a daily basis – I unfollowed the influencers that promote magic weight loss smoothies and followed inspiring women that teach you to embrace your flaws and rolls. Then I started actually taking care of my body by exercising (I say this, I haven’t done a workout since the start of December lol). I’ll be honest, the aim in the beginning was to lose weight, but that diminished over time. I realised I was strong, I was fast, I was actually quite flexible – and only then did I start to appreciate my body and all it is capable of.

So this brings me to Christmas. I’d done well in reprogramming my brain so far, but Christmas is a whole other ballgame. I’ve gone through the ordeal of being at a buffet and feeling like all eyes are on you as you reach for another bundle of Pringles. I’ve picked at the leftovers from the oven in the safe blanket of darkness as if I’m committing a cardinal sin. In a season where overindulgence is so normalised and almost celebrated, it’s easy to beat yourself up for having an extra roast potato or mince pie, and a number of times I felt the all too familiar food guilt creeping back into my conscience. But you swat it away, literally like it’s an annoying fly, and you tell yourself that actually, it’s been a pretty shit year and you do deserve a second helping of pavlova. And for the first time, I will not tell myself “I’ll be good in January” over and over again, because setting myself up for eventual failure only makes the cycle more vicious. It’s almost become customary for January to be a miserable month for me while I try to stick to some mad diet where I nibble on nuts all month as if it’s going to sustain all 6″1 of me. Obviously I won’t be having cheeseboards for lunch and trifle every night when the festivities end, but for now that’s what I want and deserve after making it through the shitheap that’s been 2020. I hope I don’t sound preachy, but to anybody out there that can relate to this even the slightest bit – I’ve been there, you’re not alone, and if I can learn to embrace my chubby belly and stretchmarks then anybody can. It’s time to delete those “progress pictures” and love ourselves for who we are, because our worth runs far deeper than our skin and bones.