This particular wellness journey is, in fact, mostly a change in diet. When I was in my 20s, I followed a Paleo diet for a few years, and it was remarkable at changing my body composition, my energy levels, and my connection to my physical container. I started in 2012, cold turkey, fretting a little about if yogurt counts as a processed food (obviously, but also who cares), before settling into a protocol that was probably best described as high-protein/mid-carb/no-grains. I ate potatoes and yam noodles and sweet potato fries; I just didn't eat rice and burger buns and many other delicious, easy, accessible foods. I tried not to be a terror about it, but looking back, I probably was.
This was also the time in my life when I was most physically active: I biked my seven-kilometre commute, which included a 60-meter rise right at the beginning (yes, I died every day); I also lifted weights, did yoga, ran, and did Nia. It was...a lot. Probably too much? I had been bulimic for a decade before, then gone into recovery and gained a fair amount of weight, and then started the Paleo thing because the foods I was eating didn't actually wholly agree with me. I initially ate Paleo because I didn't want to feel nauseous after lunch, which I did when the lunch was pizza.
When I got pregnant, all that went out the window. I lived on tortellini and pesto for six weeks in my first trimester; after Noah was born, I was so traumatized by my new life that I couldn't bear the idea of depriving myself anything delicious or easy. I hung onto the pasta, and the pizza, and the chocolate. And I didn't quite care if I was fat—I had feelings about it, but I didn't really pay attention to them, and they quieted down, which was great.
I've written before about how turning 40 is messing with me a little, and how aging means that I'm just diving into all the shit I want to do before I die. This feels aligned. I was surprised that I, too, was started to be affected by sore knees and fatigue and under-eye bags—those seemed like things for middle-aged people, which, like, I am a young person?! And there are other things, like the chronic anemia and vitamin D deficiency, the racing heart and the borderline fasted blood sugar, that I look at out of the corner of my eye: should I be worried about this? Is this going to get better on its own?
My goal is not to look a certain way or weigh a certain amount—even at my fattest, I'm still foxy—but to come back from the borderlands a little bit. I don't want to fret about cholesterol, blood pressure, or resting heart rate. And not fretting about it can take two approaches: I can take care of myself so that it's not worrisome, or I can ignore it. And I've never met a problem that I haven't obsessed into the ground.
But, I'm also hesitant about this diet change. It's very Gwyneth Paltrow to be into bone broth and cashew cheese (although, admittedly, she looked good at her trial). I don't want to contribute to the swirling miasma of smaller-is-better discourse around women's bodies. We're supposed to be young, thin, and curvy (we are somehow in the era of both the Brazilian butt lift and Ozempic, a true body-politic apocalypse). In shocking news, there are some things that diet and exercise just will not fix. Even if I lost half my bodyweight, I would still have a c-section scar and a belly shelf. It's just part of my landscape. Sorry! Not sorry, though.
That's the biggest part of it: I did so much work to accept myself, to make myself feel beautiful and sexy at any size, to internalize the message that weight and health are not indicators of each other. Now, changing my diet feels a bit like a return to the fucking mess I was in my teens and early 20s. Am I betraying myself by doing this? Or is this honouring my health? Why is this so complicated? I don't want to be obsessive, like when I was when I was bulimic; I don't want to be restrictive, like when I was Paleo. I just want to be free from all of it. Put my brain in a jar and put that jar on a shelf, you know?
Anyway: for the first time since I started considering a change in diet, it feels possible again. I am slowly divesting from gluten, and it feels....good. I stocked up on cottage cheese and almonds and I'm willing myself to actually eat them; the more I do, the more it feels like the new normal. I have fresh recipes this time around (my current obsession is socca crepes), and less time to go crazy with it all. And I know from experience that success begets success—when I change my diet in this way, I often have more energy, sleep better, and have more motivation to exercise, which is also in service of the health project.
I know the vibe is "I have talked myself into this, reluctantly, so let's see where it goes," but for the first time in years, I'm not feeling overly resentful about this. I know how to poach a chicken breast; I can make jap chae from scratch; I get my steps in and I'm usually asleep at 2 in the morning. Those are all metrics I can get behind. I don't care if I lose weight; I just want to gain some vitality.
