Second Things Second

So, here is what I was thinking about, and have been thinking about incessantly for the last couple of months. Food. Every kid has their awkward stage. My awkward stage was being chubby. Not fat, per se but chubby. I knew I was chubby as a kid and all through high school. My weight fluctuated throughout my early twenties too. Sometimes I would get on an exercise kick and slim down, but eventually the extra 10, 15, 20 lbs would come back on. I tried to make all kinds of excuses to myself and other people. "I've never had a problem getting men to be attracted to me, so my weight is clearly not a problem." But, what I didn't realize, and really couldn't have known when I was younger, was that I was carrying around insecurities that affected my behavior. It really wasn't about how I looked, but how I felt. What I didn't know was that an extra 10, 15 and 20 lbs was affecting how I really thought about myself, but was in denial of.

I'm not sure exactly how it started. I think it was a combination of influences. Living in New York, yet another failed relationship, being around people who ate healthy...but I very slowly started to make changes to my diet. I started buying fruit and vegetables at the grocery store, and hummus. I started eating soup and yogurt for lunch. It never occurred to me to be on a diet, I just realized that I felt better about myself inwardly after eating a healthy meal. And that it physically felt better to be satisfied rather than stuffed. So, I kept it up.

Over time another unexpected thing occurred. I started to not just like, but LOVE fruits and vegetables. Particularly melons. So sweet and watery and refreshing. Not to sound like a hippie but I couldn't believe how the earth gives us everything we need. I made a promise to myself to eat fruit and vegetables every day. Then it occurred to me that getting filled up on fruits and veggies simply left less room for the unhealthy stuff. And, unlike I had been led to believe by our culture of failed dieters, healthy food was perfectly filling.

I started to choose the "light" options at starbucks and the grocery store. If something came in a light or low-fat variety I bought it instead. I also stopped drinking high calorie alcoholic beverages, rationalizing that it wasn't worth ruining a healthy diet for. Vodka soda...as a friend likes to say a total "rexi drink." I don't care. Because as I became that girl that I used to hate, the one who asked for her dressing on the side...I realized that everyone I'd ever known who made a consistent effort to choose the low cal option was thin. I assumed being that way was snobbery, about being better than other people who chose flavor, and I wasn't a snob, or so shallow. But I'll be damned if eating healthy wasn't actually beneficial. And, PS, cooking something in grease and lard doesn't add flavor, it takes it away, Applebee's. This revelation I can thank New York for. I didn't know what food actually tasted like until I came here.

I grew up with the idea that a "diet" was hard work because it was deprivation, it was living without the things you loved for vanity's sake. And the few times I'd tried to diet, and even lied to myself that I was making changes to my eating for the long haul, it never lasted because of this mentality. Diets are incomprehensibly stupid, but not for the reasons I thought. Eating well is not deprivation, it's freedom.

Little by little I cut out more unhealthy things, like french fries and mayo. But, when I crave a cheeseburger, I have it. When I want chocolate, I grab a handful of M&Ms, because I'm not on a diet and know that I can have M&Ms whenever I want, I don't need to eat the whole bag in one sitting. I can go out with friends to a nice dinner and not worry about dessert, b/c I'm okay with only having a few bites. I have a lifetime to eat dessert.

I started changing my habits because of how it made me feel on the inside, and months later noticed that I was punching new holes in my belts, my staple summer dresses of the last couple of seasons looked like sacks. Have I actually lost weight? I thought. I don't weigh myself--ever. But there was the evidence. My shorts from last summer don't fit, the shorts I loved and felt sexy in. Skirts that used to be tight were loose. Downsizing my calories had downsized my body. And while you're thinking "obviously", I never actually thought that my diet mattered that much. I'd always tried to exercise more to loose weight, and always fell of that wagon too.

Managing your food intake is not unlike managing your finances. If you constantly indulge in expensive items, you'll find that you don't have money left over for the little things or the necessities. A lot of people do this, and don't understand why they're always broke. Just like a lot of people don't understand why they're overweight. But, if you do the opposite, you'll find that when you want to indulge, you can without any negative consequences. Calories add up just like pennies. It's easy to think that a few here or there doesn't really matter, but in the long run, they really do. Slow and steady wins the race.

First Things First

I logged on today--with an idea for a post--for the first time in months and saw that a whole new blog design thing was added with all of these options. Whoa. I was so confused looking at the different potential backgrounds. Should I go with the classy marble sculpture head? Should it be something in the nature category? I always have liked Zebras. Home and garden? No. Stained glass window motif? Too many religious implications. For the time being, I chose books becuase books is good for ya.

When Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher first met, he didn't give her the time of day and had his attention on someone else. The second time they met was at an impromptu party at his hotel room (following God knows what). After being at the party for some time, Demi took a break from the Hollywood debauchery, and getting shit-faced with people half her age, to step into the hall and make a phone call. Ashton happened to hear her on the phone, saying good night to her children. He was so moved that he told her it was "the most beautiful thing" he'd ever heard. And so, they started to text. The rest is recorded in the anals of true love history.

This story brought to you by Demi on her recent visit to Regis and Kelly.

I don't think I even need to say anything about this. I think it speaks for itself. All right, I'm going to say it. It is my opinion that Ashton did not have a good realtionship with his Mom. Okay. There you go.

The Best of Waking up...

I just saw an online ad for foldgers. I haven't had a television in close to a year (netflix, baby) so I don't get to see commercials much anymore. And I have to say if they are all as devoid of reality as this one was, it's no wonder why the millions of Americans in the flyover states look like bitter prunes before they hit thirty--all that bullshit has to do something to your exterior.

So, some boring looking blond woman who could be 23 or 33 runs into her Dad in the kitchen. And he's all, "you got in late last night." and she's all, "yeah...it won't be mattering anymore." Then she pulls out an engagement ring and Dad is all of a sudden taken with emotion and not at all concerned that she was late, but tells her that her fiance is a lucky man, which is what he told him when the beau asked for her hand in marriage the week before. So many things wrong with that scene.

If that girl is old enough to get engaged, then she is WAY too old to be living at home. If that girl is old enough to get engaged, then she is WAY too old to have her father questioning what time she comes home at night. And if she is in a serious enough relationship to get engaged, then it's none of her Dad's business that she was late b/c she may or may not have been fucking her boyfriend, which is what the commercial implies. And it is beyond archaic that fucking her boyfriend all of a sudden becomes okay once he puts a ring on her finger. And that he goes from the "bad" boyfriend who kept her up late into the "good" boyfriend by asking her Dad if he could be her official fucker for an indefinite period of time. I mean we reject Freud's theories of a sexual/romantic connection with our parents and yet it's okay in our society that a father has some kind of control over his daughter's vagina and what she does with it, and who she allows to touch it, and when. There is something wrong with that.

The best part of waking up...is Foldger's in your cup. All those puritanical values in a cyclical web of caffeine goodness. Advertising pandering to the middle class while at the same time reinforcing an outdated and unnecessary belief system. DE-LISHIS.

Treatment to "be a better person"

I was on people.com just now and saw the above quote from Tiger Woods. He isn't sure how much golf he'll be playing in the future because he has to "be a better person", which inlcudes more "treatment". I'm not even sure why I thought this worth mentioning. It just seems like one of those historical markers that denotes the changing of the guard in society. Decades ago I don't think there existed the concept of treatment to "be a better person". Treatment for physical injuries, treatment for psychological diseases, yeah that existed. But treatment not to abuse the obscene amount of money and power that has been given to you, seems uh, a little far fetched. Call me old fashioned, if you will. I just feel like it's something someone is either going to do, or not. I don't know that it calls for sympathetic treatment. I would say it's action deserving of punishment.

I mean, some clever computer geeks created complex finanical instruments that fleeced a hell of a lot of people and launched a world wide recession. Should they be in "treatment" to be better people? Does that even sound like it makes sense?
"Gee, Doc, I don't know what came over me when I thought of screwing people so that I could aquire more money than I could ever spend..."
"Don't worry, Son. It's called 'not being a good person.' We'll have you ship-shape in no time."
"Wow! That's great! I didn't even know there was a cure for that."
"Of course there is! Every nefarious action is linked to a disorder that can be treated with drugs or therapy nowadays."
"Bad. Ass."

Where once we looked to God to forgive us our sins, we now look to health care professionals.

It was retarded

Possibly one of my favorite quotes from the last couple of weeks is from dear Bethany, Bethuselah, Elizabeth or simply, Bethy. We were in her bedroom talking about clothes, when I asked her what she'd paired with the skirt she had worn the previous day. She told me, and then didn't hesitate to say in a slightly disappointed way, "It was retarded."

Love. Love. Love. If you're someone who loves clothes, I mean loves clothes, you understand the mild disappointment you feel when you desparately put something together in the morning, only to later realize that it was ridiculous. But you also know the relief you feel when you admit it to someone else, or hear it from another person about their choice(s).

Yucko

I basically have eleventy things to do today, so I should not be writing this right now. But, after the disappearance of common attributes shared by chewing gum and enconomic downturns, I can't risk another lost rant.

Okay, so there is this book, and now it's a series of articles on the interweb, called "eat this, not that". It's useful info. I read it. I like it. And I think anyone in this country especially could benefit from knowing how unhealthy chain restuarant-prepared food is--particularly when a place exudes a healthy(ish) persona. Panera Bread, I'm talking about you.

But today the "eat this, not that" people did an article on what is in fast food meat. They exposed certain items that you would think have just a few ingredients (like chicken nuggets, or a frosty) that in fact have about 30. BIG FUCKING DEAL, I say facetiously.

I am so tired of the the "ick" factor played up by nutritionists and dieticians. Look, if you've got half a brain you know that fast food is basically all chemical, and not healthy. Does it really matter if you're eating Grade A prime rib or cornmeal filler that tastes just like it? Are the chemicals edible? Yep. Do they taste good? Yes. Will they kill you outright? No. Will they kill you slowly, over decades, if consumed at extremely high rates? Proably. But so will cigarettes, which also have way too many ingredients. (Ironically, marijuana, which does not kill people, is illegal) What is my point here? Uh...

I don't care. I don't fucking care if my burger is half rat or contains .000000000000002% fecal matter or will evaporate in a puff of smoke if the light hits it a certain way. Its contents are a moot point considering that I already know I'm doing myself a disservice by consuming it.