I was listening to an episode of one of my favorite podcast last week and it got me thinking. First, I should probably tell you what the episode was about. This podcast is actually a humorous podcast that deals with various opinions about food. This particular episode was a re-run from 7 or 8 years ago about this woman’s recovery from an eating disorder. It wasn’t this podcast’s usual content but I listened anyway.

What got me writing this post was why this woman went down the path she did. It took her nearly a decade to recover from her eating disorder and how she developed an eating disorder was because she was influenced by her friend to use a calorie counter app for her daily nutrition.

I feel like we’re all being constantly influenced, whether by those around us or by the world of social media. Hearing this woman’s story also got me thinking about my journey. I don’t have an eating disorder but I’ve been on diets for a lot of my life and even though I’ve off dieting since 2019, I never truly given myself the permission to enjoy food until 2025.

Intermittent fasting was the only restrictive diet I’ve ever attempted. Before then, I’ve always been restrictive in the amount of food I let myself to have but I was never into calories-counting. Thankfully, I never went as extreme as making myself vomit, although I am ashamed to say that I did do something similar. I chugged warm salt water to induce diarrhea. It works but not pleasant.

Back to the topic at hand. I, too, was being influenced when I went on my diets. For most of my life, I’ve been called a “pig” and “fat” by my mom’s siblings. There were a lot of times when they wouldn’t even say my name, they will just say, “Fat girl wants…”. When I told my mom this, she said it’s endearing. Younger me may had bit her tongue, slightly older me would find ways to improve, while present me would find this horrifically insulting. Believe me, I’ve lashed out about this.

Anyway, listening to this podcast episode, I couldn’t help but think how much we’re all being influenced by those closest to us and how much harm we can sometimes inflict on ourselves just because we want to be of a certain size and shape. I never got to the size and shape I wanted until I completely got out of dieting. What does that prove?