My mom's eating disorder sent me on a radical health kick. Did I take it too far?
When my mom died, I realized I, too, had begun to count calories. But for a different reason
This First Person column is written by Shawney Cohen, who lives in Hamilton, Ont. For more information about CBC's First Person stories, please see the FAQ.
As I jot these words, I'm indulging in a guilty pleasure — a Tim Horton's Boston cream doughnut (six grams fat, five grams protein and 220 calories).
Less than a year ago, snarfing down this creamy delight would have felt like sneaking around behind my diet's back.
Back then my life was dominated by an over-the-top health regimen that demanded not only meticulously counting every calorie, but such extreme measures as cross-referencing three apps to monitor my stats, popping 25 supplements daily and marathon training barefoot in the snow.
Why was I doing this?
Simple: I was attempting to keep stride with Bryan Johnson, a 46-year-old ultra-rich mogul on a quest to rewind the age of his organs to that of an 18-year-old. Bryan's ultimate aim? Making death optional.
Describing Bryan as fit is like calling Mt. Everest a minor incline. The guy eats 70 pounds of veggies monthly and has a team of 30 doctors who design and oversee his health rules. He says he's "the most measured man on earth," and he's also the reason I started pulling a 300-pound loaded sled around the gym.
Looking back, perhaps it was a bit naive to believe my Walmart budget could match the resources of a tech tycoon striving to become the real-life Benjamin Button. All I know is he showed up in my TikTok feed and his edict that "self-destructive behaviour is kind of insane" struck a chord with me.
That kind of insanity feels familiar; it's woven into the fabric of my family's story.
My mom, Brenda, was anorexic my whole life. Food was her obsession. Mom was encyclopedic on the subject of calorie counting. She could look at a random cookie and tell you exactly how many calories it contained without looking at the packaging. She surrounded herself with food. She cooked constantly, grocery shopped compulsively and made elaborate meals for family gatherings on Jewish holidays but rarely ate anything herself. The older she got the more the disorder took its toll.
When my mom passed away in 2021, she weighed 64 pounds. It felt fitting that her funeral coincided with Remembrance Day. After all, her mother, Faiga, was a Holocaust survivor — and she, too, had a complex relationship with food.
Faiga (Bubbie to me) carried with her a relentless anxiety when she left war-torn Lithuania. Even in her new life in Canada, she was haunted by memories of starvation in the Vilna ghetto and, later, Auschwitz. Bubbie was determined that no one in her family would ever know such hunger. She ensured our family ate like royalty, whether it was indulging in Swiss Chalet after hockey practice or heaping bowls of Matzo ball soup at Passover.
Perhaps she went too far. In her later years, she battled diabetes.
However, much of the psychological burden of this legacy fell upon my mom, who grappled with weight gain as a teenager and found herself caught in a cycle of disordered eating, obsessed with counting every calorie. As Mark Twain may have said, history doesn't repeat, but it does rhyme.
In the months after her death, I too found myself counting calories — albeit for a healthier reason.
Losing a parent made me ponder my own longevity. Much as I loved her, even I could see my mom was one of the unhealthiest people I'd ever met.
In my own way, I was catching up to our family's legacy of problematic eating habits. My BMI was inching toward obesity. I was addicted to junk food. I smoked a pack a day. Climbing the stairs from the basement would leave me winded. Walking the dogs felt like a daily struggle.
I had to act.
I set my sights on shedding 50 pounds, bid farewell to the nicotine habit and embraced a regimen that some might call a tad extreme. I pounded out 10,000 steps daily and even dared to venture shoeless out into the snow to improve my circulation. I lifted weights, did daily saunas followed by cold plunges and counted macros in my sleep. In my desire to go toe-to-toe with Bryan Johnson, my dedication to transformation was relentless.
And the changes paid off. The numbers on the scale went down, my tight jeans became my loose jeans, my sleep was better and my thinking was clearer. All of a sudden, I could keep up with my pre-teen sons in a way I hadn't in years.
But these gains came at a cost: pre-dawn gym sessions and refusing slices of birthday cake just to try and achieve that coveted 10 percent body fat. Spending hours researching the miraculous promises of supplements, when I could have been hanging out with the fam. I even toyed with the idea of adopting Johnson's regimented schedule, rising at 4:30 a.m. and finishing meals by 11 a.m., even though it would mean never having dinner with the kids.
One day, it dawned on me: I was unwittingly repeating the destructive patterns that I'd been exposed to as a kid.
I was perpetuating a cycle that I knew deep down needed to end with me. What truly mattered was being there for my boys and passing on a healthier mindset about food and well-being.
Sure, Bryan Johnson's commitment and sculpted physique are impressive, but his life is one of endless restriction. And what's the point of being the healthiest person alive, if you can't enjoy your finite time with the people who give it meaning?
While my health plan is far less extreme these days, I feel I'm in the best shape of my life. I still have a gym membership and run five kilometres regularly, but aside from a daily multivitamin, supplements are no longer a part of my day — and neither is bare-foot training in a blizzard.
My greatest wish is for my family to grow up healthy, unburdened by the trials of our intergenerational trauma. All I can do is hope that our journey toward well-being continues, fueled by love and the occasional Boston cream.
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