Starvation Mode

 

I don't have a great relationship with my body; or body image I suppose is more accurate.

The above photos are from the week I returned home from prison and I look at them with 2023 eyes and the fat girl inside me can't help but think "wow, look how thin I was,"

But; it's a mirage.

This slim jim effect, was the most unhealthy I have ever been - thin, yes, but there's a reason for that.

10 months in prison 

Just 10 months.

When I was sent to jail, I weighed a whopping and somewhat grotesque 19 stone; and I can wax lyrical about PCOS impeding my weight loss efforts and my mental health and historic eating disorder interfering in a binge, purge, diet, consume cycle or chaos, and even; even; throw in the furlough fatty attitude of sitting indoors for 6 months and living on deliveroo and zero gym attendance.

I, like the rest of the UK, bought the gym equipment in the first week of lockdown thinking "oh no, the gyms are closed," - darlings, if the gym was open morning, noon and night, of which is in Manchester city centre - it is, it wasn't covid keeping me from it. It was me.

I digress.

September 2021 Fran is 15 stone, a size 14, and slim. The smallest I've been in years and wearing a GPS ankle tag two sizes smaller than would be required now upon the cankles of 2023.

Alas, that dream aesthic is hiding many things.

1) my hair was falling out and I was balding in patches 

2) I was severely anaemic and required injections at the doctors to keep me standing upright at the best of times

3) I was thin for 3 reasons; zero nutrition and insufficient calorie intake through "3" prison meals a day, I was walking 5 miles a day to get to work (the wonderful perk of open prison) and when I wasn't walking or working, I was in the gym.

I had become the cliche, the fat girl who goes to jail and then gets hench - not quite, but there was little else to occupy one's mind behind bars during the pandemic; so when the gym reopened, it was a godsend.

The irony; I'll go and work out in the prison gym that costs me nothing, but for the ample membership fee of Bannatynes in the city; you have to drag me there.

An average days feed for me in prison was 

Breakfast; 30g portion of faux weetabix and UHT milk, sparingly as it was a limited commodity at the best of times in the daily allowance of teeny tiny blue and white cartons per prisoner.

Lunch; in closed prison - beige slop. Chips, potatoes of every shape and size, meat that I saw the invoicing costs of when working as the admin assistant in the kitchens and decided from that moment on to eat only vegetarian or vegan; and anything fried, battered, fresh from the freezer. Fresh fruit or vegetables did not exist in HMP Styal. If there were opportunities for greenery, they were usually mouldy by the time they hit your little brown bag of foodie delights.

Lunch in open; better; menu choice - choice; that summarises the difference in estate; but of the choices; was a salad - and it was good. It was green. 

Lunch out working in the real world, hiding behind a Max Spielman counter or eating in the store room like a naughty mouse; because Timpsons pride themselves on hiring offenders and exoffenders, but they expect us to take pride in their "working lunch policy" just as much, which means - you don't take lunch, you eat on the fly in between printing photos and making cushions with photos of peoples dogs on them.

My first foray into the wild, I rang my wife, my first real life lunch outside of the prison gates? A punnet of strawberries. I ate them in under 5 minutes and regretted the purge and indulgence of demolishing the red fruit wonders so quickly but what a joy, to eat something so fresh.

Dinner; dinner in closed was a strange affair. Covid or not; it was a cold meal. Hot beige lunch but dinner was always so malformed, malnourished, plastic bread sandwich with ominous meat or processed cheese, a bag of seabrooks crisps - I'm sorry seabrooks, for every bougie bar I see you on sale in now, I'll never in my life purchase a bag again; and of course, a past it's best before date, Soreen maltloaf.

Maltloaf for some, well, for most, is a nostalgic nod to one's childhood, with grandparents and parents slapping on an inch of butter and pretending it was a healthy option.

For me, maltloaf will be two things - my childhood; Fran you're too fat for a chocolate bar at lunch, eat this cardboard raison sponge; and Fran, you're in jail, eat this old cardboard raison sponge.

The thing about prison is, you exist for the routine. So when the brown bag drops with your evening meal, you devour it in all it's monsterous form because 1) its something to do to pass the time 2) you are hungry like you've never been before in your life and 3) you're so hungry, you have a tendency to eat your dinner AND your breakfast in one sitting leaving you stuck for the next day.

Dinner at Askham, still, a cold dinner and sandwich based; BUT, with a fresh piece of fruit thrown into the mix - banana day was infamous for being a good day. I loved banana day! Much more than apples and oranges.

Like little caged animals at the zoo, we clapped and yapped at feeding time for our treats and when our keepers wanted us to behave, we did, because feeding time, no matter how pathetic the offering, was the highlight of the day.

So, from 19 stone, to 15 stone in 10 months. 4 stone in 10 months is drastic by any means bar a gastric band and a tiktok sensation; but there I was, slim jim and free.

What did I do when I got home?

I ate.

Like the hungry catepillar on crack, I ate my way through a year, now approaching two. Like a petulant child. Because I can. Because I want. Because it's there.

I said to my wife last week

Prison routine.... it's not such a bad thing in the real world.

My prison routine? Bed at 10pm, TV humming in the background, Timpson freebie staff alarm clock stuck to my wall set for 5:30am; no snooze capability.

Up at 5:30am, make my bed, tidy my little space, shower, hairwash, makeup, iron garish pink shirt, eat faux weetabix, head to prison reception, check out my items, walk miles to the bus, head into Leeds city centre, work 8 hour shift, bus back to miles long walk, back into the prison, pick up plastic sandwich and joyful banana, eat said sandwich with my friends, chat, laugh, drink coffee at strange hours.

Sit on my bed, cross legged, read a book, write pages and pages of "the book" "the one day story", wash face, clean teeth, watch Ghost Whisperer, sleep. Repeat. 

Sounds ideal? Sounds like someone who's got their shit together? It's a distraction. It's keeping a mind and body so busy you numb the pain of separation and isolation and the neglect you are dealing with every day. You're abused by a system so you care for yourself in the only rudimentary ways you know how.

Now?

Up at 6:45, jaded because I've not slept well, my head is distracted with life, bills, babies, belly, tv, social media, me.

Breakfast, rarely, I'm out the door and powered by Starbucks.

Work - love. Purpose, yes. Enthused? Absolutely.

I'll go a day without realising I've not eaten and then eat something inappropriate to compensate the hunger.

Home, tired, lazy, no cooking, or some cooking, cleaning out of necessity but still tired. Time with Sarah, joyful. The beauty of my life. Our life.

Gym? No.

Moderation? No.

There's a lot to be said for routine, but where prison takes away life, including the stress of life in it's own way, it replaces it with monotony and creates machines. Compliant. Predictable. Muted. Malnourished.

Whilst real life sounds like a sloths complaint; at least it's choice and occasionally wilful ignorance and 21st century living. Imperfect but freedom.

Prison, restricts your liberty, your identity and it does this through a variety of mediums, chief of which is - food.

A hoard of hungry women are easier to control.

A hoard of hungry women spend more money on canteen sheets.

The prices keep rising and we keep spending.

The lure, the promise of that Monday plastic wrapped wonder. Another mechanism of control. 

Be good or you'll go on basic, if you're on basic - no canteen for you.

Work hard and the prisoners penny pot will be paid into; work your full time job of 40 hours in the kitchens for £6 per week.

£6 per week will buy you much need nourishment OR a phone call or two home.

It's all about cost. It's all about control.

When I came home from prison, I read what the press wrote about it, and being the Barker child that I am; I laser focused on the horrific narratives of course I did, but the worst parts?

How many people in the comments on the articles commented on my weight

"Did she eat all the pies?" "Looks like she ate all the profits!" and on and on.

So I was obsessed when I came home with the 15 stone body. I thought I look shit hot.

My body was fading. 

I was the reflection of all that prison was - wasted away.

The kind of calorie deficit that must have been taking place in my body for it to drop 4 stone in 10 months is hard to comprehend.

When I look at my body shape, size, health now. Healthier by far - my hair has grown, it doesn't fall out, my anaemia is under control, my skin glows and is no longer sallow and grey, my nails grow and don't break.

I pang with frustration at my unhealthy attitude to weight loss and body image; I find myself thinking prison Fran was in much better shape than this chubby endeavour of late; it's a lie, it's a weird ripple of prison PTSD that I have to see myself through a happier lense because if I face the reality of what prison Fran was and what she looked like, what she did, how she felt, I'd break.

All of those visuals, behaviours, choices - they weren't made by me. They were made by the bars that held me.

As a fat girl at heart, I wonder if I opted for prison rituals more I would get a better handle on my eating habits; have treats once a week like it's canteen day. Have 3 biscuits and not a packet.

I find myself eating Jaffa cakes on occasion and thinking, "why can't you just have 2?" "you had 2 in jail, you had better self control in jail," and then I remember - I only ate 2 jaffa cakes in one sitting in jail because I was rationing my pleasures to ensure I had something to eat, something to treasure, enjoy and absorb in private, as a reward, as something that was mine.

One might suggest, we / I should adopt this philosophy in life. That just because I can access as many jaffa cakes as I want now, doesn't mean I should.

It's part of the process - knowing that, easing back into that, and remembering if nots all or nothing. 

I wonder as I write, how many fellow prisoners, especially those with eating disorders in a past life struggled with the restrictive food rations and the dehumanising value they created?

In a prison system that exists for profiterring, you can't help but feel that lack of respect, care and duty to those incarcerated. Knowing that the bottom line means your rights, your value, your health, your education, your wellbeing, all comes at the bare minimum to ensure maximum profit for prisons and not for prisoners.

Whether to control in physical woe and depleted energy or whether to erode the hope and healing, you've got the give it to them; feeding the pigs at the trough gives the people what they want.

A zoo.

Where the animals live.