is don't talk about diet club. I have an aunt and a mother-in-law who are diet obsessives. The MIL's drug of choice is to mention her cholesterol every five seconds. The irony here is that the woman is fit as a fiddle. It's just that somewhere along the way a doctor told her to maybe keep an eye on her cholesterol and she took that as the word of god to never again eat anything remotely good tasting and to swap out margarine for butter even though that's a pretty universally reviled substance that even the Southerners I know stopped using ten years ago. (Bless her heart.)
My aunt is slightly different. She is a food obsessive. And a diet obsessive. She lost somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 pounds on weight watchers and has kept it off for some fifteen years. That's impressive. And amazing. And laudatory. And we would do those things if she EVER shut up about it. There is no zealot like a convert.
She's gotten better. She's less likely to extol the virtues of soy cheese. I once chastised her for her food obsession. As we sat there eating lunch, she pondered her next three meals. I told her to stop talking about food. To enjoy what she was eating. To enjoy the moment. And I think that made her think about her reaction to food and she's at least less chatty about it and her points.
But those were the examples set before me. Every time I would consider dieting or being healthy or a lifestyle change I would think of those who were obsessed with it and reject that notion because life is short and food is wonderful. Not just from a taste and sense perspective, but from a communal association perspective. When you celebrate something, how do you do it? You do it by sharing a meal. So how do you escape what food means?
And lord help you if you dare speak out loud what you were trying to do. Everyone will have opinions and thoughts and scold you for daring to deviate from what they perceive is the way you should be dieting. Which just makes it that much harder. "I thought you were dieting. Why are you eating french fries?" Because I thought long and hard about it and made a rational adult choice, that's why.
So I've failed. And I've gotten even lazier and more sedentary now that I have a desk job. And I can feel my bones and muscles atrophying and I want to be better. I want to do better. But being and doing better always starts tomorrow.
I'm not obsessive or passionate enough about anything in the world to be my aunt or mother-in-law. And my issues aren't that I got here in some slothful manner. I was a chubby kid. Always. I lost a ton of weight in college just by virtue of having too much free time and spending it at the gym. But when you grow up fat, you never think you're pretty enough and so I never did. You're never not a fat kid. As with virtually every girl in her 20s I know, I had pretty limited self esteem. As with virtually every woman in her 30s I know, I'd love to go back and smack that 20 year old version of myself for being an idiot. Sure, I wasn't perfect. But good lord I was close. Likely as close as I'll ever get.
After college I made the moronic decision to move home. I didn't know what I was doing with my life, I didn't know who I was. And I figured the job market was better in the Bay Area than in South Louisiana. I was likely right. I was also mostly an idiot because SF wasn't "home". I moved in with my mom because she'd instilled a fear of failure and debt in me and I didn't think I could make it on my own. I stayed for far far far too long, living there as I went to law school.
And if I thought I had low self esteem in my early 20s, living with someone out to sabotage me (we have a healthy relationship), while struggling with my identity and feeling worthless made things worse. I don't think I binge ate. I just really enjoyed good food and eating what I wanted, whenever I wanted, whenever the mood struck me, to cover up some of the feelings I was having and didn't want to deal with, as I am privileged enough to do as a white middle class chick, even if good food was ostensibly bad food. And somehow in the four years after I moved home, I put on 70lbs. I always thought if I ever topped 200 I'd be depressed and disheartened. I've been well above that for some time.
And here's a thing: I can rationalize any and all of it. That's the way my brain works. Why would I deprive myself of a burger and fries? That's delicious and life is short. Why not have what I want? Why moderate? Why stop? Or: I'll do better tomorrow. I'll be better tomorrow. I'll start next week or next month or after that trip. No need to moderate now. Which are all lies we tell ourselves.
I got married fat, which I HATED. I hate those photos. I want them gone. I am lucky enough to have someone that loves me for me and that's great. But *I* don't love me for me. (It didn't help that at the time I was planning a wedding that same loving mother was offering me all her clothes because she'd "just lost so much weight and they just don't fit anymore! They're nice clothes!" The fact that a diabetes medicine was helping wasn't mentioned, it just worked fabulously to undermine my own feelings about myself as I faced being seen by the most people in my life ever at an event where I wasn't happy with my body.) And I want to love me for me.
So it's time to actually change. Except the first rule of diet club is don't talk about diet club. Instead I'll keep a published diet club diary, I guess.
And I have to figure out how I want this to look and who I want to be and what that means to me. There are a thousand pieces of advice out there. There are medical opinions and medical opinions that counter those medical opinions. People who say you must eat breakfast and those that say you need to do what works for you. Those that advocate giving everything up cold turkey and living monastically and those that say you can indulge occasionally in moderation. Diet plans and fads and groups and...noise. It's all so noisy. It's a multi billion dollar noisy ass industry. And I've done it. Or some of it. But really I need to find my truths. Who I am and how to do this for me in a way that is sustainable and that works. While I don't know what that looks like, I'd like to work on practicing mindfulness. Of thinking before I open the fridge or eat the entirety of the meal placed before me. To follow guidelines rather than rules. To not rationalize my way into a burger but to indulge if it's all I can think about. To take baby steps instead of giant leaps.
And I know it can be done. This was published recently. Which linked to this. I HAVE THOUGHTS. First off, while the world definitely treats fat people differently (I deal with it daily), I think the thought that your friends are ashamed of you is a bit unfair and probably more in the head of those who are overweight than reality. If there are people who don't want to be in your life because of the size of your waist, they are a waste of time. You are all beautiful, smart, interesting people. That has nothing to do with your size.
But even as I type that last sentence I know it's a lie. I deal with my weight by pointing it out. I think I joke and sometimes I make people uncomfortable but I also want them to realize the reality of it. And that *I* get the reality of it. Recently at a work potluck everyone stood around waiting for someone to dive in get the proceedings started. They looked to me. "Oh no!" I said, "I can't go first. Fat people can't eat first." Everyone politely tittered. I meant it. I talk about not wearing spiky high heels because that reduces me to looking like a hippo walking around on toothpicks. I joke that I can't wrap myself in my favorite color, purple, without looking like a grape. Tightly packed restaurant tables give me flashes of panic. I've been flying this week and the thought of encroaching on a strangers space fills me with fear. Being fat, being in a less than ideal body and moving through the world is hard work. And I don't want to work that hard anymore. So I need to work harder in thinking consciously and carefully about what I put in my body and why and not giving into whims and desires because I can.
On the other hand, I reject the idea that a body should look like anything other than it does. That we should have to apologize for how we look. I read the page for a yoga instructor apologizing for her size 12 body and was like, "Why?" Is a yogi supposed to look and be a certain way? I know in Western culture they're mostly your average ex sorority girl, wearing "Namaste Bitches" t-shirts who wants to turn yoga into a competitive sport, but why put a disclaimer on your yoga website about your size? That's the body you inhabit, that's the yoga you do. Fin.
But it's HARD holding those parallel ideas and living in this thin obsessed world. It's hard not being happy with my ability to walk up stairs or bend over and tie my shoes and yet still loving food. And it's REALLY hard having other people push their ideas of food on you.
I'm currently in New Orleans. All this get healthier/eat better/be better stuff was going to happen after this trip happened. I was going to indulge in all the things I love about this city. And now, after a mere day here, I'm faced with my host saying "OMG no more food! Just veggies! I can't!" Which, maybe unintentionally (probably, in all likelihood), makes me feel bad about my choices and my desire to eat fried shrimp poboys and rich creole dishes and red meat. And I recognize that those are HER issues. That I'm on vacation and that she's not. But...still...it gives me pause and makes me feel bad about the body I inhabit and what I'm doing and...that kinda sucks when I really WANT to indulge and enjoy and make merry with all the food around here.
There are no answers. At least not yet. I'm just gonna try and do the best I can, with some sort of guidelines, and mark that journey here. And share with whoever is out there and cares what that means to me. But this is for and about me and so if this never reaches anyone else's ears, that's okay too. I'll be back in a week when I get done being in New Orleans.
