Weighty Wednesday: Food Fight

One year in college, I had two roommates. One of them was skinny, and one of them was more medium sized, but she very much wanted to be skinny. When the whole "fat makes you fat" line of thinking came out, medium sized roommate came home with approximately four thousand boxes of Snackwell snacks.

On nights when we would gather to watch TV - probably the original Beverly Hills 90210, as we didn't have cable - medium would eat a bunch of Snackwell cookies and skinny would eat two regular Oreos or chocolate chip cookies. Being more on the medium side, I figured I'd give Snackwells a try. But I remember it taking four of them to equal the pleasure I got from one Oreo. I went back to regular cookies. Medium roommate became more medium. Skinny roommate stayed skinny. I lost five pounds. 

I haven't really trusted diet bandwagons - and the foods that follow them - since. It would be lovely to think that if I just cut out sugar, or fat, or carbs, or lima beans (oh wait, I've already cut out lima beans because they are the WORST) that all my body issues would be solved. I get why people are attracted to the idea of cutting out one food group. And sure, if you eat twelve Oreos and drink two cans of soda every day and then you cut out sugar, you are going to lose weight. At least until you freak out and binge on sugary stuff. . . or wind up in the hospital from a vitamin deficiency because you also cut out the natural sugars found in fruit and dairy.

When it comes to eating, I'm a huge fan of consistent, conservative scientific research. It blows my mind that people pay money to various diet companies when the CDC has scientifically-based healthy  eating information for free. They even have suggestions beyond what to eat; they also tell you how to eat healthfully. The truth is, the additives and pesticides in our foods should scare us more than gluten, fat or sugar.

I mean, Subway uses a chemical used in yoga mats in their BREADS. Not their bags, or their cups, or any one of their non-edible items. Their freaking breads. And they don't use it at their European and Asian stores, because they're not allowed to there. I find that terrifying. (If you'd like more information about the chemicals used in your food, the Center for Science in the Public Interest has a great list).

There's a part of me that would like to make all of my food from scratch, at home, from all natural ingredients. Except that I generally hate cooking. And healthy food. I have managed to give up fast food, mainly because of all those stories about how fast food never breaks down. This did not cause me to drop 20 pounds immediately, much to my chagrin. But it is one (very, very, very) small step towards my (unattainable) goal of eating unprocessed foods only.

I am trying to eat fewer processed foods, and foods that have been processed less. Which brings me back to Snackwells. Fake foods - or fake versions of real foods (I'm looking at you, skim milk) - are not satisfying. A lot of times their fat has been replaced by sugar; or their sugar by chemicals or what have you. But I still feel bad sometimes, when I reach for the whole milk or the regular yogurt or the cookie I really, really want. I think to myself, "You're too fat to eat like this. Sure, eating what you loved and listening to your body worked before, but now you're super fat. And old. Dip a carrot in this fat-free ranch dressing, that's what fat girls should eat."

And then I have to tell myself to stop being such a freaking bitch.

And I remind myself what Geneen Roth would say about eating healthfully, not emotionally.

I still have a very fraught relationship with food. In case you couldn't tell. I know that I'm not going to start cooking everything from scratch unless the world stops producing great books,  creating great TV shows and the internet breaks down forever. I know (now) that cutting out fast food (which I don't even miss) doesn't mean the weight will magically disappear. I know that it's going to take me a really long time to get to my healthy weight this way.

But having a good relationship with food - just like accepting my body - is important. It's a fight worth having, even though I'm tired and cranky and worried about financial stuff and parenting and writing and working and taking care of the house and working on my marriage and, and , and.

Weighty Wednesday: These Geese

I think the geese look great. (Wait, those ARE geese, right? I'm not really good with bird species. Except flamingos. Because flamingos are awesome.) Who cares that their rear ends are like four times the size of the rest of their bodies? That's the way they are and there's nothing wrong with that.

If only I could say the same thing about my own ass. Or my stomach. Especially my stomach.

But I'm not as enlightened as your average goose*.

I don't hate my body; I'm too old for that kind of bullshit. There is a wide gulf, though, between not hating and being totally accepting. But I would walk across that gulf, even if it was filled with goose* shit, just to accept my body as it is. Think of how delightful it would be to look at a picture of yourself and focus on the fond memory, not of how you should never wear horizontal striped pants again. Or to just wear what you liked, no matter what the size or the stripe direction. Or to not feel bad for eating the extra cookie. Or to be comfortable wearing your bathing suit in public. Or to not worry about being judged for your weight, whatever that weight happens to be.

I don't know why I think I can accept my body now, when I didn't as a young, thin-ish person, except that I'm generally more accepting now than I was in my youth. Also, smarter. Except about birds.

Someone reading this is probably thinking, "BUT WHERE ARE THE DIET TIPS? YOU CAN'T TALK ABOUT WEIGHT WITHOUT GIVING US TIPS FOR LOSING IT!"

That person probably isn't coming back, if for no other reason than for what I'm about to say:

Diets are stupid.

DIETS ARE STUPID.

I'm not saying they can't help you lose weight. Paleo. Nutrisystem. Jenny Craig. Atkins. That diet that Jennifer Aniston's personal trainer recommends. They've all helped someone get the body they wanted. Some of them have probably even had people who actually kept that body long-term.

But in this world, anything you go on - a carnival ride, an airplane, a diet - is also something that you must go off. And for some of us, going off that diet just means making up for all that time you've felt deprived. Or, depending on the severity of the diet, it means making up for all that time your body has actually been deprived. And it means feeling good, or not so good, depending on what the scale says or how your jeans fit or what have you.

This is not a recipe (ha!) for happiness and self-acceptance. Or health, for that matter.

And for a lot us feeling bad leads to over-eating, which leads to dieting, which leads to going off the diet, which leads to gaining weight, which leads to feeling bad, which leads to. . . .

The diet industry making a shit-ton of money and totally gorgeous people feeling bad about themselves because they're not as skinny as Jillian Michaels.

You don't see that happening to geese*, do you?



*Or whatever those are.