Listeners’ Letter

Dear food,

Our relationship has been tense and emotional, but I feel like we are starting to reach an understanding of each other. My mother put me on my first diet when I was eight, but I only ever seem to gain weight, despite the countless diets and rules I’ve had over the years. By 2019, I was restricting so much and still gaining weight, and I hated and resented you for that. My husband and I also started to try to conceive in 2019, and having both come from highly fertile families, we were concerned after months of failed pregnancy tests. In February 2020 I saw a new OBGYN who was wise enough to catch that I have PCOS.

After a vaginal ultrasound, the diagnosis was confirmed. On the one hand, I was devastated, but on the other hand, I was so relieved. I was relieved to know that it was not my fault that I gained so much weight over the years, despite eating nearly perfectly. It wasn’t my fault I craved sleep so badly in the afternoons that it impacted my ability to do my job. It wasn’t my fault that I had acne since the fifth grade, and it wasn’t my fault I couldn’t get pregnant.

Our relationship, food, changed that day. I figured if I was still gaining weight despite 20 years of dieting, what was the point? My body obviously needed something other than a diet. I started researching into intuitive eating and curating an Instagam feed full of other women who had PCOS, fat bodies, and freedom. I read books on how to recognize the damage diet culture had done to my belief system, and how to rebuild a set of beliefs that neutralized food and accepted my body. I slowly reached a place of equilibrium with you, and acceptance of myself. Simultaneously, I started taking fertility medications in order to help my body conceive. I’ve never experienced anything so taxing to my body as the intense hormones from the fertility drugs. I gained weight quickly, my boobs grew several sizes, and I was exhausted. I was learning to give myself grace when it came to our relationship, and to feed myself as I needed to, even though my body was changing even faster than it might have otherwise.

I am so grateful to have conceived some months later, but I had no idea how difficult it would be to go straight from fertility treatments into pregnancy. My hormones are still all over the place. I’m still gaining weight, as I should be, and my boobs are still growing with my family history and my PCOS, I am at high risk for gestational diabetes. My OBGYN had me take the glucose test a few weeks early, and I just barely skated under the threshold. He and I agreed, however, to retake the test in a month because of my risk, just to make sure we are aware if anything changes.

Food, it’s so difficult to know how to stay at peace with you while taking care of my body and my baby. The pregnancy community is so fatphobic and diet centered, and overweight women are criticized for their weight and gestational diabetes, as if they are choosing to harm their baby by being overweight. The weight gain guidelines are so restrictive for overweight women who are expected to be losing fat while pregnant. I have felt so alone in this pregnancy trying to navigate my health while doing my best to weed out the fatphobia. But I’m exhausted. The pull to go back to diet and restriction is so strong, and there is a constant voice in the back of my head telling me that every bite I take is harming my baby. I don’t want to go back to being scared of you again, but I’m running out of the emotional and mental energy it takes for us to stay at peace.

Food, is it even possible to get through this pregnancy on good terms?

Sincerely, scared and very pregnant.