Breakfast this morning was lovely. Raisin, date and walnut oatmeal with 3 brown turkey figs and some papaya chunks. All washed down by Sweet Leaf Mint & Honey green tea. If you haven't tried it, you're missing out. My own mama used to brew mint tea when I was a kid and it was so delicious and refreshing so it's kind of a nostalgic thing for me too. All of this goodness accompanied by being serenaded by this guy. It is absolutely sick how many times in a row I've played this song. I also bought a miniature arrangement ($5) of fall color themed flowers to brighten up my rather drab cubicle view at work this morning. Flowers are a multi-sensory pleasure and add so much to one's day.
Getting back to the grub; when I eat fresh, good, clean food I find that it reflects in my mindset later on. When I'm cramming my body full of nasty, highly processed junk, there's a lingering sense of shame and guilt because I KNOW I'm abusing myself. I don't mean the occasional high quality chocolate. I'm all for indulging. What I'm talking about is a constant stream of convenience food; something chosen more because it's just the easiest option. There are months when I practically live off of vending machines at work. Not only is it just horrible for my budget, I feel TERRIBLE when I eat that way, physically and emotionally. The trouble is that preparing food requires some forethought and planning which is not my forte. I think it might just be worth my while to stop giving myself the hall pass for excuses and just do it. There's so much more pleasure in the texture and flavor of a ripe papaya than a bag of Doritos. With a little bit of effort on my part, there's a huge return in benefits.
I have a ponderously complex relationship with food/exercise/body image. In some ways, I feel safer as the fat girl. I have powers of invisibility. Many people simply look right past me because my appearance doesn't offer much for the eyes to appreciate. The times in my life when I was the smallest also coincided with episodes of sexual assault. I'm hyper-sensitive to the psychological impact of body image and how appearance impacts people's perceptions. My Dad (an otherwise very dear man so don't judge him based on one isolated fact) was extremely critical of large people. I remember the sheer misery of being out in public with him when he would spy someone of "unacceptable" size and go on a cringe-worthy rant about them and not very quietly either. It was humiliating and really hurtful. I learned that acceptance is not unconditional. Because I was a child and children don't always reason very clearly, I felt that everything was based on fat. Bad, unworthy people are fat. Good, superior people are skinny. I was already experiencing rejection from peers based on my weight and to hear the same judgments from the lips of my father just nailed it home. I reacted out of anger to the pressure from my Dad and others to lose weight and become worthy of their esteem. I rebelled. I hurt myself. I binged. What I wanted was to know that no matter what size I was, he loved me and was happy that I was his daughter. I didn't have the strength to make myself vulnerable and just ask for that so instead we built up years of miscommunication, resentments, rejection and pain on both sides. My Dad is a proud, stubborn man and I was a proud, stubborn little girl so neither of us could bend and we wasted years of our relationship. To be honest, when I was younger, I laid every ounce of blame at his feet, but as I've gotten older, I see how I also contributed to the problems between us. My Dad is never going to be the person that I sit down and have long touchy-feeling conversations with. It's simply not in his nature and over time, I've had to learn that just as I want acceptance from him just as I am, I have to be willing to return that respect. So my Mom is my touchy-feely and my Dad is who I can have in-depth debates with on complex subjects and gain interesting new perspectives from. Wow, I get way off subject here. Excuse me.
Back to the whole body image issue; the long and short of it is I want to be absolutely certain that I am making the right choices for the right reasons. I think it's an admirable goal to want to take good care of oneself out of respect for this life we've been given. I don't want to do it because I'm trying to diet my way into social acceptability or to fit into the standards of attractiveness. Of course I like looking in the mirror and being pleased with my reflection or being able to buy cute clothes that more closely match my personality than the unappealing granny getups that I find myself mostly wearing now, but losing weight suddenly makes me visible to others and I pop back on the sexually viable radar of the opposite gender and I have NEVER known how to handle that attention very gracefully. It makes me very uncomfortable and I feel vulnerable. The fat I wear acts like a childhood blanky; shielding me from the scary things I don't know how to face.
The thing is though once I get to a certain size, the sheer excess weight I'm carrying around is exhausting and it holds me back from things I'd like to do or try. I was talking to an acquaintance the other day who mentioned a friend of his that died of a heart attack at 34. Read that again people. I didn't say 54 or 64. I said 34. And a contributing factor was the man's weight. I'm 32. I have no intention of dropping dead 2 years from now and yes, the chances of that happening are pretty remote, but I'm a firm believer in hedging bets and since weight is something under my control, why even allow it to be a continuing risk factor? The deceased man left behind a wife and 4 small children. How devastating that must be to his family and how equally devastating that would be to mine.
To be at my optimum health, I would need to drop 150 lbs. Yes, that's right. 150. I forget how unhealthy I truly am until I'm confronted with the naked numbers. To reach my goal, I can't tackle that number all at once. I have to start with small changes and build on my successes. I've found that I usually do better as well when I don't get too hung up on lbs lost, but rather the positive habits I've formed. To get this under control, I'm setting the following short term goals to be achieved one at a time:
- Cut out fast food/vending/convenience/junk/highly processed crap food
- Drink at least 64 oz of water daily
- Make home cooked meals from fresh, whole foods instead of boxed meals
- Get moving! Walk, yoga, dance, soccer scrimmage
- Convert to a well-balanced vegetarian diet (eating meat makes me feel ill, but I tend to be a junketarian)
And just for kicks, here's some of my other goals as well:
- Work for IRC
- Learn to hula hoop
- Take martial arts
- Learn French
- Take a pottery class
- Dance lessons (belly/ballroom)
- World travel
- Pay off debt and begin saving
- Spread some joy!
Light a candle instead of cursing the darkness...
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