A Weighty subject matter
(Here's a trigger warning by the way.... lots of talking about weight, depression, problems with food, ect.... so if this might upset you or trigger an issue you have with those topics there here's your warning, read with your own discretion)
It a question that I have heard a million times in my life and will probably hear a million times again until I die.... "Have you lost weight?"
Usually this question is seen as a compliment and 99% of the time when it has been asked to me, I've taken it as a compliment because in a lot of respects, I'm glad people have noticed that I've lost weight.
But the other day, upon a conversation that I had with my housemate, I really began to think about that sentence and actually sometimes, that's the last thing I want to hear, to fully explain myself... I need to think about my relationship that I've had with food.
I've always come from a family of foodies, one of my earliest memories of eating ice cream whilst crabbing at Dartmouth harbor is related to food. Family events such as birthdays would be celebrated at a Chinese restaurant that was near my Grandad's house, we would all sit in a circle with cigarette smoke circling around our heads like halo's (obviously did wonders for my asthma) and being severed huge amounts of food on hot plates and at the age of ten I could happy eat a mountain of lemon chicken and prawn toast, followed by a huge slice of cake; it's safe to say... my eyes were bigger than my stomach,
Despite being able to eat huge amounts of food though, we rarely ate junk food, my mum or dad would pretty much cook every single night and they would be healthy, balanced meals and we would hardly ever eat in front of the TV, my mum was pretty strict on not having fizzy drinks at dinner and making sure we had three balanced meals everyday.
However, I was always still... large.
I was always the fat kid with the asthma pump in my class at school and weight ballooned further after I tore my ligament on holiday meaning I had to stop ballet dancing (it also means now I can't actually run very far until I'm in pain and I now walk with a limp).
A combination of being behind academically at school due to my dyslexia, begin picked on for my green glasses and weight made me feel like utter shit and to be brutally honest, a complete and utter freak... I wasn't normal and I never would be. I remember rehearsing for a school play and a boy in my year saying "don't come near me, you'll squish me to death... the only way you'll be an actress is for comedies... where they'll laugh at you cause you're fat," I still think about that comment before I go into auditions, when I'm doing my work and when I'm reading through scripts.
I'd sneak food at home when my mum wasn't looking, I'd gorge on biscuits and crisps because in a weird way... the fuller I felt, the better I felt despite knowing that I would gain weight in the process.
The puberty happened and I became fatter, spots appeared everywhere and suddenly more weight was added in the form of boobs... oh god; I would look down at my short and stumpy frame and see fat upon fat upon fat, girls in my year would comment on how tall and skinny (and fit) my older brother was and saying they didn't know how we were related because "your frames are completely different.." add two deaths happening on both sides of my family combined with falling grades and more hormones lead to me getting two lunches at school and chips on the way home, followed by toast and then dinner. My weight grew and grew and grew until I was basically a balloon.
My weight would be a topic of arguments with my family many a time despite knowing that it was coming from a good place, eventually I would agree to go to the gym and then stopped going after two GROWN WOMEN laughed at me on the treadmill and said that they hated it when fat people used the gym and pointed at me.
Basically by the age of 16 I concluded that I was fat, disgusting and unlovable and I would always be fat, disgusting and unlovable and I basically had no redeemable qualities as a human.
Even though my friends would say I'm beautiful as I was and that everyone is different... I was utterly convinced that they we're lying, no one wants to date a fat girl unless they're feeling sorry for them.
Fast forward about a year later and I start therapy, I sit down on an ikea chair surrounded by pillows and fairy lights, the room smells of fresh linen which I can only assume is from an air freshener.
The therapist goes through the list of risks and if I want to change therapist that's all right, she then gently asks "what can I help you with Eleanor?"
My mind races and it takes a good two minutes to string a proper sentence together:
"I hate everything about myself, there isn't one redeemable part of me,"
And thus began a long process of pulling apart everything to examine why I felt like that, weight was obviously, for want of a better word, a big part of it. At the same time, my family announce that we were going to Florida for two weeks during the summer, which made me feel sick as I knew that meant... swimming costumes and no tights.
A combination of both panic and healing made me decide that I was going to loose weight, healthy and properly, in my own time and my goal wasn't to be stick thin.
To cut a long story short, I lost loads of weight, felt a bit better, had an amazing holiday where I ate all the food I wanted and finally finished therapy; usually this is where the story would end, I would of maintained my healthy weight, mental illness would go away and I would only ever have a few bad days but that's not the case.
I struggled to keep the weight off when the rose tinted glasses had to come off, I would binge eat after a bad day at school or have no appetite at all but still eat and then some of the time, throw it up because I didn't want to digest it at fear of weight gain.
By the time I started my first year at uni, I was desperately trying to keep the weight off. Not being cooked for or sitting with family and eating meant that I could eat or not eat and no one would tell me off for it, in the first week one of my flatmates (who funnily enough I avoided after he said this) turned round in the kitchen and said "How much do you actually need to eat?" after I started to have some fruit after a bowl of soup.
I basically stopped eating or ate and threw it up, smoked or drank instead of eating and lost loads of weight; when I came home for the first time, people remarked that I looked great because I lost weight and how much healthier I looked, but the truth of the matter... I was completely and utterly destroyed inside, I thought I looked morbidly obese, I wanted to rip out of my body, I felt like I was trapped inside a shell and I felt alien like; I remember writing down in a diary that "I want to cut all the fat out of my body, I want to slice my stomach open and watch all of the fat fall out in a pile." In a world where one minute I was begin told that you are beautiful as you are and then the next minute that I was disgusting because I was a size 14/16 would constantly confuse me.
I didn't realize how sick I was until I ended up in hospital; my weight rocked up again and I was told by a few people that I looked fat, tired and bloated, which is always encouraging; when the summer rolled around I wanted to stay in and cry instead go outside and enjoy myself.
My dad encouraged me to go back to a gym or go swimming and I honestly (sorry dad...) "fuck off, I know I'm fat, I'll go in and some bikini body blonde bitch will tell me that I'm fat and I need to eat 500 calories a day and how I'm a disgusting pig... done that, please just leave me to rot and die, no one needs to see my fucking horrid self attempting to loose weight, it's just a pity party."
Nevertheless, I went and actually... the personal trainer was not a bikini body bitch but a normal healthy weight, brutally honest, funny and acknowledged the fact I hate exercise and that I'm extremely awkward and that it would be really difficult for me to turn up and use the equipment. She put me on a high intensity work out that meant I burnt calories quickly in short bursts so I would only spend an hour in the gym. My best mate Summer also would come swimming with me in the morning instead of going to Starbucks which made it easier to go as I wasn't on my own and it was a crutch of support I didn't know I needed.
I went on holiday with a group of close mates and we went swimming and whilst I hadn't lost loads of weight, I felt alright for the first time in ages and I walked out to the lake where we went to swim and they said I looked really, really happy... for the first time in years and that was music to my ears.
I'm trying to go to the gym at least for half an hour and doing half cardio and half weights or if I can't do that, then some yoga but if I don't do anything, that's fine as well because I'm not a machine and I do need to rest.
I'm also trying to adjust my relationship with food, not beating myself if I eat too much one day, using an app to help me balance out my meals without restricting my calorie intake and keeping it at 2000 calories a day, it help's me think about where the calories are coming from and what will sustain me longer, meaning I can figure out as well when I can treat myself (the most important part of my diet!)
The trickiest part will always be accepting the shape, form and build that I have; I can change parts but not all of it and that's alright because everybody build, shape and form is different and that is what makes us unique; I also I have to accept the fact that I have stretchmarks from growing, constant weight gain and weight loss, scars from battles with depression and anxiety and that's also alright because, as cliche as it sounds, they have stories behind each one... maybe one day they'll fade, maybe one day I'll cover them with a tattoo and everyday I cover them with clothes but they will always be on there and they are as much a part of my as my eyes and nose; a quote that I like to relate to all of this paragraph is from the ever so fabulous Alyssa Edwards "It's not about winning the battle but it's about slaying the war,"
My weights gone up and down and it will, but as my lovely housemate Shona (who has the most amazing Instagram about health and weightlifting: Blunderwoman96) said to me in the kitchen over tea the other day.
"It's not about being skinny, its about being strong, its about asking yourself Are you happy? Are you exercising for YOUR own benefit because YOU want to do it? It's not about a bikini body, its about being strong, its about being healthy and not dropping dead of a heart attack at the age of 50; its about eating what you want and exercising because you want to, its not for anyone else."
And you know what? She's right.... I'm not thin nor will I ever be, I won't be a Victoria secret's model nor will I ever be a body builder or a marathon runner, but can I be healthy and still eat a pizza? Yeah, I can. I can do yoga and hold poses for longer that a minute without shaking but I don't have a Instagram yoga body and that's cool. I will never look like the dancer from the Kayne West Fade video bouncing about, all hot and sweaty, when I go to the gym in fact I will look like an ice cube on a hot day... melting, but I'm there and I'm doing stuff I like and if you have an issue with that, then you need to fuck off, because your snobbery to a big girl sat on the bike is not my bloody problem.
Now excuse me whilst I go and have my cake and eat it.
It a question that I have heard a million times in my life and will probably hear a million times again until I die.... "Have you lost weight?"
Usually this question is seen as a compliment and 99% of the time when it has been asked to me, I've taken it as a compliment because in a lot of respects, I'm glad people have noticed that I've lost weight.
But the other day, upon a conversation that I had with my housemate, I really began to think about that sentence and actually sometimes, that's the last thing I want to hear, to fully explain myself... I need to think about my relationship that I've had with food.
I've always come from a family of foodies, one of my earliest memories of eating ice cream whilst crabbing at Dartmouth harbor is related to food. Family events such as birthdays would be celebrated at a Chinese restaurant that was near my Grandad's house, we would all sit in a circle with cigarette smoke circling around our heads like halo's (obviously did wonders for my asthma) and being severed huge amounts of food on hot plates and at the age of ten I could happy eat a mountain of lemon chicken and prawn toast, followed by a huge slice of cake; it's safe to say... my eyes were bigger than my stomach,
Despite being able to eat huge amounts of food though, we rarely ate junk food, my mum or dad would pretty much cook every single night and they would be healthy, balanced meals and we would hardly ever eat in front of the TV, my mum was pretty strict on not having fizzy drinks at dinner and making sure we had three balanced meals everyday.
However, I was always still... large.
I was always the fat kid with the asthma pump in my class at school and weight ballooned further after I tore my ligament on holiday meaning I had to stop ballet dancing (it also means now I can't actually run very far until I'm in pain and I now walk with a limp).
A combination of being behind academically at school due to my dyslexia, begin picked on for my green glasses and weight made me feel like utter shit and to be brutally honest, a complete and utter freak... I wasn't normal and I never would be. I remember rehearsing for a school play and a boy in my year saying "don't come near me, you'll squish me to death... the only way you'll be an actress is for comedies... where they'll laugh at you cause you're fat," I still think about that comment before I go into auditions, when I'm doing my work and when I'm reading through scripts.
I'd sneak food at home when my mum wasn't looking, I'd gorge on biscuits and crisps because in a weird way... the fuller I felt, the better I felt despite knowing that I would gain weight in the process.
The puberty happened and I became fatter, spots appeared everywhere and suddenly more weight was added in the form of boobs... oh god; I would look down at my short and stumpy frame and see fat upon fat upon fat, girls in my year would comment on how tall and skinny (and fit) my older brother was and saying they didn't know how we were related because "your frames are completely different.." add two deaths happening on both sides of my family combined with falling grades and more hormones lead to me getting two lunches at school and chips on the way home, followed by toast and then dinner. My weight grew and grew and grew until I was basically a balloon.
My weight would be a topic of arguments with my family many a time despite knowing that it was coming from a good place, eventually I would agree to go to the gym and then stopped going after two GROWN WOMEN laughed at me on the treadmill and said that they hated it when fat people used the gym and pointed at me.
Basically by the age of 16 I concluded that I was fat, disgusting and unlovable and I would always be fat, disgusting and unlovable and I basically had no redeemable qualities as a human.
Even though my friends would say I'm beautiful as I was and that everyone is different... I was utterly convinced that they we're lying, no one wants to date a fat girl unless they're feeling sorry for them.
Fast forward about a year later and I start therapy, I sit down on an ikea chair surrounded by pillows and fairy lights, the room smells of fresh linen which I can only assume is from an air freshener.
The therapist goes through the list of risks and if I want to change therapist that's all right, she then gently asks "what can I help you with Eleanor?"
My mind races and it takes a good two minutes to string a proper sentence together:
"I hate everything about myself, there isn't one redeemable part of me,"
And thus began a long process of pulling apart everything to examine why I felt like that, weight was obviously, for want of a better word, a big part of it. At the same time, my family announce that we were going to Florida for two weeks during the summer, which made me feel sick as I knew that meant... swimming costumes and no tights.
A combination of both panic and healing made me decide that I was going to loose weight, healthy and properly, in my own time and my goal wasn't to be stick thin.
To cut a long story short, I lost loads of weight, felt a bit better, had an amazing holiday where I ate all the food I wanted and finally finished therapy; usually this is where the story would end, I would of maintained my healthy weight, mental illness would go away and I would only ever have a few bad days but that's not the case.
I struggled to keep the weight off when the rose tinted glasses had to come off, I would binge eat after a bad day at school or have no appetite at all but still eat and then some of the time, throw it up because I didn't want to digest it at fear of weight gain.
By the time I started my first year at uni, I was desperately trying to keep the weight off. Not being cooked for or sitting with family and eating meant that I could eat or not eat and no one would tell me off for it, in the first week one of my flatmates (who funnily enough I avoided after he said this) turned round in the kitchen and said "How much do you actually need to eat?" after I started to have some fruit after a bowl of soup.
I basically stopped eating or ate and threw it up, smoked or drank instead of eating and lost loads of weight; when I came home for the first time, people remarked that I looked great because I lost weight and how much healthier I looked, but the truth of the matter... I was completely and utterly destroyed inside, I thought I looked morbidly obese, I wanted to rip out of my body, I felt like I was trapped inside a shell and I felt alien like; I remember writing down in a diary that "I want to cut all the fat out of my body, I want to slice my stomach open and watch all of the fat fall out in a pile." In a world where one minute I was begin told that you are beautiful as you are and then the next minute that I was disgusting because I was a size 14/16 would constantly confuse me.
I didn't realize how sick I was until I ended up in hospital; my weight rocked up again and I was told by a few people that I looked fat, tired and bloated, which is always encouraging; when the summer rolled around I wanted to stay in and cry instead go outside and enjoy myself.
My dad encouraged me to go back to a gym or go swimming and I honestly (sorry dad...) "fuck off, I know I'm fat, I'll go in and some bikini body blonde bitch will tell me that I'm fat and I need to eat 500 calories a day and how I'm a disgusting pig... done that, please just leave me to rot and die, no one needs to see my fucking horrid self attempting to loose weight, it's just a pity party."
Nevertheless, I went and actually... the personal trainer was not a bikini body bitch but a normal healthy weight, brutally honest, funny and acknowledged the fact I hate exercise and that I'm extremely awkward and that it would be really difficult for me to turn up and use the equipment. She put me on a high intensity work out that meant I burnt calories quickly in short bursts so I would only spend an hour in the gym. My best mate Summer also would come swimming with me in the morning instead of going to Starbucks which made it easier to go as I wasn't on my own and it was a crutch of support I didn't know I needed.
I went on holiday with a group of close mates and we went swimming and whilst I hadn't lost loads of weight, I felt alright for the first time in ages and I walked out to the lake where we went to swim and they said I looked really, really happy... for the first time in years and that was music to my ears.
I'm trying to go to the gym at least for half an hour and doing half cardio and half weights or if I can't do that, then some yoga but if I don't do anything, that's fine as well because I'm not a machine and I do need to rest.
I'm also trying to adjust my relationship with food, not beating myself if I eat too much one day, using an app to help me balance out my meals without restricting my calorie intake and keeping it at 2000 calories a day, it help's me think about where the calories are coming from and what will sustain me longer, meaning I can figure out as well when I can treat myself (the most important part of my diet!)
The trickiest part will always be accepting the shape, form and build that I have; I can change parts but not all of it and that's alright because everybody build, shape and form is different and that is what makes us unique; I also I have to accept the fact that I have stretchmarks from growing, constant weight gain and weight loss, scars from battles with depression and anxiety and that's also alright because, as cliche as it sounds, they have stories behind each one... maybe one day they'll fade, maybe one day I'll cover them with a tattoo and everyday I cover them with clothes but they will always be on there and they are as much a part of my as my eyes and nose; a quote that I like to relate to all of this paragraph is from the ever so fabulous Alyssa Edwards "It's not about winning the battle but it's about slaying the war,"
My weights gone up and down and it will, but as my lovely housemate Shona (who has the most amazing Instagram about health and weightlifting: Blunderwoman96) said to me in the kitchen over tea the other day.
"It's not about being skinny, its about being strong, its about asking yourself Are you happy? Are you exercising for YOUR own benefit because YOU want to do it? It's not about a bikini body, its about being strong, its about being healthy and not dropping dead of a heart attack at the age of 50; its about eating what you want and exercising because you want to, its not for anyone else."
And you know what? She's right.... I'm not thin nor will I ever be, I won't be a Victoria secret's model nor will I ever be a body builder or a marathon runner, but can I be healthy and still eat a pizza? Yeah, I can. I can do yoga and hold poses for longer that a minute without shaking but I don't have a Instagram yoga body and that's cool. I will never look like the dancer from the Kayne West Fade video bouncing about, all hot and sweaty, when I go to the gym in fact I will look like an ice cube on a hot day... melting, but I'm there and I'm doing stuff I like and if you have an issue with that, then you need to fuck off, because your snobbery to a big girl sat on the bike is not my bloody problem.
Now excuse me whilst I go and have my cake and eat it.
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