About Me

Hello there,

Thank you so much for reading my blog :) My name is Lisa and I started Wholly Smackerel to document my love affair with food. I know, you're thinking "Well, duh. Why else would you have a food blog?" The truth is that it's taken me almost thirty years to say it, mean it and feel f*#&ing proud of it.

My SMACKdown:

For as long as I can remember I have struggled with my relationship with food and body image. From being mortified to wear a white leotard in my "Black or White" Michael Jackson dance performance in 1st grade, to years of wearing XXL t-shirts throughout elementary and middle school, to Saturday night workouts in high school instead of being stupid with friends, these thoughts and feelings were unrelenting.

I made it all the way to college before I really let things get out of control. I had my wisdom teeth out during the winter break of my freshman year and, due to my inability to eat food and twice daily workouts my weight dropped to it's lowest ever. Holy crap it felt...good?

I guess... but more than that, the pressure was now on to keep it that way. When I returned to school I maintained the daily double-workout regimen, waking up before the sun to take a run through town, and then hitting the gym for at least an hour after class. On top of that, I slowly began to make my diet more and more restrictive. It got to the point where pickles were even cut from my diet.

Pretty much I'd starve myself all day long and subsist off of liters upon liters of seltzer water. Then, for dinner I'd go to the dining hall and eat salad. I'd feel satiated for about an hour before I was hungry again. I'd have an apple and drink more seltzer to hold me over a little longer, then do my strict nightly regimen of calisthenics before going to bed by 10 pm because I was hungry, and sleep was a great distraction. I was the roommate from hell!

I was getting worse by the day, and the skinnier I got, the more sad, mad and isolated I became. My life revolved around avoiding food, exercising and the rigid schedule I had built for myself, and nowhere in this was there room for friends or any fun.

I knew what I was doing was bad, but I couldn't let it go. Finally, I sought help and went to a doctor. At first I insisted that I wanted to get better on my own, but I thwarted my own recovery efforts dumping the Ensures I was supposed to drink for weight gain down the drain. I wasn't getting better, and when I hit my low of 92 lbs, it was time for the big leagues.

After submitting my last final of my freshman year I checked into an inpatient eating disorder rehab program outside of Boston where I relinquished all personal privacy. What and how much I ate was documented in detail and I couldn't flush the toilet without it being inspected first. I spent my days rotating between group discussions, private therapy sessions, mod podging collages and taking "smoke breaks" because it was our only opportunity to go outside. I lasted 10 days before I had had enough and went home.

I wouldn't say that my time in the hospital made me better. I didn't leave on a mission to get healthy or put on weight or with a bag of nifty tools to work out my feelings. What I did leave with was a deep sadness; for the beautiful young girl who had to be wheeled in on a gurney because she was so weak, for the older woman still suffering after years of struggle and pain, and for the woman my age who was no rookie to rehab programs. While I didn't leave with a resolve to heal myself, something strong and silent implanted within me - a determination to be happy. 

I slowly fell back into the life I led before things spiraled out of control and by the time I graduated from college I was seemingly better. I mean, I had gained back all my weight (and then some), my life didn't revolve around avoiding food and I had a social life again, so how couldn't I be better?

After college I moved to Guadalajara, Mexico to teach ESL. It was also in Guadalajara and at work where I met Maggie. We began dating in the spring and as we began to know each other better I told her my history with anorexia, assuring her, of course, that "I was better." She knew better. She saw through the stories I told myself about food and health, and she told me that she loved me and that it hurt her to see me being so mean to myself. It was then that I officially began to get better.

Working through my body, weight and exercise issues hasn't been a linear progression of getting better-ness. The road I've been on since leaving the hospital has been full of dead ends, traffic jams and really confusing directions. Nevertheless, I've made it! There are lots of things that I can look back on now and say "yes, that was a turning point" and "yes, that helped me heal," but I think I can say with certainty that my final obstacle to killing this beast was learning to love food. 

Over the past several years I've taught myself to cook and have found that yes, cooking is a skill you can get better at (thank god!). I have learned that eating fresh, home-cooked foods makes me incredibly happy. Also, I've come to realize that there's no reason and no room for negative feelings and dialogue when it comes to food and eating. 

I write about food because it makes me happy and because I want it to make other people happy too. I know that my story isn't a solitary one. Food makes far too many people miserable and I'm here with my megaphone to say that this story we tell ourselves that food is punishment is just smoke and mirrors, people. Forget all that nonsense, and join me in this love affair with food.

Bon apetit. Buen provecho. B'teavon.