This weekend, I discovered from an influencer’s Instagram page that it was National Ice Cream Day. (Belated Happy National Ice Cream Day, if I forgot to wish you one.)
She was showing how to make coconut milk ice cream, which is NOT ice cream and can wait till National Milk-Alternative Frozen Dessert Day, but anyway.
It reminded me of this post, which I wrote 10 years ago when I discovered it was National Eating Disorders Awareness Week. Until I read about it later on Huffington Post’s lifestyle page, I had not been aware of this awareness event, but that didn’t matter, because I’ve always been aware of eating disorders.
I never had a severe eating disorder, but the classics (anorexia and bulimia) are too narrow a definition. There are so many different ways for someone’s eating to be dis-ordered, or messed up.
I can count on one hand, two lady fingers, and a chicken wing the number of women I know who don’t have some kind of weird shit around food. And boy, was my eating disorderly back in the day. I could write a book of examples. Not that this is short, but here are some snapshots to give you an idea.
11th grade
I get mono and tonsilitis. I use the attending sore throat as a license to keep my own pint of Ben and Jerry’s Heathbar Crunch in the freezer. For safety, I lick the spoon and stick it back in, and let the family know that the ice cream is officially contaminated. I eat about a pint a day, a habit which lasts well beyond the mono.
This may be normal teen eating behavior. But pair that with a year of skipping gym — which I get away with because the school nurse is a pushover — and I’m struggling to snap my Girbaud jeans. I’ve been weight-conscious since I was 5, but now I’m desperate. The stage is set.
Summer after 11th grade
I spend a month in Cannes, France. The family I lodge with locks all the pastries in an armoire at night so I can’t get at them, which is just as well.
During the day, I decide to eat nothing but a green apple so I can save calories, along with all the money my parents gave me to spend. Every night, I eat fish soup or a tomato and tuna salade – French for salad – without the dressing. This works well.
12th grade
Jeans (now beat-up Levis) finally hanging loose. At parties, I bring my own liter of Diet Coke and swig from it the whole time. I won’t even look at pizza. I start going to aerobics classes every day after school. On the way to the bus, when a classmate stops and buys a Snickers for a snack, I think, “Really? A candy bar? Who eats a candy bar any more?”
Summer before college
I get a job scooping ice cream at Steve’s, home of the original mix-in. I never have a scoop myself. Not once, the whole time. Instead, I pick up a soft-serve frozen yogurt from Zabar’s and eat that on what is supposed to be my ice cream break. I really want some ice cream, but as a booby prize I get to be self-righteous serving it to other people and thinking how fat they’ll get.
When someone orders the Medium and complains that I didn’t fill it to the top, I say, in a very Church Lady voice, “Oh, I’m sorry, did you want the full half pint?” Because that’s how much is in a medium cup. 8 ounces. Half a pint. Pigs.
Freshman year, college
I keep a little Weight Watchers scale and a measuring cup in my dorm room so I won’t go overboard and eat more than 3/4 oz of Special K with 1/2 cup of skim milk for breakfast.
I spend lunches in my room so that instead of being faced with all the fattening choices in the cafeteria, I can put together a delicious sandwich of fat-free turkey slices on Peperidge Farm lite bread, with mustard. Every part of this sandwich sticks to my teeth, but I think it’s heaven. I keep all the ingredients in my mini-fridge, along with cans of Diet Sunkist. For dessert, I get sugar-free orange or grape Bubble Yum.
On snack nights, when everyone gathers in the hall for chips and cookies and pizza, I emerge from my room with a bag of carrots, a carrot scraper, and my waste basket to catch the carrot peel. They have their snack, I have mine. Scrape scrape scrape. Bags of peeled baby carrots don’t yet exist.
Sad thing is, I’m not the one to worry about on our floor.
Three doors to the right is Vicky, who does aerobics in her room while defrosting Birds Eye vegetables on her radiator. She doesn’t let anyone in there, but when she opens the door a crack and pokes her head (and terrycloth headband) out, you can smell a mixture of sweat and broccoli.
Two doors to the left is Marla, who keeps a giant Binge Basket next to her bed. It’s full of Ho Hos, Ding Dongs, Doritos, Fritos, Twinkies, everything you can imagine eating and regretting. She makes no secret of the fact that she throws it all up every day, mostly because there’s no way to keep it secret. Her feet are always turned the wrong way in the bathroom stall, facing the toilet. And when she walks down the hall, she has to grab onto the wall for support because she’s dizzy from whatever imbalance constant barfing leaves you with.
And then there are the gals at the end of the hall, who gain 20 pounds each from ordering from Domino’s every night. I have to hide my smile when they weigh themselves and scream at the end of the semester. I hug my carrots to my chest. Yay, carrots. Yay, me.
Sophomore year
I live with 9 other housemates in a place called Low Rise, which is a complex of ugly beige units around a central courtyard. From that courtyard, at any time of day, people can see me through the sliding glass doors of our living room, sweating away on my stationary bike. Every time I chow so much as a handful of Cheerios, I climb back on the bike and pedal off the calories.
Junior year
I start running 9 miles a day. I run so hard, my toenails fall off. And then my treat is: a giant salad for dinner, with fat-free ranch dressing, and for dessert, a Weight Watchers ice cream sandwich. When my housemates go on Baskin Robbins runs, I go along and ask for tastes on the little pink plastic spoons. I never buy any. Not an option. I just come back and have my diet treat. Even if I’ve run extra miles, no real ice cream, except for bites of other people’s. Like a panhandler, I go around asking each housemate for just a taste, and everyone grunts and asks why I didn’t get my own. Because I can’t eat real ice cream or I’ll get fat, that’s why. Can I have another bite?
One housemate, Kelly, buys a half gallon of Hershey’s ice cream one night, has a dainty bowl of it, and puts the rest away with her name on it in Sharpie pen. After everyone is asleep, I creep downstairs, and eat a spoonful or two right out of the freezer. Barely make a dent. The next night, I do the same thing. And then the next few nights after that. I never take enough for anyone to notice. Except that the next time Kelly is fixing to have herself a nice bowl of ice cream, she opens the freezer, and finds the carton empty. All that’s left is a sad little mound, clinging to the side of the carton like it’s trying to hide from me. She’s furious. I’m like, Wow, who would do something like that?
Summer abroad, Junior year
I spend 6 weeks in Florence, Italy, studying Italian. The program I’m on gives us vouchers for a number of local restaurants, but I don’t use them. I eat a little baby gelato every day, and spinach for dinner. I have pasta once. In Italy.
My 20s
I order everything with extra mushrooms and tomatoes, because I like them and they have almost no calories. Late nights at Lucky Strike, a bistro in Soho, my usual order is a plate of spinach, steamed, no oil. And a jar of mustard, please. Paaaarty!!!
I never, ever skip my Aerobox class – not even for a single Saturday to meet my boyfriend’s grandmother. No matter how much he says it would mean to her. And to him.
Nowadays (early 40s)
My eating has gotten a lot less weird over the years, especially since I married someone in the restaurant business. None of this rice cakes and lite ice cream crap. I eat good food now, and I eat what I want. I order the thing I like from the menu, even if it has butter or cream.
I still have some *stuff*. Like, I don’t love to go out to lunch. To me, it’s a waste — I’d rather save my calories for later. I’m happy to have a dumb, nothing lunch, like a protein bar or a yogurt, so I can have a big dinner. I know that’s not so normal.
But I also know I’ve come a long way, and I’m glad I won’t be spending the rest of my life the way I used to.
We had dinner once with some friends in their 60s – a couple – and the wife only ordered an appetizer. The Sides section of the menu offered “A Good Pickle,” which I ordered with my burger. I was looking forward to it. When it came, they put it in front of the wife, and she ate it as her entree, with a knife and fork. I watched her cut it into tiny little bits, and wondered if I should order another. Nah.
Coda
Updated 10 years later, at age 50.
I used an EFT tapping coach (an uncharacteristically woo woo thing that seems to work for me) to break up with my nightly Haagen Dazs, which was adding a good 500 calories a night that I had to worry about burning off every day. I needed to get to dinnertime with a generous caloric deficit so I could plop two scoops of Vanilla Bean right into it. This balancing act was ruling my day, and sometimes I’d eat the ice cream shivering, my hair still wet with sweat from the dance class where I’d earned it. (Earned the ice cream, not the hair.) It’s no fun to eat ice cream when you’re cold.
I slid off the bandwagon and into my old ways during the pandemic. I can’t not end the day with ice cream. Other than the path of the sun, it’s the only thing that signifies a switch from day into night.
I judge people who eat fat-free ice cream or alternate-milk ice cream, which is not ice cream. And I still feel the same way about lunch.
Totally get this. Could be my story, minus the trips to France and Italy. I took my eating disorder to Iran instead. Awesome results.
orthomol VitalM i apologise, but this variant does not approach me perhaps there are still variants?
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You suggested I read this….I did…..and it’s just tooooo perfect!
Ice cream, hmmm doesn’t milk do a body good anyway? I totally dated a manorexic who wouldn’t eat all day, then introduced me to two men: Ben & Jerry. I was pretty sure I had enough calories by eating just one pint and possibly a skittle or two during the day. On the flip side, there was a time when I wouldn’t dare eat anything with the word “Fat” in it and would beg others for “just a taste.”
NOW?! I outeat my husband most days?! Is that wrong?
You suggested I read this….I did…..and it’s just tooooo perfect!
Ice cream, hmmm doesn’t milk do a body good anyway? I totally dated a manorexic who wouldn’t eat all day, then introduced me to two men: Ben & Jerry. I was pretty sure I had enough calories by eating just one pint and possibly a skittle or two during the day. On the flip side, there was a time when I wouldn’t dare eat anything with the word “Fat” in it and would beg others for “just a taste.”
NOW?! I outeat my husband most days?! Is that wrong?
i don’t think she was that old. i think she looked that old because she had that scary dry black anorexic witch hair. i bet she was late 40s tops. this is my second favorite. the birthday blog to your dad made me cry.
This is the best one yet! Remember wen we used to meet for lunch at Coffee Shop (yes, lunch, although all we ate was steamed spinach or an egg white fritatta) when you were at Spy and I somehow always was free and there was that sad older woman who sped walked all the way down from the upper west side to union square every day? We knew she was from the UWS because you also used to see her in the gym. She was probably the same age then that we are now. Thank Gd we stopped that insanity for ourselves. Who has time to walk 130 blocks round trip every day?
I know you’d like this one. At Coffee Shop, I actually ordered the asian chicken salad, but with the fat free ranch dressing instead of the really good asian one. Of course, I remember that crazy lady. No, we are not that age. She was, like, 70. I hope. Please tell me that’s not what we look like to a 22-year-old.
This is off the hook relatable! Loved it! Also love that nowadays you can claim somewhat normal eating habits. If this were my blog it would be much longer, concluding with “My 40s…”.
Forever your “Canada Pimp”,
L
xoxo
Thanks, Pimp!
Yeah, “somewhat normal” is pretty much a miracle, considering.
Laura!!
Per usual, you had me falling of my chair (literally…although, technically, it was a stool).
You raised such a great point. How many of us have a “eating disorderly” problem? It’s really not much less of an issue than an ‘actual’ eating disorder I reckon.
I can totally relate to the ‘not ordering ice cream but I’m gonna have ten samples’ thang. I did that exact thing last night at Yogurt land.
I’m quite confident I pissed off the guy behind the counter, but I still left feeling like a less impulsive eater.
xo
Catherine
.-= Catherine´s last blog ..For the Love of Sandy =-.
Catherine, sometimes we just have to piss off the frozen dessert servers. It’s who we are.
Wanna start a No Lunch club?
This post was amazing! Loved, loved, loved reading every second of it! In fact I’m going to re-read it right now…
Yes! Let’s stand outside other womens’ lunches and picket.
Mo, I knew you’d like this one.
Double stuffed oreos. I buy them 2x a year. Once for my birthday, and once I save for when I’m really sad. And I eat the entire package. In like, a day. Well, maybe 36 hours. #thatisall
.-= Elizabeth Potts Weinstein´s last blog ..First Tour of My New San Francisco Apartment! =-.
Oh- I’m doing the math right now. Double stuffed x 2x/ year = quadruple stuffed That’s just about enough to get through a major sad.
I just saw an ad for cake version of Oreos. I guess they’d taste like Devil Dogs – but still, it looked like pure genius and I waqnted them.
Holy Hilarious! You are a great writer and I had NO IDEA of your shady eating past. I LOVE LOVE LOVE that you eat now. Because I LOVE LOVE LOVE eating with you!
Miss you Belgray. Keep writing and Keep on Eating.
xoxo
Grasie
The girl likes who likes to eat like a 400 pound fat man.
.-= Grasie Mercedes ´s last blog ..Totally Obsessed With Urban Outfitters =-.
Thanks, Grasie!
Oh my yes, I was Shady McShadester with the food. Thank goodness I can eat like a human now. I love eating with you, both for the company and the vicarious pleasure of watching a rail-thin gal eat like said 400-lb fat man. OK, a little jealousy. But I don’t begrudge.
Wow that is so awesome. I can totally relate with the ice cream stuff! I used to sit in front of the computer with a crazy bowl of ice cream when I was 13. That was my sustenance for most of the day really!
We all have our stuff around food, and it’s awesome that we can figure out what our triggers are and how we can deal with them.
You made light of the situation in such a funny but brutally honest way, and I love your for it. 🙂
.-= Nathalie Lussier´s last blog ..Raw Food Dinner Party Ideas to Entertain Guests With =-.
Oh, 13-year-olds are allowed to eat nothing but a bowl of ice cream. But yes, we do all have our stuff.
I really like how you turn what could have been a depressing post into an honest look at how EVERYONE eats. AND it’s funny!
It’s not just anorexia and bulimia. There’s disordered eating everywhere and it’s nice to see someone who talks about it without getting all preachy. You’ve brought your A-game again, Laura.
.-= Marian Schembari´s last blog ..How important is my blog’s design? =-.
Yeah, who says eating disorders are no laughing matter? “Best Little Girl In The World,” the TV movie w. Jennifer Jason Leigh, was great but could have been a lot funnier.
Thanks, Marian!
crying again.
I love getting these comments months after the post! It’s like getting something you forgot you ordered in the mail.
I’m still kickin’ myself for not making time to try your hubby’s “bacon tempura” while I was in NYC.
Sounds incredibly indulgent, gratifying and fattening. ; ) But I’ll bet it’s oh-so worth the calories.
That’s my diet hang-up these days…I ask myself…am I really enjoying this enough to make it worth the calories? If the answer is no I stop eating or don’t eat it in the first place….if the answer is yes, I go for it.
Am I as stick thin as I was ten years ago? Nope, but I enjoy the treats I allow myself. ; )
.-= Lisa Wilder´s last blog ..Mind Games =-.
Oh Lisa, beyond. Next time you’re here. I know you won’t make the same mistake.
In my college dorm there was the girl that would never eat. She wanted to be social so she would go to the cafeteria with us, but she would never eat. My roommate had a weird SWF thing, you know that Bridgette Fonda movie in ’92? Well, anyway the roommate would just start copying things that the other girls were doing and one day she just stopped eating. I knew it was because she was nuts not because she was really anorexic, it was just so weird.
.-= Alma´s last blog ..My Recent Dose of Vitamin See =-.
Yay, you! Marian is right, long overdue. Love the highlight reel. All girls are caught up in this, even if they themselves are not doing that crazy shit — I mean, how could we let our friends DO that? As a mother of three girls, I think about this all the time. My youngest wants to take wrestling — I swear — which could be pretty cool, but all I can think about it, is all that “making weight” pressure that turns even teenage boys into bulimics. Crazy world.
“Let?” A prize to anyone who can stop their friends from doing that. You tried, believe me.
Wrestling! It’s true, if it turns boys into bulimics, what does it do to girls? But hey, can’t be worse than ballet.
Sounds so vaguely familiar…. I still sneak a York peppermint patty at the grocery store every time I go and shove it down before I get home, like my husband who has never gained more than 5 pounds since high school will never know!
Been at the gym working my butt off though, but doesnt seem any smaller. I think I will go have some cookie dough ice cream 🙂
xoxox Your so brilliant!
.-= Marguerite´s last blog ..Ego’s of the Agents =-.
I think York Perppermint Patties were designed for sneaking! They’re totally a secret lady treat. How often do you see a guy walking down the street eating one of those? They’re always eaten in cars, alone.
OMG! You are so flippen funny. My husband is wondering why I’m cracking up staring at my computer. It’s Belgray, I say.
Aw, thanks. I don’t think Steven would ask questions if I cracked up staring at my computer with the power off. That’s how much I stare at my computer.
Wait, it was probably more like one ounce of Special K.
Whatever, it was f’d up.
Yeah, I was about to get defensive. I mean, 4 ounces?? I’d be a cow!!
OMG, I so have issues with food. I claim it’s all because I had 3 kids in 4 years – even though my baby just turned 4.
This time of year is the worst for me because of those damn Cadbury Mini Eggs. Last year I ate my weight in them, and so far this year I’ve only had one mini bag…
I don’t eat lunch either – seems like a total waste of time and calories. Oh, and I will only barely mention that I would actually rather drink Coca-Cola than eat anything…
We’ve ALL got issues.
Wow! That’s some math problem: if you weigh x and eat your weight in Cadbury Creme Eggs, how many more Cadbury Creme Eggs will you have to buy to eat your weight in them next year?
I never get the coke thing. I think Diet Coke is so delicious!
Belgray-LOVE the Ben and Jerry’s! had a shop just around the corner in college…never did make it to that Steve’s place…and I had a housemate (Pete from New Hampshire) who always left just one cracker in the box…or sip of juice in the jug….found him passed out on the floor in front of the frige, four in the morning..door wide open, bowl of chili in hand,cold….aww restaurant people…:) love your blog!
OMG the Pete story is priceless. That’s actually me – I leave the one sip and the one cracker, but not because I’m inconsiderate. It’s because you never know when you’ll want just one sip or one cracker.
OMG. You are fucking hilarious. Zane keeps asking me what I’m laughing about and I can’t really explain it (he’s 16). I REALLY can’t believe that you had pasta one time in Italy.
AND, I’m really excited that we have dinner all the time and now I get that while we live so close, we never do lunch. xox M
.-= Marie´s last blog ..Want A Booming Local Business? Try this. =-.
It’s not because Zane is 16. It’s because he’s a boy with a metabolism. He’d never get it.
God, if only I still had those vouchers so I could go back to Florence and get a do-over.
Yep, that’s exactly why we do dinner, wine, afternoon coffee, but no lunch.
xoL
laura, i’m glad you’ve made peace with the food thing. it sure does consume a lot of time and energy trying not to consume food. thanks for your wonderful blog–i always look forward to reading your posts.
Sure does take up energy! I’d make more peace with it if I could eat whatever I wanted. I’m still waiting for them to invent that pill.
well…you could forgo ‘that’ pill, w/ the ‘i sure am a talented accomplished woman who is making a lot of people happy w/my kick-ass writing skills’ pill.
just sayin’…
Oh, man. This post was so long overdue. Hilarious.
I remember you portioning your Special K every morning in a special Weight Watchers scale. No more than 4 ounces.
I think I gained all the weight you lost when you worked at Steve’s. Every day you brought home a pint of oatmeal raisin cookie ice cream, with bits of peanut butter cup mixed in. I still have dreams about it. And you didn’t eat a bite. I blame my ass on you.
It was overdue, right? What kept me from writing it is that there’s so much to write. I mean, notice how I condensed a decade into one little paragraph? And I had to leave out my Weight Watchers diet when I was twelve.
I felt like someone should enjoy the Steve’s. While I watched. Real slow.
Haha. You need to write a book. Now.
Whoa! IS this is the sister with the awesome name! Rock on Marian with an A!
.-= Marian Schembari´s last blog ..How important is my blog’s design? =-.
Ah! You found her! That’s the one. And she does rock, hard.
I can so relate to this one. It’s only recently that I’ve begun to enjoy food–probably a little too much, but I don’t care. Life’s too short to eat pickles for dinner.
Isn’t it? Pickles to tide me over till dinner, however, is another story. A pretty good solution, actually.
Oh man, I liked this one. I have OK eating habits, but every now and then a little voice inside of me says, “Dree: It is SO FABULOUS that you forgot to eat lunch!” And, of course, I’m totally hip-enlightened and body-positive on the outside. Don’t usually put much stock in physical appearance, but the reality is that this stuff is there no matter how many times I try to scrub it off. I don’t know where we got it, but it’s bone-deep, so to speak.
We live in a weird, weird, weird world. Here’s to doing our bodies good.
Oh, I LOVE when I forget to eat lunch. Actually, I never forget. Once in a while, the day gets away from me and I’m half-aware of my stomach killing me because I haven’t eaten. But that’s on a really, really busy day.
What kills me is when people say they forgot to eat dinner. WHAT???