From a very young age, I was taught that food was the purest form of comfort. I grew up in a house filled with five adults, and despite their crazy schedules, once a day we met to sit around the multipurpose dining room table. This table had seen much chaos throughout the day, but by six o’clock in the evening it was time for calm. My grandmother would place dishes on the table and we would all pass, by rule, counterclockwise, taking what we desired; there was always enough. We never prayed for our food; we lacked that religious blessing before beginning our gorging, but nevertheless this was our time together as a family. Each of us left the table feeling overly stuffed. We would, as a family, remove the dishes from the table and begin placing the remaining food into dishes that would most likely be opened later in the evening, wash the food-covered dishes, and begin on dessert. This was a nightly procedure still present if any of my grandmother’s children desire to visit whether alone or with their family.

Because of this ritual, food became my life. I was never afraid to eat. The cookie jar would mysteriously empty only shortly after I arrived home from school. On Tuesday and Thursday nights after gymnastics practice I would be driven to the nearest 7-11 store to pick up the largest slushy I could find; I would always pack it down just so I could get that much more syrup-sweetened shaved ice in the cup. Most importantly, I was never a skinny child; it was clear I was meant to be an athlete. However, I was never large, what the doctors would deem as overweight.

Upon entering high school, I desired to remain an athlete. In my mind, this was vital to maintaining balance in the world of academics. I was encouraged to at least try out for the cheerleading squad despite my apprehensions to become one of those girls. I came to love the sport and anyone who says cheerleading is not a sport needs to explain my broken foot, severe concussion, cracked ribs, and twice severely sprained ankle. In the world of competitive sports, I had always lived by the philosophy that every sacrifice had to be made in order to succeed. While we were talking to our coach, she mentioned that it is the flyer’s responsibility just as much as the bases’ responsibilities to make sure each stunt sticks. For those who are not as familiar with cheerleading lingo, the one girl at the top is held to the same level of responsibility as the girls pushing her into the air.

These words I will never forget. “If that stunt hits the ground and you know you ate a cheeseburger or pizza or something heavy for lunch, it is just as much your fault as it is your bases fault. You should be changing your diet to eat like a flyer.” That is what my coach said that day.
From that day forward, I ate yogurt. Yogurt for breakfast. Yogurt for lunch. Yogurt for dinner. My greatest variation in my diet was throwing in the occasional side salad. This diet continued until track season began approximately three months later. As a runner, I was then encouraged to indulge in 2500-3000 calories per day. I soon began getting sick from the foods I ate. Anything and everything was a waste, because thirty minutes later, two-thirds of it had left my body. I lost a significant amount of weight and was forbidden from running until I could control my diet due to health concerns. When I went to the doctor, he confirmed I had developed a case of chronic acid reflux which could be controlled by one pill each day. He also confirmed that this was caused by my drastic adjustment in my eating habits; my desire to succeed as an athlete permanently damaged my body.

For the past three years I have struggled to maintain a diet that would replace my taking a pill daily. I cannot stand the thought of living without pain only because I have medication running through my body. I deleted processed foods from my diet, artificial sugars, anything that had come in contact with frying oil or butter, and anything that wasn’t made with simple ingredients. I starved myself of nutrients simply to find the foods that would best settle my temperamental stomach. It was not until my senior year of high school that I was blessed with the opportunity to study fitness and nutrition. I began an independent study on the foods entering my body and their effects. Through this semester-long study, I learned not only what my body needed to survive, but what I could do to help my body function at the athletic level. Despite being long past concerned, my parents recognized a difference in my eating habits. My father once said, “I’m so happy to see you eating. You’re a lot happier with food.” For the first time in over two years, I was able to look at a meal and not dread the entire eating process.

I benefitted both physically and psychologically from my studies. I could now endure winters without a constant cough or nasal congestion; my immune system was once again being nourished with the vitamins and nutrients it needed to combat the common cold. In my mind, food once again became a friend rather than foe. Eating healthy no longer meant eating nothing. I was never to battle with my diet again, neither overeating as a child nor malnourishment as a young adult, because for the first time I understood my body’s processes. I understood what my body needed in both training mode and daily living. I call nutrition my obsession but it is only because this body is the only one I will get, and despite being chemically imbalanced from within, I must take care to avoid a life reliant on annual visits to the nearest drug store.