Gaining Health From Within
Throughout my teenage years, I was a homebody who wished my body wasn’t my home. The brink of my evolution into womanhood distastefully coincided with my introduction to the social media mirage. I was relentlessly exposed to the slim-waisted, flat-bellied influencers who sat perched upon their Instagram thrones. The notions of health and beauty were not one's E2/Pg ratio, nor their capacity for kindness, but whether or not they could squeeze their hips into size zero jeans. I scrutinized these aesthetic deities, sacrificing myself to the altar of comparison-based thinking and self-doubt– a pillar that, in time, I found to be teeming with my peers.
The isolation and stress cultivated by the Covid pandemic caused a hyper-fixation on academics to manifest itself into a hyper-awareness of physical appearance. Many a time I spent inspecting myself in a mirror, dissecting my body to a pulp, and objectifying the magnitude of my being. Flour tortillas turned to lettuce wraps and noodles to “zoodles” as I sought happiness through my smallest self. In restricting my eating, I gave myself a false sense of control.
We cannot hate ourselves into someone we believe we will love. Eve Iulo
As my physique shrank, so did my desire to see friends and appetite for experience. Being invited to a dinner out was a call for weight gain. Thanksgiving was not measured by quality time with the ones I love but by the calories on my plate. Amid something so complex, insidious, and, more often than not, overpowering, I lost sight of what it means to radiate genuine health and beauty.
My periods became increasingly infrequent, I shivered in the July heat, and I became inundated by tears as I overheard the high-carb menu for an event I was to attend. The strength of my disorder’s chokehold came to suffocate me with an intoxicating and invigorating self-awareness. I discovered myself struck by the knowledge of my vulnerability yet stimulated by the prospect of one day transcending it. In shrinking my size, It became clear I had lessened my life, so I embarked on my journey toward recovery, seeking proper health and longevity.
I’d be remiss in saying that the path has been simple, for there was not just weight to be regained but faith in myself, the ability to expand beyond my realm of control devoid of fear, and the trust of those I love. I had to redefine what it meant to have a “summer bod” and to be well nourished. Food is not solely what lies on your plate but an act of love, a call for wholeness, and an amalgam of cultures.
In no longer quantifying food but valuing its quality, I was reconnected with my body and mind’s biodynamic and emotional needs. I fulfilled not only my cravings for a bowl of pesto pasta but my need–the human need–for connection. I steadily facilitated my relationship with food through a new outlook on well-being and consciousness of the present moment– reveling in the intimacy and togetherness (both internal and external) brought about by what we place on our plates.
In the fullness of time, our bodies are the shelter for our organs, a vessel of our everyday beings, and a testament to our personal power.
