The Fatslayer Chronicles

I had a bit of an epiphany last night, and to put it into context, I’ll need to give a bit of background.

I had a really constricting childhood, with over-protective parents who never allowed me to spend any time alone and unsupervised. I lived my life under the watchful gaze of not only them, but also that of my 4 older siblings (three of us shared a bedroom), and it seemed as if I never had a single moment of private and solitary peace in the whole of my first 15 years.

Because I was overweight from infancy, my mom also monitored every single morsel of food that I ate, and blamed me constantly for gaining weight. I’m sure she thought – wrongly – that I was sneaking contraband food behind her back, and getting fat through sheer unadulterated greed. In reality she herself was the main cause of the problem, since her idea of healthy foods – homemade shortcrust or puff pastry meat and potato pies, toasted bread dipped in a bowl of pure melted cheese, everything fried in lard, every slice of bread thickly buttered, chips or heavily buttered mash with almost every meal etc. – was a recipe for dietary disaster. She had good intentions but her knowledge of nutrition was poor, and she couldn’t comprehend that the foods she was providing were contributing to the problem.

As far back as I remember mealtimes were a battle-zone, as I only had a small appetite and she was infuriated by waste, especially since money was so tight in those days. Instead of giving me a smaller portion than my siblings, she would try and force me to finish what was on my plate, bemoaning my lack of gratitude. I would be literally crying with the pain in my stomach from forcing the food down, and my sister Jinty would try to distract her so that I could sneak the food onto her plate instead (unlike me she was always hungry!).

Then, away from the table, mom would lecture me about being fat, and tell me that it must be because I was eating too much, and that the only way to lose weight was to keep my mouth shut, learn to stop when I was full, and to not be greedy.

Sigh. Parents can do your head in, can’t they? It’s a wonder I grew up so sane and normal. Heh heh.

Anyway, this tale of woe does have a point, and I’m getting there slowly. I’m about halfway through the story, so try and bear with me.

I was 16 before they went out for the evening and left me in the house completely on my own. I think they went to some school prize-giving event with Jinty, and since I hadn’t won anything I got left at home.

Yay, freedom at last!

The moment they drove away I dived straight into my mom’s worst nightmare. I started eating, and I didn’t stop eating for a couple of hours, until I was stuffed to the gills and feeling really sick. I may even have BEEN sick, in some worrying bulimic fashion (except I’d never heard of bulimia at that stage), because my stomach was hurting and I always hated the feeling of being full. It was the pain that stopped me in the end, but up to that point I was like a girl possessed.

This was my first episode of binge eating.

A couple of weeks later they trusted me enough to risk leaving me alone for a second time. I promptly launched into another binge eating episode, and then another the following week. The pattern repeated itself in every subsequent ‘home alone’ session.

A year later I left home for University, and the bingeing stopped. When I was in charge of what I could buy and eat, and no longer feeling like I was under dietary surveillance, the compulsion to eat everything in sight ceased. By and large I ate semi-healthy foods (lots of OJ and granary toast and marmite, if memory serves) in modest portion sizes, and I quickly dropped a couple of stones as a result.

Since then, bingeing episodes have been extremely rare. When I HAVE had them, though, it’s always when I’m at home for an evening by myself. And because I’m home alone so rarely, I seem to go a bit doolally, and suddenly start acting like a kid given free rein in a chocolate shop – I have no self-restraint or control at all.

Anyway, back to the present day, and last night I was ‘home alone’ at Kim’s parent’s house, dog-sitting while they’re in Scotland for a funeral. All day at work I daydreamed about the evening hours, and what delightful eating choices lay ahead of me. The possibilities were endless. I could buy pizza - or pizzas – and eat them to my heart’s content. I could stop for Indian or Chinese takeout. I could buy fish and chips. I could buy chocolate and Doritos. I could cook a huge batch of pasta and eat it with garlic bread. I could buy custard doughnuts or Danish pastries. I could buy plain chocolate digestives or caramel shortcakes. I could eat a whole tub of Ben and Jerry chunky monkey ice-cream…

But after a day of fantasising, guess what I actually did? I stopped at Tesco on the way to the house and bought a head of tender heart celery, a courgette, a couple of carrots, a couple of red onions, a yellow pepper, some red chillies, garlic, a can of organic pinto beans in a salt-free chilli sauce, a can of organic plum tomatoes and a box of six Mint Choc Skinny Cows.

Then I got in, fed the doggies, and cooked myself up a huge batch of veggie chilli bean casserole. I ate the casserole – which was DELICIOUS – with a tall glass of iced water, and then I had a skinny cow for dessert. Then I had a cup of tea and a couple of gingernut biscuits whilst I did the crossword, then I phoned Kim for a chat, then I read my book, then I jumped rope for twenty minutes, then I read a little more and then finally I had an early night.

Yay, what a breakthrough!

And, pleasingly, I didn’t even feel deprived at having missed my one solitary home-alone opportunity to throw caution to the wind and stuff myself with crap. I have no regrets at all, even though it’ll be months before I have another evening completely to myself.

I’m not ‘cured’ because I still had the bingefest daydreams, and the thought of eating all that crap still gave me an illicit thrill – just why is that, do you think? Even with all my knowledge of good nutrition, I fantasised about eating pizza and doughnuts, not something healthy like tofu and yoghurt – I’m obviously a hopeless case! But, when push came to shove, eating crap remained just a fantasy, but the reality was a whole lot different – not to mention a whole lot more tasty, satisfying, and good for my self-esteem.