Remembering Tofu Cheesecake and Facing Fears
I keep reading about the need to really lean in and surrender to restriction, truly give yourself permission, but what waits on the other side of that … for me?
What’s supposed to happen is the body levels out. When you start intuitive eating and you let go of restriction, most people tend to gain weight, deliberately swinging to the heavier side of the pendulum. After a while, when the body is no longer in crisis, it settles into a lighter, happier place once it understands it’s going to be fed and the famine is over. This is what is often referred to as the set point. It’s where your body naturally wants to be weight-wise.
I love this idea. I dream of getting to this place. But I also have a high level of distrust that this will happen to me. I say this because in my family we have a history of heavier people, especially on my mother’s side.
While we were in Raleigh for our big family holiday gathering, my half-sister, who is 15 years older than me, brought up a childhood memory of my aunt threatening to sit on her if she didn’t learn to swim.
“That was absolutely terrifying,” my sister recounted, “because Aunt Ella was almost 300 pounds at the time.”
All throughout the day, while we went hiking in the woods and then having lunch at the food hall and visiting the farmers market, I replayed this comment in my head, thinking about my aunt and trying to remember whether she was a dieter or had accepted herself in a larger body.
As I thought about it, little bits of memories started coming back. I remember my mother making a comment about how my aunt had battled her weight her entire life, and the only time she was thin was at the end when she was very sick and dying from breast cancer.
One of my biggest fears is that I am like my aunt, destined to live in a bigger body unless I lead a life of severe restriction. I fear that my swinging pendulum, when it settles, will be much higher than most, and I will be doomed to live in a larger person’s body. And I have no way of knowing this until I get there.
That night in my hotel bed as I was trying to sleep, the thoughts just kept coming.
Suddenly I wanted to ask my mom a million questions. Was my aunt always bigger? Was she always a dieter? Did she yo-yo? What was her childhood like? Almost as suddenly as the questions popped into my head, I realized I could probably safely guess the answers. With my mother and her just a few years apart, and both coming of age in the 1950s, it’s safe to assume that my aunt grew up being told the same things as my mother about her worth and value as a woman, with an emphasis placed on beauty and body size. I am sure she was told repeatedly starting at a young age that her larger body size was unacceptable and made her undesirable. To combat this, she almost certainly would have taken a variety of measures to control her weight.
A memory came back to me. I am at my aunt’s house, and we are discussing the tofu cheesecake we had both attempted from Oprah’s cookbook, or rather from Oprah’s personal chef, who was credited with helping her lose weight. I immediately Googled the phrase “oprah cookbook,” because I didn’t remember the name of it. More importantly, I wanted a rough time frame for our kitchen discussion, because while I remember dieting in my youth, I don’t have that many distinct memories.
“In the Kitchen with Rosie: Oprah’s Favorite Recipes” was published in 1994. I would have been at least 19 and in college, so it probably would have been during the holidays or while I was home on summer break. It was the height of the low-fat era. Hence tofu had replaced the cream cheese.
I remember feeling so sophisticated when I had baked that cheesecake, especially since it was made with tofu. Much more healthy (and sophisticated) than the good ol’ boy home cooking I had been raised on. It was the only type of cuisine my father would allow my mother to cook for him. I can guess what I was thinking too. If I just eat like Oprah, instead of all this home cooking, I won’t have a weight problem.
My mother used to always tell me I was just like my aunt. This was a back-handed compliment. Aunt Ella was the smarter, more sophisticated sister. The one who was better at almost everything related to domestic matters, which was all that mattered if you came of age as a ‘50s housewife. She could also be condescending and gave off an air of being better than everyone else, according to my mother. I know these kinds of labels aren’t always accurate reflections of the person, but growing up hearing them, I always felt I was more like my aunt than my mother. I wasn’t applying body size to that logic, but since I started intuitive eating, I’ve thought back to my aunt many times. Some of us are destined to live in bigger bodies. All indications are that I am one of them, just as she was.
Except … if she was a chronic dieter, she would most likely have had a lifetime of ups and downs and possibly never have been at her set point either. This is a powerful thought that gives me hope … and allows logic to take over.
Genetically, I am less like my aunt than my emotions would allow me to believe. I have also lived a very different life, one where activity and exercise was at the forefront and will continue to be, because I value adventure, experiences and the freedom that comes from having a higher level of fitness. Looking back at my aunt’s life, it appears she struggled — just like me — against something that was predetermined and out of her control. I am slowly coming to accept this with my body as well.