Mitchell - Eating in the middle : a mostly wholesome cookbook

T en years ago, I began my weight loss journeyone that lasted for thirteen humbling months and concluded when Id lost 135 pounds. It was the most transformative experience of my lifeand not simply in the ways one might expect. Of course, I had changed my body dramatically, but the work didnt stop there. I also had to tackle the harder task of transforming my relationship with my body and eating.

Its easy to see that Ive always loved food. The photos of me from childhood are full of me and brownies, me and pasta, me and cake. In my mothers attic, I have stowed a boxan Important box, as I articulately wrote on it with permanent marker some years ago. In it are things Ive collected that have special meaning to me. These are the only things that Id want to save if the house were on firebirthday cards from my brother, a poem from my first love, letters that my dad wrote to me from Arizona before he passed away, old photos, my favorite art projects, and so on. And there are recipes in that box. Lots are handwritten and tattered, creased and folded so many times that they could tear at any moment. Either my mom jotted them down quickly on the backs of envelopes, or my nana did on some faded index card. There are even magazine-clipped recipes from 1978, the year my brother was born, when Mom first learned to cook and, in some cosmic way, started teaching me. I love these recipes like I love certain people in my life. I know them. I talk about them. I can be reminded of them. And when theyre gone, I miss them.

But even loving food and recipes as much as I do, I cant say my relationship with eating has always been peaceful, or easy, or even normal. I spent two decadesthe first twenty years of my lifeeating like mad. I ate for so many reasons, and most of them were completely unrelated to hunger or a lack of fullness. I distracted myself with eating. I comforted myself with it, turned to eating when I was bored, and stuffed myself when I needed to feel anything but the pain of a hard childhood.

The year I turned twenty, I found my five-foot-nine self standing on a scale at the YMCA and staring down at 268 pounds. Terrified isnt a strong enough word for how scared I was. The weight was more real in that moment than it had ever been. The choice to change was clearer, more desperate than it had been before.

That was 2005, the year I turned my life around. And by the middle of 2006, I had lost 135 pounds.

For a long while, I struggled with not knowing how to eat to maintain such a loss. Is life a constant diet? I wondered. I missed the foods Id always lovedthe richer, heavier comfort dishesthe ones Id avoided while losing. Now I just couldnt imagine how Id ever be able to incorporate such things into the new, healthier life Id created. It was the constant pressure to maintain the loss that drove me to insanity. Slowly, though, I began to realize that if one goal of changing myself was to feel happier, I was failing to achieve that. To really dig into this emotional side of the struggle, I went to therapy, where I began the amazing and grueling work of unpacking all the things Id attached to food. Gradually, I began to understand the triggers that caused me to eat without a shred of controland I started to teach myself to weather my emotions without eating.

As I got the hang of the emotional side of eating, I still felt like something was missing. I realized I needed to address the practical side of those nagging cravings for the foods Id always loved but that Id banned myself from eating while I was losing weight. I didnt want to live the rest of my life devoid of desserts. I didnt want to go to family parties and feel nervous about how many calories were in the lasagna. Maybe it was time to stop dreaming about moderation and start living it. And with that, I went back to the kitchen.

I started cooking. I experimented with healthier versions of classic recipes that my mom always made, which meant a whole lot of lighteningsometimes successfully and sometimes so, so poorly. I ended up with more than a few lighter carrot cakes that were as dense and heavy as tires. In the process, I accidentally set things on fire, burned my hands when I forgot pot holders, and blistered my arms with steam. I used baking soda in place of baking powder 634 times. It was crazy and, somehow, magical. But I learned to cookand not just to butter and salt and sugar everything until it tastes good because of the deliciousness of butter and salt and sugarbut to really cook. To season, to spice. And I learned to nourish myself. What I found in the end was that working to make the mealgoing on the journey from shopping to chopping to cooking to platingmade me not want to overeat nearly as much. I wanted to savor what Id made. I wanted to share it. Finally, I realized I wasnt just having fun making meals; I was rebooting my relationship with food. I was reconciling my past with my future.