Re-defining My Relationship with Food

My relationship with food has been a complicated one.

For the most part of high school and late elementary school, most of my money was spent eating out because it was a way to escape the pressures of home and bond with friends. However, in the last couple of years, eating out has lost its value for me as I realized it feels empty most of the time despite how temporarily satisfying it is to eat a delicious (yet expensive) meal.

In fact, most of the time, it bites me back in the ass.

Go on a foodie run during spring break? End up feeling down on yourself for days because you overspent the budget you were trying to stay within. Have a bubble tea, then some katsu, and topping it all off with some bingsu? It becomes a lovely experience for your tastebuds and with your friends, but then you feel like shit afterward when the food coma kicks in. I have heard that it’s best to eat until you’re 70-80% full, otherwise, you feel bloated from eating to your capacity.

Despite having gone on a low-carb diet in preparation for a fashion show this past week, I still had mixed feelings about my diet and its result.

First of all, I was trying to get skinnier and lose my love handles as well as make my face shape smaller before I would need to model on stage in lingerie. A couple months back, I already felt the self-inflicted pressure to “get skinnier,” but the insecurities didn’t eat at me until I heard from one of my teammates about how they only ate a protein bar and a salad the entire day.

To me, they looked skinny and beautiful already. That sense of feeling like my appearance wasn’t enough — and its direct relationship with my mental health — then took a toll on me for the past few months, especially in these last two weeks.

During these last two weeks, I tried to maintain a low-carb diet. I was extra conscious of any snacking after 8 or 9pm and usually only allowed myself to eat fruit or vegetables as snacks. I subbed rice for cauliflower rice for a week, and I upped my protein intake — making sure I was having either eggs, chicken, or beef at almost every meal. I even read into how carbs like bread and bagels (foods I love) aren’t that great for you because they don’t help you feel full.

During practices, I would buy chia seed puddings and eat it with chicken breast from the residence cafeteria hall instead of letting myself indulge in many Subway sandwiches. I was always conscious of my calorie intake, regardless of if/when I used an app to help count them or not.

As a result, I looked decent walking the catwalk. I definitely wasn’t the skinniest on my team, but I felt okay about how I looked. That is — until the show was over.

As the dopamine high quickly wore off post-performance, I felt my mood crash, and a vast sense of emptiness set in.

I realized I spent the past few months (or perhaps even years) worrying about how others will perceive my looks, and I used it as a proxy for my self-worth. Although I met friendly and cool individuals through the fashion show, I don’t know if I would do it again because of the subsequent pressure I ended up inflicting on myself. No matter how many times the show’s executives told us that we were enough as we are, hearing all the “get fit quick” schemes around me — from black lemon coffee to mystical “teas” and protein-bar-only diets — only led me more off-track from accepting myself.

Every day, it was a battle between myself when I looked in the mirror. Am I finally skinny enough? Am I finally pretty and good enough?

Back when I broke up with my ex in November of last year, I was able to achieve an almost Buddha-level of peace due to the free time I had to cook, clean, journal, and listen to music. In essence, I was getting enough time to be myself around myself and enjoy my own presence. However, while I increasingly devoted time to practicing for this fashion show over the last couple of months, I lost parts of my soul, to be honest.

I lost parts of myself when I withheld myself from foods I enjoyed eating. I lost parts of myself when I forbid myself from going out for food with friends because it was costly in time and calories. More importantly, I lost a sense of myself when I put myself down and kept questioning my worth in the mirror.

Is this really all there is to life? Eating less and becoming skinnier so I can finally look pretty enough?

Sometimes, it’s not even about other people. It’s about looking pretty enough for myself and reaching an almost impossible, self-imposed standard. But other times, it’s about the environment that you’ve surrounded yourself with where, even in the case of having welcoming people, there’s an endless emphasis on aesthetics of some sort.

After the show, this restrictive diet further backfired on me as I almost immediately binged a shit ton of calories — from double chocolate chip cookies to butter tarts, choco pies, and pasta, I unleashed the inner caloric monster. However, this only made me feel more shitty and guilty as I questioned how I’m erasing all the progress I made and, moreover, the heavy carbs took a toll on my energy levels.

Although many complimented me on how “brave” or “confident” I must have been to walk on stage half-naked and sensually dance in front of 500 people, I felt like anything less than myself. I felt like I was living in a shell. A shell of who I am not.

I am not someone who is always confident. I am not someone who is promiscuous. I am not a dancing monkey that someone can just ask to “dance Sammi, dance” whenever they see me.

I am me. And that should be enough.

Rating how the food I eat makes me feel — it’s been an awesome awareness component so far.

Going forward, I am trying to re-center my relationship with food by tracking how certain foods make me feel, instead of simply how many calories I am eating.

I want to read up on gut health and understand how I can healthily and slowly get more lean while also enjoying what I eat.

I want to mend my relationship with the gym as well — to re-frame my mindset into one that goes to the gym to enjoy myself, to enter a space where others are also working on themselves, and to genuinely have fun instead of that which feels like I “have to” go to the gym to get skinny enough for other people.

It’s one of those dialectics. A term I learned in therapy, dialectics represents two truths that seem to contradict each other yet can co-exist. For example, I can be above-average skilled in dance yet know I still have a long way to go in terms of developing my dance skills.

In this case, I can desire an improvement in my physical physique while also accepting my body as it is and loving myself as I am.

It’s a hard truth to digest and live out, but I believe that one of the greatest forms of self-love comes from wanting the best for yourself not because you think you’re not enough, but because you know you enjoy feeling yourself get better and reach your potential.

Nonetheless, this is a reminder to myself: do things based on how they feel (deep-seated fulfillment, not just fleeting happiness) rather than how they look. Choose yourself and choose your gut.

And god, I love rice.