posts that I never thought I would make
I wanted to write this post to record how I'm feeling and thinking, but I really, really wouldn't advise reading it if you have any kind of disordered eating or body issues, because it's probably not only triggery but also smug and infuriating.
I'm having a thing right now where I feel good about my body. I feel great, actually. I've never had too many body issues to begin with, but right now, I feel sexy and amazing and fantastic. Since MJ, I've lost about twenty pounds and put on a bit of muscle. When I went home to visit, I realized that for the first time in my life, my parents' diet is less healthy than mine.
I firmly believe that the way I lost weight was just about the healthiest way you can, in both the psychological and physical sense. I moved towards eating almost exclusively things I cooked, making the great majority of my diet fruit-and-vegetable-based, and eating whole foods. I calorie counted, but mostly as a way to increase my knowledge and understanding of nutrition - to go into meals with full knowledge of what this meal does for my body. I didn't regard lower numbers as inherently better.
The thing is, I don't know that any of us manage to eat in a way that isn't ideological. So when I formed my food ideology, I didn't try to be purely rational. I just tried to make the articles of faith things I could stand by:
I eat mindfully. I don't believe in "free" foods or foods that don't count. There's nothing that I just eat as much of as I want, mindlessly; every piece of food is a choice, and it doesn't only fall in bad or good categories. I don't believe in not eating things I really crave, and I don't believe in eating things I don't really crave, so I frequently (but not always!) turn down office chocolate because my body isn't usually crying out for me to take it, and I know that when it is, I will. I eat lots of different colors. I don't shy away from cooking my food with oil. I will always choose real sugar and real fat over substitutes, because I don't believe it's possible to fool your body or cheat the system, and it's a bad idea to try. It all counts. It's all real, and that should be a good thing, not a bad one. These green beans aren't a "free" escape that allows me to cheat the system and eat without guilt, they're bursting with life and energy and flavor and they're all mine and they're going to build my body and I love eating them and they taste fantastic. I don't cut out food groups. I don't eat things I don't love.
While I don't ignore cravings, I also try to avoid letting my cravings do the shopping. If I only buy things for lunch that I would actually choose to eat in advance, and then I pack those things up the night before, and then I carry them to work, by the time I'm craving pizza it's easier to just eat the fruit salad that's on my desk, and then see if I still feel like making the effort to go out. I eat small portions of lots of things spaced out over the day. I do measure portions.
I run because I love running. I don't compete, I just revel in what my body can do that it couldn't two weeks ago, because my body is awesome in a way I never thought it could be all those years I hated gym class. I've tried to make guilt work for me, and it just doesn't. The only thing that does work is joy.
I actually don't know how much of the love I now feel for healthy food and exercise is pure and internal and original, to be fair. I spend a lot of time while I'm eating or cooking or running actively thinking "wow, I love this. This is great. I feel strong and awesome. I love bell peppers. What delicious olives. I did such an awesome job cooking this. I'm such a badass for going out running when I didn't feel like it." When I tell myself things like that, I start to actually feel more intensely what I tell myself I'm feeling. But that doesn't make those feelings less real.
I don't believe in diets. I don't believe in changing my habits in a way that I can't sustain indefinitely and that doesn't make me actively happy. I don't weigh myself or measure myself or reward or punish. I don't set goals, except with running, and even there I don't set dates by which I want to reach that goal.
I don't measure myself against anything but myself. I could not be less interested in policing anybody else's body, and I don't think health is a moral issue, and I think weight is a terrible way to measure health.
I don't really think any of what I just wrote would be particularly useful if I had felt worse about my body before I started, or if I didn't enjoy fruits and vegetables (although I did come to like them more the more I ate them), or if I had any kind of disordered eating history, or if I couldn't find some exercise that I enjoyed, or if I had bigger control issues, or if I didn't have the disposable time and income and energy to make all of my meals for myself out of whole foods, or basically if I wasn't coming at it from about twelve different positions of privilege.
But this is working for me, and it's working spectacularly, and I wanted to say so.
I'm having a thing right now where I feel good about my body. I feel great, actually. I've never had too many body issues to begin with, but right now, I feel sexy and amazing and fantastic. Since MJ, I've lost about twenty pounds and put on a bit of muscle. When I went home to visit, I realized that for the first time in my life, my parents' diet is less healthy than mine.
I firmly believe that the way I lost weight was just about the healthiest way you can, in both the psychological and physical sense. I moved towards eating almost exclusively things I cooked, making the great majority of my diet fruit-and-vegetable-based, and eating whole foods. I calorie counted, but mostly as a way to increase my knowledge and understanding of nutrition - to go into meals with full knowledge of what this meal does for my body. I didn't regard lower numbers as inherently better.
The thing is, I don't know that any of us manage to eat in a way that isn't ideological. So when I formed my food ideology, I didn't try to be purely rational. I just tried to make the articles of faith things I could stand by:
I eat mindfully. I don't believe in "free" foods or foods that don't count. There's nothing that I just eat as much of as I want, mindlessly; every piece of food is a choice, and it doesn't only fall in bad or good categories. I don't believe in not eating things I really crave, and I don't believe in eating things I don't really crave, so I frequently (but not always!) turn down office chocolate because my body isn't usually crying out for me to take it, and I know that when it is, I will. I eat lots of different colors. I don't shy away from cooking my food with oil. I will always choose real sugar and real fat over substitutes, because I don't believe it's possible to fool your body or cheat the system, and it's a bad idea to try. It all counts. It's all real, and that should be a good thing, not a bad one. These green beans aren't a "free" escape that allows me to cheat the system and eat without guilt, they're bursting with life and energy and flavor and they're all mine and they're going to build my body and I love eating them and they taste fantastic. I don't cut out food groups. I don't eat things I don't love.
While I don't ignore cravings, I also try to avoid letting my cravings do the shopping. If I only buy things for lunch that I would actually choose to eat in advance, and then I pack those things up the night before, and then I carry them to work, by the time I'm craving pizza it's easier to just eat the fruit salad that's on my desk, and then see if I still feel like making the effort to go out. I eat small portions of lots of things spaced out over the day. I do measure portions.
I run because I love running. I don't compete, I just revel in what my body can do that it couldn't two weeks ago, because my body is awesome in a way I never thought it could be all those years I hated gym class. I've tried to make guilt work for me, and it just doesn't. The only thing that does work is joy.
I actually don't know how much of the love I now feel for healthy food and exercise is pure and internal and original, to be fair. I spend a lot of time while I'm eating or cooking or running actively thinking "wow, I love this. This is great. I feel strong and awesome. I love bell peppers. What delicious olives. I did such an awesome job cooking this. I'm such a badass for going out running when I didn't feel like it." When I tell myself things like that, I start to actually feel more intensely what I tell myself I'm feeling. But that doesn't make those feelings less real.
I don't believe in diets. I don't believe in changing my habits in a way that I can't sustain indefinitely and that doesn't make me actively happy. I don't weigh myself or measure myself or reward or punish. I don't set goals, except with running, and even there I don't set dates by which I want to reach that goal.
I don't measure myself against anything but myself. I could not be less interested in policing anybody else's body, and I don't think health is a moral issue, and I think weight is a terrible way to measure health.
I don't really think any of what I just wrote would be particularly useful if I had felt worse about my body before I started, or if I didn't enjoy fruits and vegetables (although I did come to like them more the more I ate them), or if I had any kind of disordered eating history, or if I couldn't find some exercise that I enjoyed, or if I had bigger control issues, or if I didn't have the disposable time and income and energy to make all of my meals for myself out of whole foods, or basically if I wasn't coming at it from about twelve different positions of privilege.
But this is working for me, and it's working spectacularly, and I wanted to say so.