Pausing #food #foodie #instafood and Three Questions with Stylist Dacy Gillespie
Food, clothing, and turning down the volume on the rules we have picked up along the way
There are so many ways we can care for our body. Tender at the Desk and Stove is a monthly newsletter dedicated to exploring ways in which we can live a full life in accordance our own definitions of balance—and our bodies are our primary vehicles for living that life.
June’s newsletter is turning its attention to two basic body-oriented needs we have—food and clothing—and looking at how reducing the rules we have picked up along the way can help us ease stress we may feel around what we choose to eat and wear.
In this month’s essay “Pausing #food #foodie #instafood,” I explore how practicing honoring my appetite and not posting about what I eat to social media are two sides of the same coin.
Also featured this month is 3 Questions with Anti-Diet and Feminist Stylist Dacy Gillespie. This is the first in what I hope is a series of interviews with folks who support wellness in all sorts of ways. One way Dacy supports her clients’ wellness is by helping them name, unpack, and sometimes reject fashion rules.
And this month’s Until Next Time includes recommendations for
a podcast that investigates the story behind Cher Horowitz’s iconic closet in the movie Clueless
a podcast that looks at the plus-sized fashion universe to reflect on the the problems with how clothes are made and measured and the way clothes dictate who is allowed to participate in public life
two substacks that encourage you to trust yourself in the kitchen and when getting dressed. (I am giving away three subscriptions to one - keep reading to claim yours!)
a recipe for an outstanding classic banana bread that you can make in one bowl without a mixer
Pausing #food #foodie #instafood
I, like many homecooks and food-lovers, post photos of my food on social media.
After I plate a good looking dish I often then place my plate on the kitchen table not to eat there but to find the best light, before I then pick up my plate and eat on the living room couch. Photographing our food has become so ordinary that DoorDash asks you to photograph your pad thai before you “dig in.” And when my girlfriend or I whip out our phone before eating she says “phone eats first,” (which I think she learned from her teenage daughter) and I crack up. My ex-husband would pretend he was photographing me photographing my plate for his fictional Instagram account that was only pictures of people photographing their food. This also made me giggle.
Now I am trying something new for at least a few weeks: I am not going to be photographing my food and posting it to social media. Phone does not eat (sorry phone.) For the past two and a half years or so, I have been engaging in a big, long-term experiment: what if I just cooked or ordered and ate food without giving much air-time to the one-thousand little voices in my head, masquerading as my own thoughts? Instead, what if I listened to my tongue, teeth, and stomach? I want to do this because my body knows what I want and need, whereas the thoughts think they know better. This experiment is a keystone to my eating disorder recovery and it is becoming my new normal.
But now that I am writing about food and eating disorder recovery I think about capturing moments of cooking more. I keep a recipe journal and a regular journal and I write about food I make and why. The journal allows me to keep cooking notes and also to process whatever I am going through, not just in recovery but in life. The journal is for me to make sense of my own thoughts and feelings around the kitchen, eating, appetites, and steps I was taking toward a more fulfilling. All the documentation led to my taking more photos. But then I began sharing more food pictures on Instagram stories and that felt driven by a different impulse and suddenly I felt a little less comfortable with my choices in the kitchen.
Honoring My Appetite and Not Posting About What I Eat
I was reading food writer and chef Tamar Adler’s newsletter, The Kitchen Shrink Is in, and she advised a reader:
Remember that everyone else is racing around, not looking at you and judging you for making meals a series of picnics that are easy to enjoy.
I thought to myself, “they’re not? That sounds deeply liberating.” And then after a beat I thought, “so why then, do I continue to lay out a welcome mat and spread my softening arms, palms open, and fingers splayed to others’ judgment by posting photos of my food on my social media?”
That’s when I became curious what it would be like to not post and my food photography moratorium was mandated by yours truly. Honestly, it feels a little weird to not photograph my best-looking food— and it definitely feels liberating.
Honoring my appetite and not posting about what I eat are two sides of the same coin because the aforementioned little voices masquerading as my own thoughts come from outside of me. They are born from the misguided comments sometimes said as lightly as in passing that then did not go in one ear and out the other like I wish they had. They moved in, rent free. These comments were easier to dismiss because they were said by people who were supposed to teach, help, or love me—teachers, doctors, caregivers, and friends.
All those Instagram likes are more voices outside of me offering me approval for my food choices once again. Even if the approval is for a different reason, I want to stop seeking it.
When my body signals to me that I am hungry and I get ready to honor my appetite, for anything among a wide array of things, like
a kale salad that I make with both roasted and raw kale dressed in a lemon vinaigrette and topped pulverized almonds and some grated parmesan
roast chicken thighs whose skin is crisped up just right nested among garlic cloves, grape tomatoes, olives and lemon zest,
ratatouille made with roasted eggplant with a thick slice of bread
scrambled eggs and rice
the mintiest and chunkiest mint chocolate chip ice cream in a waffle cone
I hear thoughts like:
“You can’t be hungry. You ate breakfast later than usual.”
“I know you want bread, but you shouldn’t.”
“Isn’t squash supposed to be very carby?”
“You can’t have something sweet, you already had something sweet yesterday.”
I don’t shove these thoughts away because if I do, they will begin to clamber for attention with a volume so deafening that I can no longer hear my body, and then I freeze and don’t eat.
Then, I often stay hungry until I binge.
It has been my experience that all of my thoughts need to be heard in order to prevent a mutiny. But they don’t need to be heeded. I get curious and ask myself, “Is that true Laura? You can’t be hungry? Whose voice is that, because it’s not yours? Your stomach rumbled. You are hungry.” More voices may challenge me, “hunger is good, that means you're getting smaller right now, isn’t it worth it” and I have come to a point in my life where I can say back to them, “no.”
Acknowledgment quiets my thoughts and helps me move forward less attached to the false rules I have been taught by diet culture because I know I am honoring myself over said diet culture. I am good at this second part, because I have learned a lot in recovery and in my own research and I trust my truth around food, diet, and appetite.
Social Media Use and Mental Health is Complicated
My relationship with social media is fraught. Like for many writers and small business owners, it's the primary way I connect with readers, fellow authors, and future clients. That connection feels good and is necessary for work. But then there are the other times I use social media out of boredom or as a numbing balm when I feel out of sorts. I am constantly taking apps off my phone because I hate the way I physically feel when I use it in the latter fashion: compulsively ingesting, rarely nourishing, and oftentimes leaving me feeling rotten about myself or hopeless about the world. Yes, like a binge.
After my “Aha!” moment reading Adler’s newsletter, I see that posting to social media about food without any clear intention beyond, “look at this,” is also setting myself up, unnecessarily to feel judged for my food choices.
A 2020 systematic review of studies of social media use and how it affects mental health notes that “social media has many positive and enjoyable benefits, but it can also lead to mental health problems,” and a 2022 integrative study of binge eating and social media use found that “interventions for binge eating should be developed with an understanding of individuals' social media use.” Because the benefits keep me around I have decided it is my relationship social media that needs work and I want to use it, in a supportive way. I have already worked on limiting dissociative-scrolling with the support of app timers that limit how much time I can be on the apps each day. It has led to a natural self-monitoring of time spent numbing out. Now I want to stop seeking approval for the food I make to satiate my appetite.
I generally post food pics to show people in my Instagram stories what I made because I am a good cook who can also compose a nice looking meal. But that is a little ridiculous because people can’t really appreciate it; it might look good but you can’t smell, taste, or touch it when looking at a photo on your phone! And inevitably once I post I make myself vulnerable in an unnecessary way. I find myself wondering what people will say about the food I wanted and made and how many likes I will get. When I get few likes or worse, none, and no comments like “Yum!” or “can I get the recipe,” I am prone to feeling bad about my food. “Why didn’t they like it,” can quickly descend in my own mind into a series of questions ending with, “did I do something wrong?” My reaction is not rational but it doesn’t make my emotional experience less real. Unpacking that response is work I am doing. In the meantime, follow me on Instagram @laurakhoudari for food-free imagery.
3 Questions with Stylist Dacy Gillespie
Laura: Part of my work is to reclaim the word "wellness" from marketing teams inside the beauty, diet, and fitness industries. On your social media, you share ways in which you tend to your own wellness, so I know this is something you think about for yourself. I am curious how you would define wellness for yourself?
Dacy: To me, wellness means accepting our humanity. It means accepting that humans are not meant to work indoors for 10 hours a day or be on a screen all day. We are not meant to have a fire hose of information and tragedy blasting at us 24 hours a day. Today for me that looked like realizing my head was hurting after a couple of hours of working on a screen, walking around the block, and then taking time to feed myself. The to do list is never-ending and all the items will never be checked off. I try to remind myself to take care of myself while I'm chipping away at it.
Laura: As a stylist you are technically part of the fashion industry, however your holistic approach challenges fashion paradigms in a way that empowers folks to be their authentic self. Our work together has been a huge support to my mental health as I navigate eating disorder recovery and my changing body. What are some ways in which your approach as a stylist supports your clients' wellness?
Dacy: I think and hope that my approach removes some of the stress around clothes by naming and potentially rejecting external (or even self-imposed) fashion rules. We do this by first deciding what we like and want to wear and then look to see if said fashion rule prevents us from meeting our own needs. If so, it has to go, since it is no longer serving us. When I work with a client to create a style they love and to find clothes that fit their body as it is today, it gives a signal to their body that it is worthy at any size.
Laura: You asked me something along these lines in our first session: Did you have a favorite outfit as a kid? If so, what was it? If not, what's your favorite outfit right now?
Dacy: Unfortunately, as a kid, I didn't have much access to the clothes I wanted to wear for financial reasons. The exception was that my grandma would take me shopping as a birthday gift. I remember buying a green plaid moto style jacket with her that I loved.
I have a couple of favorite outfit combos right now. One is a striped button down with light colored pants and my red Birkenstocks. The other is bike shorts with either an oversized tee or the same striped button down. They both require no thought, are comfy, and feel like me.
Laura: Thank you for sharing a bit about your work. Please let interested folks know how they can learn more about Mindful Closet and working with you!
Dacy: Thanks for having me, Laura! You can check out my website at mindfulcloset.com and my Substack, unflattering, here. I run a group program called Making Space a few times a year. I'm really trying to cut down on my social media usage, but since that's an ongoing challenge, you can still find me @mindfulcloset on Instagram.
LISTEN to podcast Articles of Interest, a show about what we wear. So far I have listened to two episodes: The Clueless Closet and Plus Sizes.
READ Tamar Adler’s substack, The Kitchen Shrink is In and Dacy Gillespie’s substack, Unflattering. I have three 1-month subscriptions The Kitchen Shrink is In to give away. If you are interested, share my June newsletter with someone who you think will appreciate Tender at the Desk and Stove and then send me a note. The first three folks I hear from will receive the subscription.
BAKE to transform the bananas your catsitter left behind into a delicious loaf of banana bread to thank them for keeping the kitties happy. If you couldn’t tell by the specificity, that’s what I did using this recipe from The Kitchn.
Thanks for having me, Laura!