From Michele: They say to never judge a person by what they have or what they look like, and there’s a reason. Oftentimes the strongest individuals whom you look up to are the same ones who have overcome their own battles not too long ago. Today, I want to introduce you to Nicole… the founder of Splendid Spoon, a company which aims to nourish with smoothies and soups (and now power bowls!)… which I personally enjoy. And while she’s been spoken about and interviewed quite a bit, for the first time she is sharing her story. If you aren’t already in awe in all that she has created, you will be inspired by what she has overcome.
Food has always been a magnetic force for me.
Christmas mornings meant burning the roof of my mouth on mom’s famous egg dish – a savory, squishy, bread pudding named after the neighbor who supposedly created the recipe. Fred’s eggs was best devoured before it was adequately cool. In middle school I prized an invitation at Passover Seder. Brisket followed by unleavened desserts made with egg whites, coconut flakes, chocolate and matzoh — heaven. During warm, un-airconditioned summers in my Nana’s wood paneled dining room on the Cape, I’d swipe fingerfuls of butter and glob them into my mouth – sweet, salty and warm. Mom got Country Crock, but Nana got the real stuff. She baked it into chocolate chip cookies and melted it into little baths for our lobster meat and steamer clams. At my other Grandmother’s house, there was a near endless buffet of food for every occasion – Filipino dishes like panceit: glass noodles, shimmering together with ribbons of fried pork, egg, and carrots and lumpia (Filipino egg rolls). Afterward, a fudge and marshmallow log rolled in sweet coconut flakes and sliced into kaleidoscopic rounds for dessert.
Food meant delight, family, and discovery throughout my childhood.
When I went to college food became comfort. I had only been away from my family 2 weeks at a time in the past, and I missed my sister’s laugh, the smell of my mom’s sweaters, the soft kind smile of my dad. Food was my surrogate for their love. Mom sent me Chef Boyardee in cans, Easy Mac, Cape Cod potato chips. The seemingly unlimited funds on my campus dining card gave easy access to Swedish Fish, late night nuggets, and breakfast sandwiches designed to soak up a hangover.
I have a very small frame, but the tightening of my pants frightened me.
Who would I be if I wasn’t still small and lithe – the Nicole-who-can-eat-anything? I felt the pressure of my first year tightening along with my waistband, and the voice of judgement getting louder. What does one do with an English major, really? What good would a semester in Bath England do me in the real world? I needed to be practical. I needed to create a career! I needed to make a difference, not float around reading books all day! I judged myself. I switched my major to Biology because my other love was science. With this new focus I could excavate, pull apart, explore, and find answers to the hidden folklore of mother nature. With this major I was challenged. And it was hard. So hard I began to find my mind competing with itself – judgement took hold.
Judgement begets fear, paralysis, more judgement, self-criticism…I began to feel crazy.
Had I made a mistake? If I couldn’t succeed with my major, what could I succeed at? In high school the two superlatives I won were best looking and best body. As an adult with two children, it pains me to admit how formative those silly superlatives were. And how I leaned on them in this difficult time. My body had received so much praise, so maybe it could help me out of the stress of my academic life. This twisted into – without a perfect image, what good am I?
And thus began my obsession with controlling my body.
It’s a dark state, addiction. Addicted to the “right things” to support my goal. Addicted to punishment for the “wrong things” that hinder my goal. All of it a contorted dopamine loop that included restriction, diet pills, laxatives, an obsession with sweets, and a compulsion to binge and purge anytime I was stressed.
I had no connection with my body’s natural hunger cues. If I was nervous I would go to the cafeteria and eat as much as possible on my own. When my stomach felt full, I’d panic and jettison to the nearest toilet. I knew what the back of my throat felt like, I knew what donuts and stomach acid tasted like. I knew that drinking loads of water while binging made cookies and chips slide right back up easily. Food was no longer a love affair, it was a horror story splattered through the porcelain toilets of my college campus.
And then something wonderful happened.
According to my calcualtions, I was failing organic chemistry. It was like a big slap across the face to wake me up. Suddenly I was in contact with my body again – my kidneys ached, my face was swollen, and my body was constantly in panic mode.
Nearly failing that O-Chem class saved me.
The fear of failure is strong in me. Pride is strong in me. I couldn’t bear the thought of failing a class. I negotiated with my teacher for a D-. I scoured books in the library about eating disorders, reading things like The Golden Cage and Mindless Eating and whitepapers about anorexia and bulimia. I found a therapist. I spent the summer with my best friend’s family – an Italian-Irish brood that was loud, unconditionally loving, and religious about Sunday dinners. No longer surrounded by the anonymous abyss of university bathrooms, I found solace in a home where you could hear everyone pee. I accepted that I sucked at O-Chem and threw myself into independent research in a biochemistry lab.
I’m not proud of those dark years.
But I am grateful for enduring it. An eating disorder helped me to realized not to take food for granted. It symbolizes love and attraction, it poses as poison and punishment. To our body it is simply fuel, but for most of us, there is no untangling food from our emotions. It is powerful.
The defeat I experienced with disordered eating helped me to re-build myself according to my own standards of beauty.
My body image had been a mixtape of high school superlatives, high fashion ads, and conversations about thigh fat with the popular girls. It wasn’t me, it wasn’t a strategy for success…but most importantly it also wasn’t some evil force that had control over me. Narratives, the stories we tell ourselves, are incredibly powerful, but they are also highly malleable.
The story I wanted to tell about Nicole was of an explorer, a discoverer, a builder – a woman with the wits to build solutions for others, and the creativity to make it fun and joyful along the way.
This new narrative gave me the path to form a new experience with food – one that accepted food as fuel while also celebrating its unique sensory delights of flavor, texture, aroma and of course, family. Creating my own standards led me to culinary school, two healthy pregnancies, a cookbook, a coparenting relationship with my ex-husband, a team, a career, and of course a brand – Splendid Spoon.
Like many women, I do still battle with judgement, self-criticism, and comparison.
I long for curves when I see ads for bras I’ll never fill out, and I wonder why I can’t accept the creeping wrinkles around my eyes and smile. When I feel the judgement creep in I remind myself how I worked with judgement as a young woman. I remind myself to dive in, rewrite the narrative, and most of all: live the story I want to tell about myself.
Nicole Centeno
Founder, CEO Splendid Spoon
Support Her:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/niccent/
Her Company: https://splendidspoon.com