A Rock To Lean On

holding-hands
Who’s supporting you on your dieting journey? I’m not talking about the posse here, I mean that’s a given and we all know we’ve got each others’ back in this corner of the virtual world that we’ve carved out for ourselves…I’m talking in a real ‘day in the life of’ kind of way. Because you know, when we get serious about staying on this road to Skinny Town it’s not just us that have to make changes to what we do, and how we do it…it’s the people around us too.

For me, it’s my son who’s born the brunt of this broken relationship I have always had with food. We’ve never sat and discussed it as grown-ups…maybe we should, one of these days. His perspective would be fascinating – maybe I’ll ask him to write the foreword of this book you’re all encouraging me to write 🙂 But either way, one thing I know for sure is that all he has known, practically his whole life is me either going down the scale, or moving up it. Diet, or binge, with no middle ground.

To be fair, he has the patience of a saint. Well actually that’s not strictly true…like me, he got a raw deal when the patience gene was handed out in vitro…he’s definitely his mother’s son. But despite his short fuse with the little things in life that drive him bat-shit crazy, with me he has all the patience in the world. And trust me when I say he needs it.

He is blessed with an appetite for food that you can get away with as a young bloke standing six feet three inches in your stockinged feet. With the exception of liver, I’ve never found a food he won’t eat, and whatever diet I happen to be on he tucks in with enthusiasm to whatever comes out of the kitchen on any given day.

He can quote points values in food with a higher degree of accuracy than I can. And to my eternal shame he’s seen his own weight fluctuate when I’ve been cooking with no carbs, using lots of protein, cream and fats instead, but serving them to him with carbs too since he wasn’t dieting..he’s got the constitution of an ox and believe me it’s been challenged at times. He’s been supportive of all my efforts, to the moon and back again, whatever diet I’ve been doing, and through every false start.

But over the years he’s learned to walk on eggshells, when he’s seen me fall off the wagon. You know the kind of thing – one day I was dieting, the next there I was in the armchair vaporising a litre tub of Ben and Jerry’s and a large bag of cheese balls. When he tried to talk to me about it in as supportive a way as his twelve or fifteen or eighteen or twenty five year old self knew how to do, it would largely depend on how shit I felt about myself in that moment, or how much of a sugar rush or craving I was in the grip of which dictated the tone with which he got his response.

Trying to broach the subject must have been excruciating for him, and I’m sure there have been times where he’s just bitten his tongue and said nothing. But to give him his due, he’s never said an unkind word, or made a sarcastic comment or even rolled his eyes when I’ve mentioned that the diet’s starting on Monday, and this is going to be the one that sees me crack it this time. He just quietly supported me through it all.

As a mum, I could weep when I reflect back on how utterly conflicted and confused he must have been. It breaks all the rules of being a good parent you know? Being a role model, doing the right thing. Showing, as opposed to telling. When I really look back at how this constant cycle of binge – get fat – diet -get skinny must have impacted on him, it’s hard not to feel guilty.

But I can’t afford to do that – it gives the asshole in my mind too much leverage you know? It’s done, and by some miracle my boy turned into an utterly lovely, funny and warm human being, with a normal perspective on food. And as the person who’s lived that life, I’m not sure before this point I could have done it any differently anyway. I just wish I could have found a way to do this work and sort my head out sooner.

But I’m here now.

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12 thoughts on “A Rock To Lean On

  1. No, it’s a happy story, to me. Men largely come preprogrammed so differently, & they must benefit from exposure to a female perspective. If he has seen up close your struggle with disordered eating, maybe he’s less likely to dismiss other people’s issues as improbable or irrelevant.

    And most importantly, as a mom you showed him a real mensch striving & prevailing over set-backs, frustrations, random obstacles. Big stuff, stop-the-world stuff.

    There’s no telling when – as we’ve all seen – an idyllic childhood can just ruin a child.

    Love ya, Fleury

  2. I think we could all list the things we wish we’d been able to do differently with our kids – I agree – don’t even think about it – what will they talk to their therapists about as adults if we’re perfect? They need to blame us for something 🙂

    My son is the ‘fitness’ kid in my house, no judging but always interest and willing to talk and support. My husband [well, we’ve been separated a number of years – he’s a mess, but we’re still in constant communication and I see him more now than I did when he lived here, by a lot LOL] anyway he’s super supportive but sometimes too much so – I do better with realism than a cheerleader 🙂 But he’s got me set up with his gym [which is gorgeous and expensive and pleasant to be at] and doesn’t ever ask me if I’ve gone, just asks me to let him know if I’m going so he can try to join me. And offer me endless training sessions because he keeps buying packages – I always just laugh – as if I needed more than the basics I do to get a significant workout! Silly.

    Thankfully I don’t have anyone throwing negative comments at me – except me 🙂

  3. This post hit a nerve for me. My twins are 14 and one of the reasons that I lost weight was because my then 6 year old daughter asked me why I was bigger than the other moms. I lost over 100 lbs and kept most of if off, so they haven’t seen me do the dieting up and down the scale thing, BUT I’m am very conscious of what I eat and what they eat. My athletic daughter can eat absolutely anything and is very slender. My son got my tendency towards “roundness”. He gets anxious that he’s fat (which he is not) and I am constantly trying to balance out the need for us to eat healthy food without making it about deprivation for either of us. Both of them, and my husband are very supportive of my continued efforts to maintain my weight. I just hope my kids don’t have to battle it like I have.

  4. That walking on eggshells bit sounds like me and my husband! He is so concerned about my health, especially now I have specific problems like insulin resistance and sleep apnoea, but knows that saying anything is more likely to hurt my feelings and make me rebellious than help. He doesn’t know what to do.

    I have a daughter soon to enter her teenage years. She is active and slender now, but loves junk food of all kinds and will eat sweet things way beyond when the rest of us have pushed our plates away. It’s a hard line to walk, not offloading all my body issues and insecurities on her, but teaching her to eat healthily. One compromise I make is eating junk when she’s not around or in bed. Not so great for me!

    1. It’s hard knowing which way to call it isn’t it…I’m not sure I could have hidden my binge eating all those years, but then I guess the link between that and me being super obese was laid bare right in front of him. Maybe that’s why he’s ended up with a pretty healthy regard for food, in the same way that a child of a heavy smoker who grew up hating the smell will probably never smoke..? I don’t imagine there’s a right way, Mimi’s right we all just muddle through and do the best we can.

  5. If you had sorted this out sooner, he wouldn’t be the man he is today. Going through it with you is what it took. Remember that every parent, unless s/he is a true sociopath, does the best possible with the mental, physical, spiritual and emotional strength available at the time. That’s all any of us can do.

  6. Awesome!!!! Your son sounds amazing. I have a lot of people who cheer for me and are there for me, but my husband is probably the ONE person who has stuck with me through fat and skinny. But he has made comments and rolled his eyes, but I love him anyway!

    1. You’re lucky to have a supportive hubby, despite the eye rolling…and you’re right, my boy is awesome. I’m much better at sons than husbands!

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