Posts Tagged ‘eating unhealthy’

My Body’s Intuition

Tuesday, July 16th, 2024

I grew up in a culture where being “overweight” was one of the worst things that could happen to you. Eating plenty of food without guilt was rare and starvation to lose the extra kilos was normal. By culture I don’t mean my country, I mean most of the world. After all, I grew up in the early 2000s when people would call Jennifer Aniston “fat.” Early 2000s JENNIFER ANISTON. 

Naturally, I developed a complicated relationship with food. When I was a teenager, my appetite was insatiable. I would eat more than any adult in my family and barely gain any weight. Some people would call me lucky while others warned that my body would eventually change, and I would need to control my food intake. The pleasure food gave me was always followed by an almost silent whisper of regret. Still, I continued to eat unbalanced food in abundance. Although I was skinny—underweight really—and my body was often described as beautiful and “desirable,” I remember that time as my most unhealthy years. I would get sick often, visiting urgent care at least once a month for respiratory issues; I would feel tired all the time and have no strength in my muscles. Above all else, I would look in the mirror and see fat sitting in places where there was none. I had body dysmorphia, and I wasn’t aware of what that was. 

Like it often happens when you emigrate, my life changed completely after I moved to the US, including my food habits. I don’t know if my body finally changed like people used to warn me or if this new country’s food was different, but after a month of eating endless American food, I finally gained some weight. And then I gained some more. I became aware of how much bigger I was from my time in Venezuela, and I started to freak out. Without understanding a thing about dieting, I simply did what I had learned from the women around me: I starved myself. I started eating only two meals a day, sometimes one. I would go on like that for a month, and then have a rampage of food intake the next. It became a cycle where my body weight fluctuated aggressively. Consequently, my health paid the price. I would continue to get sick constantly and feel weak. What I didn’t realize is that the symptoms were more severe during my starvation mode than when I would eat whatever I wanted. Still, both habits were damaging. 

When I finally decided to seek help, I had been meeting my extreme habits in the middle. I would skip one meal a day—often breakfast—and eat big portions for the remaining two. Although I wasn’t getting sick anymore, the sense of tiredness remained, and my weight was slowly increasing. Around the same time, I did a lot of unlearning about body weight and although I wasn’t comfortable with the extra pounds, I convinced myself that I was beautiful nonetheless. For the first time in my life, my biggest concern was how I felt, not how I looked. I wanted to feel energized and strong but, how could I accomplish this?

Food Tracker for my trainer. Noticing patterns.

I was lucky to have made friends with a very generous woman who was also a personal trainer who educated me about my food habits. She made me track two weeks of meals and pointed out my meal skips, uncontrolled snacking, and massive dinners. She showed me how the unbalanced meals—mostly consisting of carbs and fats—were partly the source of my tiredness. Additionally, she tracked my daily steps and exercise, which was near zero. With this information, we planned to increase my protein and vitamin intake and my workouts. Although strict, this plan was heavily based on my body’s intuition. My trainer helped me differentiate healthy cravings from my eating disorder. We did this by tracking my menstrual cycle, understanding that in certain weeks of the month, my body would crave more fatty and sugary meals and that this was okay. Slowly, the guilt I would feel after every meal disappeared. I created disciplined habits filled with compassion. By the end of our regiment, I had lost some weight, but the most important thing was that I felt the strongest I’ve ever been. I barely had stomach problems or got sick, and I had the energy necessary to go through my day.

I would change the “but” for “and” because you can listen to both. Both are right.

It’s been a year now since I learned about my body’s intuition. It is still hard to fight my eating disorders which crave the “comfort meals” that ultimately harm my body. It is a battle I am still in, but I fight it with patience and lots of love for myself. My body weight continues to fluctuate, but how it is supposed to. It is normal to fluctuate between five to ten pounds, but I don’t really keep track. I measure my health not on the scale any longer; I do so with how my body reacts to exercise, with how energized I feel. It has been life-changing learning to listen to my body because it made me appreciate the wonderful things it does for me.


Every meal should be a “guilt-free” meal! Enjoy this delicious free cookie with your student ID

By Roxanna Cardenas

Roxanna is a Venezuelan writer living in New York City. Her works include essays, poetry, screenplays, and short stories. She explores fiction and non-fiction genres, with a special interest in horror and sci-fi. She has an A.A. in Writing and Literature and is working on her B.A. in English with a Creative Writing concentration.


For over 20 years, the Campus Clipper has been offering awesome student discounts in NYC,  from the East Side to Greenwich Village. Along with inspiration, the company offers students a special coupon booklet and the Official Student Guide, which encourages them to discover new places in the city and save money on food, clothing, and services.  

At the Campus Clipper, not only do we help our interns learn new skills, make money, and create wonderful e-books, we give them a platform to teach others. Check our website for more student savings and watch our YouTube video showing off some of New York City’s finest students during the Welcome Week of 2015.

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The Covid Cooking Club: Chapter 3: Vegetables

Wednesday, March 24th, 2021

The Covid Cooking Club

Chapter 3: Vegetables

How to Grow Cabbage In Easy Steps
A picture of a delicious cabbage. At least I think it’s delicious, I’ve never cooked cabbage. Hell, I don’t remember if I’ve ever even eaten the stuff.

Vegetables are the things your parents told you to eat when you were kids, and you either ignored them completely or complied entirely out of fear. The fact that we must be forcibly conditioned to consume boring green stuff is evolution’s fault, as we have become a sedentary society without our bodies ever adapting to the fact that if we want to eat we no longer have to chase down a gazelle on foot and beat it to death with a rock. Thus, I must consume at least some vegetables if I don’t want to devolve into a quivering mass of immobile gelatin, which would be extremely inconvenient as it would deprive me of the manual dexterity required to build the plastic model robots that have been my closest friend during the current crisis. The vegetable I eat most often is celery, not because it tastes good or has any nutritional value aside from fiber but because it doesn’t need to be cooked, just washed. The fact that it has zero calories makes it attractive to me since it means I can waste the space on something else later, but I almost always end up dipping it in hummus to give it some actual flavor and thereby defeating the entire point. My favorite cooked vegetable might be spinach, which I literally never make. This is partially because it’s another food my family makes a lot better than me, and partially because you can buy ten pounds of spinach at the store, cook it up, and wind up with half an ounce. Obviously that’s an exaggeration but I only have so much fridge space and spinach takes up too much of it. Normally the vegetables I prepare the most are green beans and broccoli. These are also both foods I associate with my parents, but I can make them in a way that doesn’t totally embarrass me. I make broccoli more rarely because of two reasons. The first is that it just takes much longer to boil in water, and I don’t trust myself to fry it, so boiling green beans is just more efficient. The second is that ever since I was young I’ve had this weird thing where I only eat the buds of the broccoli, not the stem. I think it has to do with little baby me believing that broccoli was just tiny trees or something, but either way I end up not eating half of the broccoli and that’s just wasteful. It does make it easier to prepare though; to make green beans you need to individually slice the tips off each bean while with broccoli you can just break a piece off the stalk and wash it. Generally I eat vegetables separate from my actual meals, because as previously mentioned in the first chapter my pot is much bigger than the stovetop itself so I can’t really have another thing cooking at the same time. This also means that a lot of the time when I’m feeling pressed for time I just skip vegetables entirely, which would definitely be a bad idea if I considered the future consequences of my actions beyond wildly unrealistic scenarios like turning into a lump of fat who can’t build robot toys. I’m sure the fact that I eat vegetable at all puts me ahead of many, and so by the time I become like unto the blob people from Wall-E there will have already been innovations by the manufacturer which make the model kits able to be assembled the fingers the size of drain pipes.

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By: Alexander Rose

Alexander Rose studies satire at NYU Gallatin and wishes he was actually just Oscar Wilde. He is interested in writing, roleplaying games, and procrastination. Describing himself in the third person like this makes him feel weird.

For over 20 years, the Campus Clipper has been offering awesome student discounts in NYC,  from the East Side to Greenwich Village. Along with inspiration, the company offers students a special coupon booklet and the Official Student Guide, which encourages them to discover new places in the city and save money on food, clothing, and services.  

At the Campus Clipper, not only do we help our interns learn new skills, make money, and create wonderful e-books, we give them a platform to teach others. Check our website for more student savings and watch our YouTube video showing off some of New York City’s finest students during the Welcome Week of 2015.

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How Not to Do Anything: An Expert Guide – How Not to Stay in Shape

Saturday, October 15th, 2016

Image Credit:  http://mom.girlstalkinsmack.com/health/exercise-of-diabetics.aspx

Image Credit:
http://mom.girlstalkinsmack.com/health/exercise-of-diabetics.aspx

Many young Americans spend an altogether gratuitous amount of time and money on exercise and a healthy diet, two things which all doctors order, but which almost no one really enjoys. Despite the difficulty and unpleasantness of physically exerting yourself or eating home-cooked vegetables, there is an unfortunate tangle of social pressures that causes a great many people to do so. Luckily for you, you are immune to the unreasonable ideals of the popular culture and your mother.

While it may prove problematic not to get a job, or lonely not to have a lady or gentleman friend, it is surpassingly easy not to stay in shape; that’s why one third of all adults in the United States are obese! But don’t worry, it’s not necessary to take it that far. The important thing is to be only as unhealthy as you want to be. With a diet of whatever is tasty and at hand, plus a minimal exercise regimen, you can settle into a nice equilibrium of health, a natural weight that may fluctuate drastically depending on the quality of local fast food, and the frequency of meals that you can get other people to make for you.

With the time and money that other people pour into their local gym and health food store, you can do practically anything, or, even better, practically nothing. Watch TV, fly a kite, browse the latest internet memes—if you’re feeling crazy, read a book. Nearly anything that you feel like doing is far less arduous and more pleasurable than exercising, and with all of your unhealthy savings, you can even buy a playstation or a bigger TV, and stay on the cutting edge of indolence. With the right attitude and a total lack of willpower, you can be as lethargic as the most spoiled house dog, and you don’t even have to go outside to go to the bathroom!

By Aaron Brown


Aaron Brown was one of the Campus Clipper’s publishing interns, who wrote an e-book “How Not To Do Anything: An Expert Guide.” If you like Aaron’s writing, follow our blog for more chapters from his e-book. We have the most talented interns ever and we’re so proud of them! For over 20 years, the Campus Clipper has been offering awesome student discounts in NYC,  from the East Side to Greenwich Village. Along with inspiration, the company offers students a special coupon booklet and the Official Student Guide, which encourage them to discover new places in the city and save money on food, clothing and services.  

At the Campus Clipper, not only do we help our interns learn new skills, make money, and create wonderful e-books, we give them a platform to teach others. Check our website for more student savings and watch our YouTube video showing off some of New York City’s finest students during last year’s Welcome Week.

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