A lot can be learned from someone based on the way they eat. My eating habits have been slowly changing since I was young. All of these different habits and reasons for them have made me into the person I am today.
When I was young, my dad came from a poor family and always taught me to finish my plate. Except, he was the one who made the plate. This, on top of eating challenges with my brother, such as who could eat more hotdogs, led to me being taught from a young age to eat a lot.
Then comes wrestling. I started wrestling in 1st grade but didn’t get serious about it until 4th grade. That is when my eating habits completely flipped. I had to watch what I ate to make a certain weight class. This led to an unhealthy relationship with food due to the massive amounts I would eat right after weighing in and the restrictions that took place beforehand.
This continued until around my freshman year of high school, also the covid year. Due to this, I couldn’t wrestle for the whole summer. I ended up gaining 30 lbs over that time and still told my coach I could make 120 lbs. Meaning I had to lose 20 lbs. Of course, I had never had to lose that much weight before and waited until the last week to do it. I ended up making the weight and then immediately gaining it all back by the following day. I continued this torturous cycle for the rest of the wrestling season.
After having gone through that, I knew I needed to change something. I ended up spending days researching different diets and techniques to lose weight in a better way. Then I found CICO (calories in calories out) and strength training. I figured if I just counted calories and made sure I ate high protein I could lose weight. I tried it the following year by starting the diet two months in advance and it worked perfectly. No more terrible weight fluctuations but it came with a cost. I counted every calorie meticulously and again ruined my relationship with food. I stopped eating when I was hungry and only ate what my allotted calories were.
I knew this would be a problem when I was done with wrestling so again, I tried to do more research on how to handle my eating habits. After wrestling ended, I tried to focus more on working out to still maintain good health. I was slowly able to heal my relationship with food and continue to stay healthy. All of these changes ended up making me the person I am today.
Comments
Hi Elijah, I appreciated your story, I also can understand the feeling of needing to lose weight, I once had been overweight and tried my best to reduce it. Fortunately, I learned how to control my eating habits, replacing bad foods such as junk and fast foods with healthier foods with high proteins to lose weight. I also tried learning calisthenic and stopping myself from mindless eating and ended up losing 30lbs in 3 months.
Hi Elijah, I think most people have gone through a period of their lives where they have a difficult relationship with food, I know I have, but I think it’s something that’s not talked about very often, especially in men but I think it’s important to talk about. I appreciate your vulnerability in talking about your journey with food and am glad you’re at a place where you can eat what you want!
Hey Eli, I totally understand the crazy relationship with food. I had the same problem when I was in middle school wrestling. Like you I would eat and eat then all of a sudden had to watch my weight to make my weight class. I’m fascinated by how your effort to get healthy ended up hurting you at the same time. I never even thought something like that could happen. However i’m glad to here you found something that works for you so you can stay healthy.