Momma Don't Take My Kodachrome Away

Even before I got to the quote from the ED specialist in this Times piece about people who photograph everything they eat, disordered-eating alarm bells were going off in my head.

When I was initially assessed at Renfrew, one of the questions they asked was about "food rituals" and whether I had any, to which I replied no. It wasn't until we had a session on food rituals that I understood that pretty much every ED sufferer has them, to varying degrees of codification. I almost always ate one food at a time; I used to count how many times I would chew. Others smothered their food in condiments or seasonings; others couldn't have one food touching another. The mark of whether something was a ritual or a mere preference (I know plenty of non-disordered people who hate it when their potatoes touch their beef) was whether it was anxiety-producing to not do it. So when I read this...

She said she takes pictures of at least half the meals she eats, omitting, for example, multicourse meals when it might “interrupt the flow.” But she has noticed lately that it’s becoming harder to suppress the urge to shoot. “I get this ‘must take picture’ feeling before I eat, and what’s worse is that I hate bad pictures so I have to capture it in just the right light and at just the right angle,” Ms. Sherman said.

...it sounded familiar.

Certainly the hordes of amateur food photographers out there aren't all quietly suffering from eating disorders. But the reporter was perceptive enough to highlight that the hobby isn't always harmless:

Photos are also a means of self-motivation for Mr. Garcia, who began photographing his food after he lost 80 pounds. “It’s definitely part of my neuroticism about trying to keep thin,” he said. “It keeps you accountable because you don’t want to have to see that you ate an entire jar of peanut butter.”

And, ever the scientist, he hopes to one day use the photographs to calculate how much money he spends to consume a calorie versus how much he spends in gym memberships and sports gear to burn a calorie.

I can't see how this brings Garcia any joy; it seems like Kodak handcuffs to me.

This seems to bring attention to a major point for people in recovery: How do you celebrate the social rites of food without falling into the rabbit hole? When I traveled through Vietnam, I went nuts photographing what I was eating, and it felt joyous to do so. It was a way of recording and, later, sharing a vital sense of that most sensual country; I'm terrible with a video camera, so recording my gustation was one way I was able to keep Vietnam with me. I know other women who have recovered who turned their former fear of food into a celebration, with photography, food writing, and dinner clubs. But I also know that can be a dangerous line to toe: I have no doubt that my short-lived foray into pastry cheffery was linked in part (though not fully) to my disorder, and a good number of the women in my pastry course reported some seriously disordered eating in their past. At what point does waxing rhapsodic about hazelnut dacquoise veer from genuine appreciation of the gifts of food to an obsession?

Throwing Yourself Down the Stairs

I've been relying on concrete data to "prove" that I'm recovery: X days without bingeing; X days without restricting. Renfrew was good about this--emphasizing hard data when we felt discouraged, but not using it as the sole benchmark of recovery. (I was particularly amused when my nutritionist whipped out a calculator to show that I had a "65% reduction in symptoms since admission" after a particularly bad night.)

That's great and all, but what is feeling like a more remarkable feat is the soft data--the times when I notice that my thoughts have actually changed. I gobbled down a candy bar this evening--not the end of the world, but it wasn't on my meal plan, and since I have a lot of dinners with friends this week at yummy restaurants, I know I'll be having my meal-plan desserts later this week. I ate the candy bar because I was hungry, and lonely, and hadn't followed my meal plan earlier in the day and was short on starch exchanges, so it was somehow "okay" because of that. Essentially, it was a mini version of the exact problem that landed me at Renfrew: restricting and bingeing.

Two months ago, the process would have been: I had a candy bar > that was wrong of me > the whole day is ruined > since the day is ruined I should go all the way and binge > binge > tomorrow I will restrict.

Tonight, it was: I had a candy bar > I haven't had dinner so was probably hungry > I'm going to have a yummy dinner that's on my meal plan > and if I'm hungry later I will have a snack. And that's exactly what I'm doing.

One of the women in my group was prone to my old-think too. She compared it to tripping while walking up the stairs, so standing up and throwing herself down the entire flight, because there was no point in continuing up the stairs anymore. We all laughed when she said that, because it sounds ridiculous in those terms--but that's exactly what so many of us are prone to. So I slipped, and it's fine. It's only a "slip" if I make it as such, anyway--a candy bar is not a binge; it's not anything that needs to be compensated for, even though it's not terribly healthy for me and I didn't plan for it. Having a candy bar sometimes when you didn't plan for it is normal. And again: I'm not a normal eater yet. But today's thought--which, incidentally, I arrived at organically, without having to force myself to think "right"--shows me that I'm getting a little bit closer.

Bikram Yoga Really, Really Sucks

There are certain things or behaviors that automatically scream DISORDERED EATING to me, even if they're not things that are actual symptoms of an ED. Like, whenever I see a woman buying nonfat Greek yogurt along with Amy's frozen meals, I'm all, I'M ONTO YOU. Now, nonfat Greek yogurt and Amy's frozen meals are healthy and enjoyable, and I don't think that the items themselves encourage disordered eating in the least. But they're the kinds of foods that are constantly endorsed by the dietitians quoted in women's magazines, because they taste like they have more calories than they actually do; plus, they're in single servings, making them appear appropriate for a whole meal, even though they're not. (I used to eat Amy's for every single meal--which I thought was healthy and I now see was anything but. I still eat them, but I have sides with them to get all my exchanges.)

Anyway. One of those things, now that I've done it, is bikram yoga. As in hot yoga. As in yoga at 105 degrees, as in sweating through all of your clothes, as in the instructor was in boxer briefs. I'd heard various things about it--mostly from people who had tried it once, found it to be torturous, and never did it again. I do plain ol' room temperature yoga and find it the perfect combination of soothing and invigorating, and saw no need to turn up the heat. When I've done yoga in warm weather, it felt good but not necessarily better.

But on Saturday, I decided to give it a try. I told myself that it was because a new yoga studio opened in my neighborhood and had a price special. I told myself it was because I wanted to try something new. I told myself that I was just sating my curiosity. But I think that I was really just feeding my ED, trying to keep it alive in little ways--pushing the rules but not breaking them.

Just as with the legions of Greek-yogurt-eaters out there, it's not like I think that everyone who does bikram yoga has an ED. At the same time, unlike Greek yogurt, I do think that the practice inherently encourages a disordered mind-set.

A) It uses artificial means to create a response that's above and beyond what a "normal" response to a healthy situation would be (that is, it uses heat to increase the post-yoga "high").
B) It makes you sweat an enormous amount, leading to a (very) temporary weight loss.
C) Most importantly: All that sweating makes you feel lighter and somehow like you've gotten rid of something. It feels like you are purging. It feels like you are purifying. And that is the whole point of bikram yoga.

"Purity" is one of those words that can mask an ED, because it seems virtuous and healthy--few people would ever comment on the amount of food I was eating when I was restricting, but I would frequently be praised for my food choices. "Eating clean," "being pure"--I hear these just as much from my fellow patients as I do eating less, and those thoughts, when vocalized, are much less likely to garner concern/frustration/disdain than visibly restricting portions across the board.

I love yoga, and its benefits have been widely documented--including its benefits for eating disorder patients. But yoga-as-practice differs from yoga-as-lifestyle, and, as in anything that is embraced as a lifestyle for its, well, style instead of for its intrinsic qualities, it becomes something that can be ranked. Yoga class trumps yoga DVD; yoga studio trumps gym-class yoga; bikram yoga trumps hatha yoga. So suddenly, simply practicing yoga isn't enough. It has to be pushed to another extreme. And that extreme, in order to have any meaning, has to be a symbol of greater health, greater purity, greater cleansing--forgetting, of course, that yoga is about balance, loss of ego, breath, and unity of the mind, body, and spirit. It becomes a competition instead of a cooperation. In becoming a lifestyle, it loses its essence and retains only ever-increasing hallmarks--more sweat, more discipline. Which is pretty much what one end of my eating disorder was all about: Instead of focusing on actual health, I focused on what signaled "health" to my ED.

So hot yoga is bad for me because I'm recovering from an eating disorder, but so are lots of things that might be perfectly healthy for others (tracking calories, taking body measurements). But I also think it's bad for the body. Not only was I extraordinarily sore the next day, but two days later I got a painful charley horse in my right thigh. I know the difference between normal postworkout soreness, or even the kind of soreness that comes after trying something new, and this kind of soreness. This was beyond what it should be--this was harmful.

So my legs ache, and only now, on Wednesday, are my shoulders feeling normal again. That's the physical damage. I'm pleased that my mental damage was minimal--in fact, if anything it may have made me more aware of the ways in which I try to trick myself, how I try to "get away" with things. Again: If I am going to recover fully, I need to not trick myself. It's easy enough to recognize my ED when it's telling me to binge or restrict; it's harder to identify it when it's leading me to hot yoga or crazy 1970s books on macrobiotics. But I recognized this as a trick, which is a start. A couple of months ago, I wouldn't have.