Match's Diet

So things with Match have been going really well lately.  Really, really well.  We had some definitely patchiness earlier in the semester, and I would be lying if I said there weren't times I when I wondered if this is really what I want...but we stuck it out and I think that now that a lot of the background stress has drained away, we can be more of "us" again. He had an awful, awful practicum adviser that treated him like shit every day, and I think the stress and emotional wear-and-tear from that were really carrying over to our relationship.  And it wasn't all him--both of us were pretty high anxiety over PhD decisions and such.  Anywho, that's a lot better now.

There was one thing, though, that really caused some tension and some of the only conflict on our last visit.

His eating.

Are you surprised? Ha...okay so first of all, his diet is AWFUL. Not just from my eating disordered perspective, I swear.  If you gave a carnivorous 4 year old with a raging sweet tooth complete control over his food intake, it would look like Match's. Truth.

It's not how much he eats, but that it's all extremely unhealthy things, highly processed soaring in sugar and fat and with no fiber, NO fruits/vegetables or anything he might even suspect of having a chloroplast at any stage of its life. I started to list some examples but was afraid it would get triggering, so I took those out. I'm not against junk food, and definitely do consume it myself. But the issue isn't that he eats snack foods or superheavy meals, it's that that is ALL he eats. D. has actually noted that he would probably benefit from a nutritionist more than me at this stage.  So anyway, that's a small piece of background.

He is very athletic, though, which is probably one reason that he has always felt a license to eat whatever he wants (again, the key isn't how much he eats, but that he "wants" only crappy things. When we first started dating I'd get stressed that he didn't always eat a ton on dates and I hated being the only one to finish my plate, even though it was salad).  Since he started grad school, he hasn't been able to play sports as much as he did in college--he went from playing about 5 days a week to about 3 times a month.  So he's gained weight, but not an extreme amount, and if he were actually exercising and eating fine, he'd be perfectly healthy at his new higher weight.

That's another thing, though: he refuses to work out.  He will play competitive sports for hours, but won't spend 15 minutes running or lifting weights, because it's "pointless."

And high blood pressure runs in his family.  He actually already has high blood pressure, and did even back when we first met when he was thinner.  We checked our blood pressure at the Target pharmacy just on a whim, and the basic results were that the machine wondered if I was alive, and told him he was lucky that he was alive, LOL. And his dad was recently diagnosed with diabetes.  I'm glad he hasn't gotten 23andme, because I'm sure I'd lose sleep over the results.

Okay so that is my whining/complaining about Match's health habits.  The key is that I care about him a lot, and truly worry about his health. I'm still attracted to him, we still do active things together, etc, so this really is more than vanity. I know it's not my job to police his health, but I've invested over 2 1/2 years of my life in him at this point and hope to enjoy him in the future. I worry.

 I actually go out of my way NOT to nag him about his diet.  Partly because I don't want to be that girlfriend, and partly because I think it has a chance of being blown off as my ED talking.

But sometimes keeping my mouth shut about it backfires. On this trip, there were a few times that I was so stressed/unhappy about what he was eating that I got really tense, which he immediately picked up on, and it created discord without him even knowing what was going on.  Which doesn't seem fair.  I hate that I let it get to me.  But I also hate that he doesn't see how unsmart his habits are, even though he's a super intelligent guy.

REALITY CHECK: Does the "how can this smart person do such dumb things to their health" lament ring any bells?  Of course, I have thought it about every ED friend I've ever had.  I'm sure my loved ones have thought it about me.  So just for the record, I see the analogy here and accept that it's a valid criticism of this entire post.  Match has had to watch me do things that are patently eating disordered, not in my best interest, and go along with a trend of behaviors that very well could--and may very well already have, to some degree--shorten my life.  So here I am, whining about being put in a position that is really just the reciprocal of what I've put him through.  Sucks all around, I suppose.

Now that we're on ED issues: I DO tend to take on vicarious guilt about what others are eating.  Back in the very early days of my ED, my mom was overweight (she isn't now).  I would see her eating what I thought was too much or the wrong type of food, and I would get so stressed about it that my mind would twist the stress into clamping down harder on my own food intake. (DISCLAIMER: I am NOT blaming my mother for my ED in any way, shape, or form. I was already getting disordered at that point and it was just one of many, many contributing factors, and I from what I know about myself I don't think it shifted my own ultimate trajectory).  That hasn't been an issue for a long time, but I definitely felt myself shifting into that mode during the last Match visit.  Overall I did fine with food, but I was really, really working hard at not restricting because I was stressed about his intake, and it made me tense and cranky a few times.

Anyhow, I've talked about this with both D. and T., and they both validated that his diet is a concern, but emphasized that I can't feel responsible for it, and need to do my best to not let it overshadow other things.  It's okay to make an occasional suggestion or comment without it being nagging or critical, but otherwise he is a grown-up and is going to do what he wants to do.  And the issue isn't dominating our interactions, but it did cause a couple of unnecessary spats.

And I really, really get disgusted with myself for letting that take over my thoughts/mood about him at times, when there are so many other things I could be thinking about. Like how he makes the bed while I'm in the bathroom doing my make-up every morning. Like how he was such a patient teacher when he was helping me with the statistics for my thesis. Like how he gave me an incredibly sweet nickname and uses it daily. Like how he makes a point of pulling my toast out of the toaster for me because he knows I have burn-phobia. Like how he still wants to hold my hand while we argue. Like how he thinks I'm sexy first thing in the morning when my ensemble consists of one of his old t-shirts, no make up, and messy bed hair.  Like how he doesn't complain that I constantly cheat when we play basketball 1 on 1. Like how he learned a sweet song ('You and Me' by Lifehouse) on guitar and sang it to me as a surprise one night. Like how he hides random love notes for me to find after he goes home from a weekend visit. Like how if he notices I have goosebumps while we're watching a movie, he will wordlessly take it upon himself to carefully burrito me up in a blanket, rendering me somewhat immobile but very cozy. Like how tenderly he kisses the ED tattoo on my hip. Like how he texts me photos of himself in the mornings before work to make sure that his tie matches his shirt. Like how he is the only real-life person I can ever talk to completely honestly about my ED stuff.  Like all the times that he has reminded me that I will have a Safe Zone with him no matter what else happens.

A picture, yikes! I'll probably chicken out and take it down soon.

Makes me pretty ashamed for ever giving a damn about junk food.

This was a long one.  I think the more private format makes me a little more honest, and that results in more rambles.  Thanks to anyone who read the whole thing.  By the way, when I mentioned in the last post that I was disappointed in how much privatizing had affected my pageviews, I was wrong. I was looking at pageviews for individual posts, but it seems now most people are reading from the home page (which is great!), so when I thought I'd had 8 pageviews I'd actually had 82.  My bad. You ladies are awesome.

Participatory prompts: Do you ever let a loved one's eating habits affect your own? Have you ever been in a similar situation of worrying about someone's health but being afraid to speak up about it, either because of your ED history or something else? General thoughts/comments?