Allison Howard – Walking heart

As I have talked about before, not only am I loud, extremely talkative and sometimes annoying, another descriptive word I could use is “Fat”. Other words I could procure are; curvy, large, over weight, medically and on the Wii game console scales obese. All of these words gleamed from the dictionary and Nintendo would be a fairly accurate descriptor of my physical self.

Now, this really doesn’t bother me, and in actual fact I champion this very feature of mine, and generally feel at ease with the concept of not having a “Summer ready” figure any time of the year. With this, sometimes I have found myself using my own physical reality to challenge people and what society dictates. I actually based my entire Masters Thesis on this very concept and how a “Fat woman” is perceived in the world and how society as a whole treats her. 

You see, I generally do not have a problem with how I look, I am comfortable in the way I dress and how I move. My clothing size does not dictate how many KMs I can walk and whether or not I pull on a pair of bathers each summer. Most of the time I secretly enjoy openly challenging peoples ideas of how a woman is “supposed” to be. Frankly the more uncomfortable I can make someone the better, and believe me, my size and weight has challenged even the closest people to me. Once I had someone spout out at me that “I am worried about you, because you are so obese – she actually used that word- that you will end up having a heart attack.” 

Now let me assure you my wonderful reader that I am not that unhealthy where my arteries are starting to cave in or cease up. This persons actual “concern”, was not about me, it was more about her and how her own mental wellness was tracking; in short she was just trying to hurt me because she, herself was hurting. But I feel I have talked enough about that type of projection before, so I do not need to go over that again. 

However what I have been thinking about lately is, that this individual was not wholly incorrect. I am over weight, and my eating choices have lead me to the type of figure I have. And after I got over the shock of this person confessing her “fears” to me, I did have a quiet chuckle. But after the initial fall out, it has got me thinking about how I have “ended up” the way I am. 

Over the last several years, I have started wondering among other things, why I choose the comfort food over the carrot sticks, why do I find myself half way through a glass of wine and a wheel of brie before anyone else can get to it. 

I have tried all different types of techniques to get me back into prescribed healthy eating. I have read books, listened to ted talks about energy in energy out, tried dieting apps, joined facebook groups, made huge “commitment statements” online, paid for subscriptions, counted calories, joined gyms, paid personal trainers, and gone to many dieticians that have, unfortunately, not told me anything I already didn’t know. But there it is, that last sentence is the key, none of the above methods have given me anything new. I keep repeating eating habits over and over and over again. Even when I know I should be having a cup of herbal tea, the pull of the wine bottle hooks me in 95% of the time, and I have started wondering why this maybe.

What I have lately suspected is that these “habits” of mine are connected to something larger than personal choice. And over the last 12 months or so I have started exploring the possibility of the fact I may be eating my feelings to help sooth an event in my past that I have not yet been able to fully process. In short my constant over eating and my inability to stop this, is linked to a trauma event or happening in my history that my mind is still afraid of, and reacts with food to help me feel safe. Now, when I say this, I am not ready to reveal what this event may have been, only because I am still trying to figure that out. However if you read back on many of my writings here, you may be able to gleam a notion of what that may be, the post “Pipp’s in a pot” is a great inroad to what I feel has happened. 

So now that I have realised what has been occurring, what am I supposed to do with this information? Well, one habit I have, that is an alternative to food, is the creation of art and my writing. With this, just like Indiana Jones I have been digging deep into why I do the things I do, and feel the things I feel. I have been exploring how these habits have formed and are connected with something greater than the plastic cheese slices in the fridge door and hopefully one day I will be able to uncover what it is that has hurt me, that drives this compulsion, and to eventually confront this past event, so I do not keep hurting myself. 

That is what this year will be about. With my past writings I have been fairly surface level scrapping at the loose gravel and dirt that is on top of the archaeological site, but now I have hit the clay with no where else to go but dig deeper. I guess that’s why I haven’t posted for the last several weeks, I have been prepping myself for a deeper dive. I am not sure what I am going to find and to be honest I am a little nervous and a little reluctant to continue, but the road to health is not just low carb diets and exercise it is also working with the mind and moving towards healthy mental choices along side intelligent food options. 

These thoughts have inspired my latest illustration titled “Discovering the idol” Water colour and gauche on paper. I had fun with this one, I mean who hasn’t daydreamed at least once about going on adventures like Indiana Jones? And he always ends up enlightened, so fingers crossed this is what will happen for me and my adventures.

So as I end this piece I hope you will join me in my explorations this year, and hopefully I will be able to unearth something special, amazing and precious. Maybe I will be able to find the real me, and stop running and diving from the big meatball boulder behind me.