I grew up in a family where food was love. My mom's dad was a pilot in the Air Force and my dad was a navigator. (My grandfather apparently told my dad he should meet my mom.) So both of them were world travelers and introduced to all sorts of "different" foods. I grew up in a small town in Northern Wisconsin pre-internet, and if you wanted ethnic food other than Italian, you had to make it yourself. My parents would mail order things like corn husks to make tamales or hot bean sauce and rice noodles for ants climbing a tree. We couldn't even buy tortillas locally so my dad (a carpenter) made a tortilla press. Cooking was a full family activity.
I was fortunate as a kid and teen to have a high metabolism, which kept me at a pretty average weight regardless of how much or little I ate. Then I went away to college and gained "the freshman 15" (and then some), at least partially because I had not grown up with processed food. In addition, I was introduced to all the other college aged women who knew more about dieting than I ever had, and I started on the path of searching for the perfect diet, and a way to stay skinny.
I love cooking. I love cooking for my family--especially when my big kids come home to visit and request meals. I love cooking for friends. When the kids were little, we could rarely afford to go out to eat and hire a babysitter, so we would take turns hosting friends and their kids. When my friends had babies, I cooked meals for their families. When my friends have had health issues or deaths in the family, I bring them a home cooked meal. I loved cooking with my parents and I love cooking with my kids. Food is love.
Each time I was pregnant, I adored the brief times of not thinking about how much I was eating. I took the "eating for two" thing a bit too far, but because I breastfed my kids for an extended time, all the weight I'd put on during pregnancy melted away, too.
I did have a few years after weaning my last kid where I kept eating like a breastfeeding mom, and the doctor's chart said that my BMI was overweight (BMI is bullshit, for the record). I would go up and down in weight, trying juice cleanses, skipping carbs, tracking everything I ate on an app, or whatever the newest fad diet was. I noticed that I did feel better and had more energy when I was lighter, but my love for food was more important than that feeling good thing.
Finally in the summer of 2013, I just decided that I couldn't give up the foods I loved, so I had to increase my exercise (energy balance--if you put more food in, just work it off by exercising). I trained for my first 5K. I loved how I felt when I was done running and that some weight came off but overall I just felt better. I was pretty comfortable with my weight and my body image.
And then I got breast cancer. In the week and a half between finding the lump and getting my diagnosis, I lost 7 pounds. I had at least that much to spare, but what was shocking to me was that I could not eat. I would choke down a mouthful of smoothie or a few bites of supper so I could sit at the table with my family, but the act of cooking no longer brought me pleasure, and the act of eating was really difficult.
I felt like my body had turned on me--the exact thing that had always symbolized love to me was distasteful.
During the course of my breast cancer treatment, I had periods where my appetite was ravenous (hello, steroids!), and periods where my tastebuds were off and I was again forcing myself to eat. But post-treatment, I got back to my normal--still overweight by BMI, but comfortable with who I was.
In 2017 I joined Team Phoenix and in training for the triathlon, I learned more about how weight isn't a good measure of health (I didn't lose weight in those 14 weeks of training although I was in the best physical shape of my life--I built muscle), and I learned more about the importance of eating GOOD food. Protein, fresh produce, and all the stuff I "knew" was better was really helping build my body as an athlete. Though I kept up with exercising (not at the same triathlon-training pace), my weight crept up again. But about all I could do about it was simple things like stopping having dessert or not eating seconds.
All this is to say that early in November of 2019, I was at about the heaviest weight I'd been outside of being pregnant. Then I got sick (pre-leukemia diagnosis, but now obviously related to the leukemia) and again dropped 7 pounds in a little over a week. I gagged as I tried to eat. This continued into my leukemia diagnosis and throughout almost all of my time in the hospital. When I got home in late December, I stopped losing weight so quickly, and ate a little better, but at my lowest, I had lost 40 pounds in less than five months. Every chemo cycle I've again lost my appetite and dropped a few pounds. Most of the time I can put those few pounds back on during the 3 weeks off, but I still keep moving backwards. (For more pure bullshit, I am now in the middle of "healthy" range for BMI. I can feel all my bones. This is NOT healthy.)
 |
| Perhaps the "silver lining" is that I can fit into my favorite pants from High School that I wasn't able to part with. |
For the very first time in my life, I am obsessed with GAINING weight and not losing it. I know that the chemo I will start next week is INTENSE. It will cause mouth sores. It will cause severe GI distress. It will cause loss of taste and appetite. And I am terrified, as I know that my best chance to beat this asshole Luke Emia is to stay strong. For the fourth time in my life (three pregnancies and now), I am allowed to eat anything I want (other than raw fish, soft cheeses, berries) and as much as I want, and I'm trying to enjoy it.
But let's be honest--I'd rather be pregnant and looking forward to a new baby.
No comments:
Post a Comment