So, I have a relatively complicated relationship with food; it’s never been diagnosed as a life-threatening issue, thankfully, nor has the topsy-turvy food consumption habits affected my state of mind as far as I can remember. With that said, I think that women - especially athletes - tend to have a love/hate connection with what they eat; at least, this athlete does.
As a young tennis player, I used to always think that it wasn’t OK to have dessert, especially in front of anyone else. I distinctly remember eating a suitcase full of “Lara” bars, a popular protein-packed bar that I would bring on the road with me to tournaments. Instead of eating them throughout the week or in between matches, I’d just sit down in my room - alone - and eat them one by one. Maybe it was a nervous tick of mine, or to feel in control over something that was out of my hands. Either way, those bars found their way into my belly - and stayed there. If you’ve done something similar, you know that unless you drink a whole lot of water with those bars, they sort of just sit in your stomach until you pretty much explode. At least that’s how it felt on the inside [oh my gosh, I guess I’m going there]. I just felt so embarrassed about eating in front of other people because I thought that if they were judging the quantity of my food intake, that I’d compensate by overeating in private.
A benefit - or drawback, quite frankly - to living out of a suitcase while traveling to these tennis tournaments was that you could subsist off of the hotel’s mini bar. That is, if the hotel kept a well-stocked fridge. Even if I could have access to a chocolate bar from the local bodega for half the price, there was something about taking one from the fridge and eating it in the hotel room as opposed to eating in front of fellow athletes at meal times (tournaments would sometimes provide meals for players - a nice perk!).
There was only one time that I enjoyed having dessert in public. That was poolside in Costa Rica with a close friend of mine, who bought us a box of mini desserts to share after our match - what a sweet gesture! A couple of hours before, we had finished our match and I guess this was her way of congratulating me on the win and being gracious in defeat - she’s still a close friend to this day; by the way, I wound up getting creamed like the filling of an eclair the next day, but I’m sure my diet the night before didn’t cause that result…one would hope! Oh, whatever.
Separately, I just want to say that I do feel thankful for the food that I can eat. Today, for instance, I had a decadent Italian lunch shared with my loved ones at one of the City’s best Italian restaurants - everyone in the restaurant was eating comfortably, not focusing on whether it was “OK” to be eating as much or as little as they wanted to stay within budget or within their stomach’s comfort zone. The moral of the story, at least for me, is that food is meant to be shared and consumed without judgement. And if someone in public is judging you for what you eat, they’re either a) not your friend b) miserable or c) jealous AF.
Like Rihanna once said, cheers to the freakin’ weekend!