(Why Everyone Made Eating Weird)
There is a moment in adulthood no one prepares you for. It’s not your first bill, or your first job. It’s not even your first heartbreak. It’s the moment you realize no one is going to ask if you ate.
Not as an insult or as neglect. Just.. silence. No lunch packed. No dinner magically appearing. No one yelling “food’s ready” from another room. Just you, opening the fridge at 8:47 p.m. like: “Okay. So now what?”
That’s when adulthood truly begins. When hunger becomes your responsibility.
At first, feeding myself felt impossible. How were people doing this every single day? Three meals? Forever? That’s not a routine. That’s a subscription.
Some days I skipped eating entirely. Other days I ate snacks until my body staged an intervention.
There were takeout nights I couldn’t afford but ordered anyway because at least someone else made the decision for me.
Eating didn’t feel nourishing. It felt like a test I kept failing. Ate too much? Failure. Spent money on food? Failure. Didn’t spend money on food? Failure, but later.
Food was no longer food. It was math.
Then social media showed up and said: “Let’s make this worse.”
Suddenly eating wasn’t just survival, it was branding. Women online were either:
• eating three almonds and a prayer
• or baking sourdough from scratch at sunrise
No in-between. You were either:
• soft feminine fairy who forgets to eat
• or trad wife with a rolling pin and seventeen jars of homemade jam
Then came the gym bros. The ones who say things like:
“Microwaves are disgusting.”
Bro, your entire personality is chicken, rice, and emotional constipation. Relax.
Both sides (hyper-feminine internet women and gym bros) share the same belief:
If eating is easy, it doesn’t count. Food must be earned. Pleasure must be justified with suffering.
Which is insane, because hunger is not optional. You don’t feed yourself once. You feed yourself every day until you die. Why would that need to be miserable?
For a long time, I thought eating properly meant real cooking. Nothing frozen. Nothing microwaved. Nothing that looked “lazy.”But exhaustion has a way of changing your religion. Eventually I stopped asking how food was supposed to look, and started asking whether it helped me function.
But exhaustion has a way of changing your religion. Eventually I stopped asking how food was supposed to look, and started asking whether it helped me function.
Microwavable, ready-to-eat rice packets, and frozen vegetables absolutely counts. Garlic and butter always counted. A meal made in ten minutes still feeds you for the same number of hours.
No one is grading you. No one is handing out medals.”
One night I stood in the kitchen convinced I had “nothing to eat”. Which turned out to be false. I had rice, butter, vegetables, garlic chilli oil, chips, and Parmesan cheese (the cheap Kraft brand, the one in like every public high school cafeteria).
I didn’t have a fancy recipe from some self-proclaimed chef. I had a few basic ingredients. I used the ingredients instinctively to make myself something to eat, the way I did as a kid (too much butter, and something crunchy on top.)
I ate it on my bed while The Vampire Diaries played in the background and I didn’t absorb a single plot point. And for the first time in a long time, my body relaxed.
That’s when it clicked. Feeding yourself as an adult isn’t about cooking. It’s about care. It’s about realizing you don’t need to perform nourishment. You don’t need to impress imaginary men. You don’t need to prove femininity with starvation or worthiness with sourdough.
Sometimes adulthood is meal prep. Sometimes it’s cereal for dinner. Sometimes it’s microwave rice with an attitude. All of it counts.
I’ve noticed something lately. The more gently I feed myself, the quieter the chaos gets. The cravings calm down. The panic eases. The shame dissolves. My body stops asking if I’m safe. It already knows.
Feeding yourself as an adult is one of the most intimate relationships you’ll ever have.
There is no audience, no applause, no aesthetic.. just you, asking:
Am I going to take care of myself today? Or audition again?