As the country marks National Eating Disorder Awareness Week Feb. 1 - 7, I have to admit it was something I struggled with for about 10 years.
I always loved food and was a scrawny kid. I never worried about what I ate, only about how I was going to eat more.
Then overnight it seemed I developed curves. Puberty does that to girls. I would pile on layers of clothes because I felt fat.
My well-meaning mom — who had joined Weight Watchers after she stopped having children to “learn how to eat properly” — told me I was probably going to be like her and would have to watch what I ate.
Unfortunately after that a little voice started nagging at me and as a result my eating habits involved either a feast or a famine.
Often my school notebooks had calorie count lists. I’d write: tea with milk, 25 calories, peanut butter on a carrot, 200 calories.
It got to a point where I limited my food intake to less than 1,000 calories a day.
I can remember drawing cartoons, depicting myself as suffering from too much fat on my thighs. Self-deprecation was the norm.
The summer I turned 20, I discovered the Scarsdale Diet through a friend.
Ideally people went on it for two weeks, but when 10 pounds peeled off, I kept it up for two years. I didn’t even allow myself the toast you could have with breakfast.
And because you could eat all the carrots and celery you wanted, I did just that.
Every third day I’d pop into the corner store by our apartment block and purchase another five-pound bag of carrots.
One Christmas when I was home visiting, my dad pulled me aside and asked if I’d started smoking.
When I said “no,” and asked why he thought that, he told me I was pretty thin and my hands were orange.
Looking down I realized they were quite orange.
I chuckled and told him I was eating a lot of carrots, but inside I was horrified.
I continued to struggle with eating until I met my future mother-in-law.
When she noticed that I only ate vegetables and protein she encouraged me to eat from all the food groups.
“Just don’t ever leave the table feeling stuffed,” she suggested.
Luckily her approach worked and I began to enjoy all foods without worrying about it and have been able to ever since.
Recently I heard an interview where a Vancouver pastry chef said that in France woman never apologize for eating pastries.
I sure hope their daughters are listening.
Monica Lamb-Yorski is a staff writer with the Tribune/Weekend Advisor.