Well, we certainly couldn’t write a cookbook called Hot Mess Kitchen and not have a chapter like this one. A lot of what makes me a hot mess is my weird flawed body image. So I’m going to get a little earnest right here and talk about that because it’s important and this is a cookbook and it would feel very weird to leave it out.
Recently, I was looking at a photograph of myself at twelve years old, on the day of my sixth-grade graduation. I looked perfectly adorable, but I remember thinking I looked “a little bit fat.” I didn’t yet know to blame it on water weight, so I was devastated. This makes me sad, but I haven’t changed. Years later, when someone commented on an Instagram post of me asking if I was Adele I cried for the rest of the day and canceled all my plans. Adele! I know. Feel free to hate me for this. Adele is the most beautiful human on the planet, but at the time being likened to anyone who wasn’t negative pounds was a travesty to me. So next, I did the only rational thing I could: I got stoned and put myself into a lineup of differently weighted celebrities. I decided that on a scale from Lana Del Rey to Adele, I’d be Renée Zellweger as Bridget Jones. (Not the new one where she has a baby; Bridget Jones Classic.)
I’ve always taken it as gospel that if I gain a little weight or look a little fat in a photo, I should suffer for it. Noticing that I’m a little larger than usual is, for me, the easiest and fastest way to tear myself down. My jeans not fitting is a tangible sign I am worthless.
I think plenty of you can relate. If I had a dollar for every time a friend of mine texted me something like “I feel fat” or “I’m bloated” or “I just weighed myself and I’m never leaving my house again,” I’d be richer than everyone you know who’s invented an app, combined.
In the past, the pain of not looking like the me I want to look like has been too intense for me to go on a regular diet; I’ve always tried to fix the problem overnight. (Again, I’m sure plenty of you can relate.) In college, a week of taking Adderall could do the trick, but as I got older I couldn’t do that to my body anymore. (Also, my Adderall tolerance went up and the appetite suppressant wasn’t working anymore, so I would just be up all night eating bagels.) So instead, I would try to do a healthier version of that, which to me meant trying to “eat only turkey for two weeks,” or ordering a juice cleanse or meal delivery service I couldn’t afford. Remember when I told you how I’d bounced a bunch of rent checks? Well, ordering these kinds of things when you make close to minimum wage will help with that.
Now the old methods only sound exhausting. The main thing that will work for me is “eating clean,” which I really just define as paying attention to what I eat, not going overboard, and cutting out some things that make me feel shitty. Eating clean doesn’t necessarily solve my weight problem overnight, but it makes me feel a drop better about myself because at least I know I’m paying attention to my body.
Following are some of Gabi’s and my favorite eating-clean-type recipes. Enjoy them when you’re feeling shitty, or after a weekend of drinking, overindulging, or just plain old eating straight from the trash can. (You’re lying if you say you’ve never eaten from the trash can. We’ve all eaten from the trash can.) We’re not saying eat only the following foods. Mix them in with your other meals! We don’t know anything! We’re not doctors! WE ARE NOT doctors. Stop telling people we’re doctors. We cannot afford to get sued right now. But honestly, Gabi and I love the following foods and they make us feel good, so hopefully they’ll make you feel good too. Define “eating clean” on your own terms, or something.
Let’s all just stop feeling shitty about our bodies. Imagine all the extra energy we’d have to feel good about ourselves if we did! Too hard to imagine? I agree. The thought scares me. Let’s just cook.
Also, stop staring at that picture of yourself. I swear it was just taken from a really weird angle. You look really hot right now.—MPB