Almost Sated: A Q&A with Kristi Koeter
Almost Sated: A Q&A with Kristi Koeter
Everything I thought thinness would bring came when I was finally eating enough
This week’s Change of Heart: an exceprt from my Q&A session with Kristi Koeter, career journalist and creator of Almost Sated, a newsletter about ditching diets and reclaiming self-worth from physical appearance. Be sure to check out the full interview at the link below, and thanks again, Kristi, for having me.
Kristi: When did you quit diets and why did you initially decide to stop dieting?
Jamie: "Quit" is maybe not the exact right word. My body kind of unilaterally decided it was done with my bullshit.
It was the winter of 2018-2019 and I, a native Floridian, was living in Santa Fe—which many people don't know gets down to like seven degrees Fahrenheit in the winter. Having grown up fat, I'd lost a very substantial amount of weight through extreme dieting when I was 21. I was just about to turn 30. Food and exercise had ruled my life for nine years by that point, and it had developed into full-blown anorexia for the last three, though nobody recognized it—not even my doctors, who simply patted me on the back for my massive weight loss and prescribed me courses of progesterone to pull out the periods I'd been missing for months on end. (This is what's called "atypical" anorexia, where your BMI never dips below "normal," though all the other symptoms are in place and it's still super dangerous. Basically, I'd just been considered a rare instance of successful weight loss.)
Anyway, it was winter and I was freezing and my body just wouldn't allow me to keep starving. I would wake up in the middle of the night and find myself eating raw, unsalted almond butter or even coconut cream with a spoon—whatever was most calorie-dense in my extremely unpalatable-on-purpose kitchen. I put on a few pounds that winter, and by spring had started to sniff out that something was amiss and that my "healthy lifestyle" was actually deeply unsustainable. In June, after reading a few relevant books and working with a registered dietician who specialized in eating disorder recovery, I made an agreement with myself to eat what I wanted to, when I wanted to, no matter what. Forever. It was so, so scary, and the most important piece of self-care work I have ever done.
Kristi: What is your “why” now? What keeps you from dieting again?
Jamie: Over the next six months, I put back on half the weight I'd initially lost—and immediately found my setpoint, where I've stayed pretty effortlessly ever since, just by eating intuitively and exercising when I want to in ways that feel good. The why, specifically: All the stuff I thought I would find by attaining thinness—creative and professional success, deep romantic partnership, belonging—actually came to me far more easily when I was finally eating enough to really be present in my life. While it's true that there is a social and cultural incentive for thinness—I got so much attention when I was starving—it was the thinnest veneer (hah) of the deep connection I was looking for.