On Eating

Apparently I've gone back to the weight I was at when I finished my first year of university. Somebody even mentioned to me the other day that it looked like I'd lost weight since Christmas, which made me a little conflicted. Typically, that should be a comment that people are happy to hear, because losing weight is framed as Always a Good Thing. I was slightly glad, because it meant that my plan to stop gaining weight worked (obviously), but then I found myself feeling like I was too small.

Then I realized how stupid the whole thing was. How much of my mental energy is spent worrying about how much I eat and how much I've walked and whether or not my jeans still fit the same way? Christ, I downloaded a calorie counting app at one point this year (which was interesting in that I learned how many calories I generally ate in a day and that sort of stuff), but like... using that app was exhausting. I stopped a while ago and do not regret it. Not to mention the forums were full of people who were like "I EAT ONLY LEAN CHICKEN AND BROCCOLI AND BROWN RICE FOR DINNER AND GO TO THE GYM EVERY DAY" and that was so not the kind of person I wanted to be.

I just miss being a kid, but I can remember even then thinking about this kind of shit. I had a few friends who were always concerned about their weight, and I can remember girls talking about diets and skipping breakfast as early as the 6th grade. I remember feeling glad that I didn't have to worry about any of that, because I was a tiny little twig of a girl who ate and ate but never seemed to get any bigger. Until I did, and thank god for that, because I would not want to be that tiny again.

Of course, growing up in my house has always been interesting re: eating. My mom was a nutritionist at one point, and I remember not having dessert like ever as a kid. I also remember a lot of whole grain everything and regular mealtimes, which have since gone the way of the dinosaur in this house. I don't even know what happened. There's almost always junk food around now, and I don't even know what's happening for dinner tonight. So far I've eaten half a bag of $1 chips from Bulk Barn that I bought on Friday. Nobody has called me for dinner or anything... I think my parents are both just tired and knowing they have work tomorrow makes them more tired. I think this is where my horrible eating habits in university come from. There have been weekend days when I don't eat until dinner just out of sheer laziness, and by the time dinner rolls around, I'm lightheaded and going "Oh, god, never again, you need to eat food, swegan, oh my god" but it still continues happening. It got to the point where I bought instant oatmeal because that was the lowest-effort food I could think of to keep around that was also sort of healthy.

My mom, of course, has had an interesting impact on this, from her comments about me (none of which I can forget, of course), to her comments about herself (which are far more common and make me really sad). I feel like my mom is really insecure, and I'm trying not to pick that up, while also trying to find ways to reassure her that she is fine, and that no one cares (she was worried that my unshaven legs would scare boys away (and also people in general I think) but to date, the only people who even seem to care are her and this girl in high school I didn't really like anyway), but I know that I'm probably not going to change her mind.

This year, though, I just started thinking about the whole concept of taking up space. Like I realize that I don't take up very much, and sometimes that does bother me. I already look like such a child, and being tiny makes me feel like people don't take me as seriously or something. Like, I'm not as formidable, I don't know. I was just looking around and wondering what it would be like to be male and take up space in that way. To be tall, and have MAN SHOULDERS and big feet and stuff like that. I think in general men get socialized to take up more space, while women get socialized to take up less, so that might have something to do with it.

anyway. I got distracted and now any other thoughts I had on the matter are gone.

yer pal,
swegan