notes from the table - week 1

Why am I sharing this now?

I’ve always loved food. Cooking it, serving it, styling the table, flipping through cookbooks as if they were novels. My whole life has been shaped by what happens around the table. But there’s another side to the story. Becoming morbidly obese.

For most of my life, food has also been tied to shame, control, and emotional weight. I’ve tried every diet, read every rulebook, carried every silent belief about what my body should be and how I should fix it. And then one day, after decades of trying to do it all perfectly, I made the choice to have weight loss surgery.

It wasn’t easy. Not the decision, not the surgery, and definitely not the aftermath. Because what no one really tells you is that changing your body doesn’t instantly heal your relationship with food — or with yourself. Or how people treat you differently.

This series, Notes from the Table, is my way of telling the whole truth. Every week, I’ll share a new journal-style entry here on the blog. Sometimes it will be about food. Sometimes it will be about shame. Sometimes it will be about grief, joy, clothing sizes, hunger, recipes, cravings, or setting the table alone.

But always, it will be honest.

Because I think a lot of us are carrying silent stories about food and our bodies. And I believe the table can still be a place where we come back to ourselves, even if we’re eating soft food off the "surgery list," even if we’re still learning what hunger really feels like, even if we’re still healing. Note that I'm 12 years into my tiny tummy, which does expand by the way.

I want to cover topics they don't tell you prior to surgery.

So this is where it starts. If you’re here, I’m so glad. Let’s talk about it.

I’ll be back next week with another note.

Leanne x