Hi, I’m Tina.
I grew up in Brooklyn, NY to a working class immigrant Italian family. The house was loud, boisterous, full of testosterone (7 men total) and while there was a lot of love, there were also a lot of emotions, differing beliefs, scattered routines and an excess of food. And a lot of toilet seats that were left up. And a lot of cursing, quite frankly. Seven men, really.
A deep love for food was born inside of me. Yup. My mom told me that on June 6, 1980 at 2:28pm I came out into the world in a quick, relatively painless and natural 28 minute fit of wonder. Moments after I was born, her tale tells that I went to reach for her nurses pizza. I was born hungry. I totally believe it. My mom shared that while I was in utero she ate heaping slices of blueberry pie, sumptuous scoops of coffee ice cream and rich, chocolate milk shakes. Mom also often reminds me that my first word was happy. It’s all true. Hungry for food and life? Sounds pretty accurate.
But not too long after my birth, Tommy, my oldest brother, was diagnosed with Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis. This diagnosis changed life as Tommy knew it; and it changed life for our whole family. Sure, we lived in one big house, but we were separated by doctors appointments, surgeries, financial struggles and the absence of consistency. My parents did everything they could to make sure Tommy got the care he needed and to see to it that he did not end up a wheelchair user given his late diagnosis. As a little boy, Tommy went through a series of painful surgeries and recoveries and, during this time, Louie, my other brother, and myself, were often times left with our grandparents, family and friends. I carried the absence of my parents in my heart, which translated to weight on my body. I carried resentment, too, I was a child.
Food was the way in which I was shown love. Lunch at school was often followed by leftover mozzarella and eggplant “sangwiches” with grandma at 3pm. Dinner at 5pm with the neighbors was followed by pasta e patate (that’s pasta with potatoes) for dinner at 9pm with grandma. Every opportunity I had, I said yes to food. A history of double meals, particularly double dinners. They were delicious and, honestly, I don’t regret taste testing each and every one — even if they brought me pain along the way — because what they taught me in the long run has ended up becoming, maybe, one of my greatest gifts.
I was fed for love and I also learned to soothe loneliness with food. Years of shame and embarrassment paved the road to eating alone and eating in secret. I found being alone with food to be the easiest access point to comfort, to quiet. Food became my solace — my hiding place. We were weighed weekly in our pre-k class and shame was something I recognized by age 4 when my mother was instructed to help me lose weight. From that point on I dieted. It was 1985 — the boom of packaged food — and I learned to request apples, fat free hot dogs and Quaker granola bars for meals. In an open space fitting room at 10 years old, I was told by a relative, “You’re fat. Enough already. Take off your clothes, no one wants to see you naked anyway.” And by age 16 I was living in my body at my highest recorded weight of 320 pounds. Scared and uncomfortable in my skin, I didn’t know what I had done and couldn’t even begin to process how I arrived there. Then, on the day of my 16th Birthday another family member boldly said to me, “I’ll pay you $1,000 if you could look like your best friend. You’re so fat no one is going to love you.” I was destroyed. And in between, there were the school yard chants of “Thunder thighs , Tina Corrado the size of an Eldorado, Fatty Bumbalatty, beached whale, whaler, Orca, Shamu and Willy.” And, my family favorites — “But, Tina, you have such a pretty face!” followed by remarks like “Tina, you need to wear a girlde under your clothes, it will stop you from jiggling.” And the unparalleled, “You’re a little fat f$%k.” In the midst of this I joined every save the whale program at school. I adopted many and some manatees too. Clearly I felt a deep connection to their maammalian plight to be saved from harm and extinction. I struggled, deeply, with emotional eating and with being seen inside and outside of our family and home as more than my weight. I was the weight of words, stored emotions, trauma — and the whole world could see the addiction I developed to harming myself.
The comments about my weight, the whispers in public, the stares and not fitting on subway seats or in desk chairs at school — every moment and word was trapped in my mind and only continued to take up an expanse of space as time passed. I used food. And the more full I was, the more space my body took up. I became numb. In this state of a muted existence I felt no pain. I became deaf to the words, or so I thought, but I really held them in my mind and heart — painful and full — like my stomach held the food I would eat. I used humor to cope with my size. The funny fat girl. Typical. I wrote sad poetry and wished for a “normal” childhood. From Weight Watchers to South Beach, Fit America, Blood Type, Paleo, Food Combining Diets and Personal Trainers - I spent the majority of my young adult life dieting and continuing to eat my feelings — while also trying to joke, laugh, hoot and holler my way out of it. But no amount of joking and, no, not even the save a whale program, could save me from myself and the tools I developed to cope with pain and loneliness.
At the age of 18, despite my fathers desire to drive me to the B82 so I could attend community college in Brooklyn, coupled with the psychological fear I felt about leaving home, I left. I went off to attend college at the University of Connecticut and found myself nestled in grass, farm land, expanses of rolling hills and an education that would soon change my life. As well as a need to take buses everywhere. Damn those hills and light gray Hanes 3XL t-shirts that showed my sweat marks — and not in a sexy wet t-shirt contest way. I carried washcloths to wipe my sweat between classes, hauled heavy books on my back — which lead to more sweat marks, as I’m sure you could imagine … and got lost in literature. Reading and writing quickly became my safe space outside of eating in secret once my roommates were sleeping.
By the end of my Junior year of college I lost about 30 pounds. A massive crush on an older boy, a fellow English major who knew I had butterflies for him, told my roommate “Tina is pretty, but she looks uncomfortable.” These words managed to spark something inside of me. At the time I couldn’t name it, but now I know what it was — it was the hope of being seen. This boy sat with me at the library, met me to study, and even had lunch with me in a bar. He was seen with me in public. With those words, something deep down inside of me calmed. To him I wasn’t “the fat bitch from the library” or someone who couldn’t fit into desks and broke chairs. Being an uncomfortable person was an infinitely better a description. The English major in me imagined that he felt my pain; that I was more than the sum of the DP Doughs I ate when I was high or sad. The cravings I had to feed myself shifted, in very small ways. I listened to my body — did I need seconds of food, or would that make me more “uncomfortable”? Could I walk a little longer to class and deal with the sweat I developed along the way without feeling shame? Though I knew he would never fall for me romantically, I became full on hope. I often thought about, and still think about, the power of the word uncomfortable and how it can push us in new directions.
In the summer of 2001 I moved to a small working farm in Connecticut for 3 months. I arrived in my dad’s 1991 Plymouth Voyager. I was sweating and it was unbearably hot. When I close my eyes I can still see the farm and the mailbox - that mailbox - a tease, slightly visible across the long stretch of grass from the Grants little blue door where I used to stand staring out into the gaping field of green. Without moving, I could feel the tingle of chafing thighs as I thought about what it would take for me to approach that mailbox at my size. In many moments throughout my life I thought of steps as miles and miles as impossibilities, but everyday of that that hot, thigh sticking summer - I walked. My thighs rubbed with accomplishment. My mind changed and, as a result, so did my choices. And then, my body. By day I worked at the Center for Students with Disabilities (my place of employment throughout my 4 years in college) and by early mornings and evenings, I scooped pony poop and cooked. But never simultaneously.
On the farm I found peace, quiet, and an environment safe from words and observations about my weight. The noise ended. I didn’t need to numb myself anymore. Every thing stopped. It was very, very sudden — as though all of the mean words floated out of my mind and body in the silence the farm inhabited, in the comfort of my friends voice. A voice that always told me I was more than my weight. I felt that thing again. Hope knocked at my door and I answered her, again. She clung to me and rose inside of my heart. I would sit outside of the blue front door on a plastic patio chair, outside of the net fence behind which the sheep lived. While I talked to 9509, my favorite sheep who always sat by the fence waiting for me, or so I believed that’s what she was doing, I wrote. I imagined Hope to look like the pink peonies that clung to the side of the red farm house, waiting in expectancy of sunlight, warmth and water. That’s Hope.
That very summer I grabbed Hope and began to move. I began to cook. I took responsibility for my food choices and began grocery shopping, recalling the weekly market trips we used to make as a family. I came home from work at 5:30pm and prepared meals of my childhood from taste memory. Once a week I made my grandmothers lentils until I taught myself how to make something else. I tasted and tested and got lost in the process of making new food memories. My love for cooking began by preparing heaping pots of piping hot beans in the summer. In a farm house. With no air conditioning or internet. Could you imagine? Looking back, it was truly sublime! I ate slowly. I stopped when I was full. I drank water. I was practicing mindfulness in 2001, long before it became a buzzword or a health philosophy. I began walking from the front door of the house to that very mailbox that taunted me — the distance between the mailbox and the house was incomprehensible. I looked after the pony and took the upstairs room at the house — giving myself another reason to move more. And, while I was an English major, I discovered a new and profoundly deep love for writing — for journaling. Writing that was different than academic papers, research, craft and skill. This was where my weight loss journey began.
Having now lost 150+ pounds on my own, I’ve maintained the weight loss for the last 24 plus years through mental, emotional and physical changes to my day to day living. That summer changed my life. I have sat in silence and forgiveness with every part of my past and with every person that shamed me. I forgave myself for what I could not name. I have sat, alone, in the places where I felt failed and unprotected as a child — where I felt most vulnerable — and with the words I thought would wound me forever. I learned to keep hoping. To keep working. To stay curious and open. I turned food into art.
The weight loss changed my life and my health, but that was only the beginning. From the initial weight loss, to the struggles, ups downs and obsessions — to my first skin removal surgery and a 16 year dance with big breast implants … leaving my corporate job, starting a health coaching + cooking business, and moving to Mexico part time to pursue art, yoga and healthy living — self reflection, change and cooking have been at the core of my story. The process has been a Godly return home to myself. A return to love. And, ultimately, a return to peace with my family.
Now, at almost 46, I’m finally completing a series of skin removal surgeries to free myself from the past. It’s been emotional, mind altering and unexplainable to feel at home not only in my body, but in my mind. I’m still processing it, really, and none of it would have been possible without the support of family and friends. In a few short months I will be leaving New York to help care for my aging parents and Tommy. It has been a long road, but gratifying — gratifying beyond belief. I would not change a single thing about this story that, at many points in my life, I very much resented. Change is always possible. My deep belief in God and miracles has gotten me this far, and I know that is what will continue to carry me.
Though I await my first boyfriend, falling in love and being loved romantically — I’ve found love within myself, the kitchen, service, in new friendships and in moving past traditional goals of children and marriage. I have found peace in moving forward with my heart and letting God guide the way. I hold a knowing that true love will find me, that I finally deserve it and that we all deserve to be seen through the eyes of love — with consistency and commitment.
My creative musings, recipes, and writing on health and well being can be found here on my site.
I hope you will join me in exploring life, story, creativity, health and living with intention.
XO
contact tina by email
me@tinacorrado.com
Thank you to all of the Tina’s I have been and to all of the Tina’s I have yet to meet.