Today I’m launching my podcast (!!), and I must admit I’ve never been more terrified about a new venture as I am about this first episode. Not only am I experimenting with a new medium, but today I’m also sharing my own story with food. And it’s complicated.
Food is my creative outlet; it’s my favorite pleasure; and it’s the focus of my career. And while I currently experience freedom and ease around food, for several years of my life it was my biggest source of anxiety and stress. In this episode I share my story—how a deep-seated fear over my body resulted in borderline anorexia for years in my late teens and early twenties; how I denied that period of history out of shame when I went to culinary school; how I had to confront my past as a new mom with massive digestive issues; how food has became a source of healing, connection and self care. How this is a practice. How it takes compassion.
I’ve never shared this full story, and it’s incredibly scary. But although my story is unique to me, I also know that it’s not abnormal. Almost everybody I know has had a complicated relationship to food at some point in their lifetime. If this is you, please know that you are not alone.
The stresses that we have around food don’t come from us, but from sources outside ourself. We are deeply conditioned around food and our bodies, from the media, to our culture, our families, our religions, social media influencers, food corporations, wellness companies… the list goes on (see last week’s newsletter). In sharing my story I hope that we can begin to talk about food and our bodies and in a more open way, and I hope that together we can begin to untangle some of the webs that have ensnared us into believing that our bodies aren’t good enough. We don’t need to use food as a way to control our bodies, but we can use food as a way to care for our bodies in a rich, loving way.
Please me know if you give this episode a listen (I’ve also included a transcription below). If you’d like to share your own story in the comments, I am here for you. I will hold space and listen with love. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for doing the same.
xo,
Nicki
Episode 1 Transcript
Welcome to Mind Body Spirit Food. I'm your host, Nicki Sizemore, and in this podcast we'll explore the rituals, traditions, and cultural influences around food and how they connect us to our minds, our bodies, our spirits, the earth and our communities. This is a space that's dedicated to bringing more presence, ease, and joy into the process of feeding ourselves. Let's dive in.
Welcome. I am so excited for this first episode of the podcast, and to be completely honest, also incredibly nervous. For a little background, in this podcast we're going to share recipes, we’re going to explore the juicy deliciousness around food, but we're also going to go deep, seeking to understand the interconnection of food with our minds, our bodies, our spirits, the earth, and the people around us. We have a very complicated relationship with food, and my mission is to help us unravel some of that.
This podcast is non-dogmatic, meaning it supports no one way of eating. I believe we are all unique and we all have unique needs when it comes to the foods we eat. There are no good foods, there are no bad foods. This is therefore a non-judgmental space but rather one in which we can explore with curiosity. And if we choose to implement some of the practices we discuss in our own kitchens, it's completely optional and it's completely personal.
In this first episode, I figured I'd share a bit about myself just so you know who I am. But for most episodes, I won't be alone. We'll talk with chefs, spiritual leaders, farmers, body workers, really anybody who has an interesting story, because the thing about food is that we're all connected to it.
Here's where I'm getting really nervous, because I'm going to tell you a bit about myself and my own complicated relationship with food. I'm a trained chef. I went to culinary school in 2005, a few years after graduating from college. And I was actually an anthropology major in college, so with this podcast, I feel like I'm coming full circle. But let's back up a little further.
The first question I'm going to ask all of my guests is, “What is your cultural upbringing, and how did it affect your relationship to food?” I thought I would need to answer those questions myself, and it's a bit of a long answer, but I think it's important for setting up why I'm so passionate about exploring food and the ways that we are conditioned around food.
I grew up in the Midwest. We ate a very, I guess, meat and potatoes kind of diet. And since both of my parents worked full-time jobs, as a kid we had lots of fast food and takeout. I do want to mention that my mom is a great cook, but at that point in our lives, she did not have the time. However, food was always a huge source of pleasure for me. I was the kid watching Jacques Pépin on PBS instead of cartoons. I loved experimenting in the kitchen.
But in high school, my relationship to food began to change. I grew up in the '90s during the low fat craze, and there are so many ways I began to be influenced by the messages I was receiving—from the media, from my family, from the magazines I was reading. I began to fear fat. Literally, this was a fear. I feared fat in the foods I was eating. I felt like the fat would kill me. And I feared it on my body. Diet culture is a beast, you guys. I subconsciously began to believe that my worth was attached to how my body looked, and that my body was something to fear and control.
I would say this goes back even further. We live in a very patriarchal society, and even the religion that I grew up with taught me, or the lessons that I took from it at least, were that my body was filled with sin, and there was shame—inherent shame—in my body.
All of this got worse in college. And ironically, I hit my lowest point when I was studying abroad in France. And this is such irony when I look back because I was enamored with French culture, and it was really where my love for food blossomed. I was blown away by the markets, by the three-course meals my French mom would make every night. It was so unlike anything I was used to in the United States, and I knew it was what I wanted my life to look like.
But at the same time, I dropped to the smallest weight I've ever been and became borderline anorexic. I've always been in a small body (I joke that I have a body of a 12-year-old boy), but I lost a lot of weight. My mind still couldn't relinquish control. My body fears persisted, even while I was enjoying the foods of France. I would skip meals or buy minuscule lunches to "make up for dinner.” And it wasn't until my family visited me near the end of my stay and threatened to take me home that I was finally able to see how far I'd gone. In an effort to control my body, I had completely lost myself. And food, which was my biggest source of pleasure, had also become the biggest source of stress in my life.
Just to give you guys an idea, as I mentioned, I've always been in a small frame. I'm five foot nine, but I'm just narrow, no boobs, no hips. I've never been what society would deem overweight, and it doesn't matter. I still hated my body. And I couldn't even recognize that what I felt was hate. I had no connection to my body other than one of fear. So maybe it's more accurate to say I feared my body. I had dropped to under a hundred pounds. And when I see pictures of myself during that time, oh, I just want to reach out and grab her and hold her so tight.
France was my rock bottom, and I started therapy when I got back home. And thank God for that. I was able to start unraveling all of the conditioning around food and my body. I began to see how the messages I had internalized were from others, and from their motives of profit and control. And I slowly learned to feed myself again without fear.
By the time I graduated college, I thought I was healed. I moved to New York City with my boyfriend, who's now my husband (who you guys will hear from in future episodes!). After working in marketing for a couple of years and hating it with every cell in my body, I went to culinary school. I had the most fun time, and fell in love. From there I started working in test kitchens, in catering, as a food stylist and more. I relished in trying new restaurants and cuisines. Everything seemed great. I was loving it.
But this was all on the surface because deep down within, I would still get triggered when I'd read things about clean eating, which basically had replaced low fat, or when I heard people talking about the wellness protocols they were on, which really is a fancy word for a diet. So those old patterns of wanting to control my body through food would resurface and it would take me days or even weeks to work through the trigger and trust my body again. When I look back now, I realize that at that time I had just stuffed that young girl with anorexia into the deepest, darkest part of my shadow. I was so ashamed of her. How could anybody trust me as a chef if they knew I had had an eating disorder? So I completely denied her.
Everything changed after my oldest daughter was born. I developed hypothyroidism, I had undiagnosed Lyme's disease for almost a year, and I was testing positive for anti-nuclear antibodies (ANA’s), which are often indicators of autoimmune disease. And on top of everything, I was experiencing a ton of digestive issues. I looked like I was pregnant for a year after [Ella] was born. The doctor I was working with just happened to have a functional medicine background and put me on an elimination diet to get to the root of my digestive troubles. I was forced to face my shadow. I had been ignoring my body for years out of a drive to escape my past, eating anything and everything out of sheer resistance because I was afraid of going back to that place of restriction.
I was really nervous about the elimination diet. But once I began it, and began to feel better, I realized that I could trust myself. I no longer had to fear that younger self, but I could invite her back in with love and compassion. I had a lot of support during this time—close friends, my doctor, therapists, body workers. I just want to let you know that I didn't do this alone.
I started paying attention to how different foods made me feel. I eventually had to cut gluten out completely, which was so hard. I was like, “how am I going to work in the food industry without gluten?” This was before being gluten-free was as easy as it is today. But it was really the best thing that happened to me because I was able to heal my body. It was kind of incredible. Within a few months, my digestion vastly improved, and I tested negative for ANAs. And I realized that yes, food is energy. Yes, it's comfort. Yes, it's stress and all of that stuff. But food is also medicine.
This is an ongoing journey. We are constantly flooded with messages, in magazines, newspapers, on social media, from our family, from our culture, about what constitutes "healthy" eating. And it takes conscious attention to recognize what's mine and what's not. I've come to realize that my body is my sacred container and that I can trust her. And what feels good in my body is completely unique to me. And this is a practice. Every day before I pick up my chef's knife, and when I sit to eat, I take two deep breaths and I ground myself. I consciously become present.
And listen, there are absolutely times when I forget to listen to my body or when I choose not to because we are not perfect, and that would be boring. There are times when I push my body when I need rest, or when I eat foods that don't agree with me. But when I overdo it, instead of falling back on the pattern that I used to have of feeling guilty, or ashamed, or a fear of lack of control, instead I practice compassion.
Gosh, I'm so grateful for this journey and for my relationship with food. Now food has become a source of self-care for me in a much deeper way. I'll share more about my own personal practices with you in future episodes.
In talking with so many of you, I've come to realize that my journey, while it is completely unique to me, it is not all that abnormal. Almost everybody I know has had a complicated relationship to food. So I invite you with me on this journey to detangle some of these webs, and to regain our sovereignty as eaters. To regain the pleasure and the joy that can come from feeding ourselves.
And we won't be so serious all the time, I promise! We'll have a lot of fun too. But I think it's time that we heal ourselves, and I think this is a really important time to look at food more closely, to celebrate food, but to also recognize the ways in which food disconnects us from ourselves.
Before I sign off, there's one more question I'm going to be asking all of my guests. “It's your last meal on earth, what would it be?” Oh, okay. I have no idea. I did not think about this before I sat down! And I have to tell you, I think my answer would change not only daily, but I think my answer would change by the hour.
I'm recording this at 09:48 in the morning. It is a freezing cold winter's day, so that absolutely influences my answer. But right now, it would be a bowl of the creamiest polenta with lots of Parmesan cheese and butter. And on the bed of polenta would be the most succulent short ribs you've ever eaten with a rich red wine sauce and a gremolata topping (which has lemon zest, parsley, and pine nuts) for that pop of brightness. And a shaved fennel salad. And definitely a glass of really good wine. And for dessert, oh, for those of you who know me, of course, you know what I'm going to say. A piece of warm apple pie with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
Okay, that's it from me. Thank you for listening. Thank you for letting me share my story. This is really scary for me, and I'm so grateful for you for holding space. I can't wait to hear more about you and your story. Please feel free to share in the comments.
If this work resonates with you in any way, you can support it by signing up for my newsletter, Mind Body Spirit Food. You can leave a review or share this with friends. You can even become a paid member to the newsletter for just five bucks a month, and that funds this entire project. Thank you again for listening. This work could not happen without you. I'm Nicki Sizemore, and as always, remember to nourish yourself with intention and love.
My history with Food (it’s complicated)