ConseCrate

Reflections on Shuffle-Play (a daily exercise to write a reflection based on a song from my morning run)

What antagonizes me is all the mental energy I have given it over the years. Even though I have worked hard to battle it, still, whenever anything is wrong or upsetting in life, my first reaction is to return to it – my crutch, my solution, my goal that I hate.

I’m referring to the rollercoaster that is dieting.

This is how the storyline goes:

On an otherwise unremarkable every-day, I decide that something in my life is uncontrollable or vexing and I feel the frustration in my body. Even if I had previously been totally satisfied and comfortable in my skin, a sudden loneliness or frustration or anxiety occurs and my knee-jerk reaction is to blame my stomach that is unacceptably rotund or my infuriatingly sturdy legs.

One way or another, I decide it is time to take control of the situation and monitor my caloric intake. Diet. I have called it other things: finding balance, cutting out the junk, being healthy, taking care of myself, eating clean – but ultimately it is all the same thing: dieting.

And I am really quite good at it. Why the heck wouldn’t I be? Anything a person has done most of their life since they were 15 they would be good at.

I know how to watch every morsel I eat.

I know what food has more calories and what food has less.

I know where the hidden calories are and how to avoid them.

I know how to ‘lighten up’ dishes and use smaller plates.

I know how to add in lots of greens and other veggies! Yes! (Because you’ll definitely lose all your taste for junk food forever if you just eat more greens!)

I know how to stay out of difficult situations or prepare for them by bringing along food.

I know how to remain satisfied so I don’t get too hungry and go off ‘the plan’.

And I know that within a few weeks, people will begin to notice, my efforts will begin to pay off, and the compliments will start to come – and they will feel like the sweetest, most savory reward. “Have you lost weight?”  “You look great!” And I smile a self-satisfied smile to myself.

By this time I might be starting to get rid of some of my old ‘fat’ clothes and spending a little more time in front of the mirror, admiring my shrinking shape. I’ll shake my head and think to myself, “I can’t believe I had let myself gain so much weight again.” Tsk Tsk. Never again. And I will feel such pure satisfaction and pleasure at my resolve, my courage, my tenacity, my ability to take up less space in this world now. Even though I banished the scale to the dark recesses of the closet a few years ago, I won’t be able to resist dragging it out to watch the numbers confirm what I already know. I’m slimming down. I’m trimming down. More acceptable, attractive, and positively tiny by the day.

And then I will start to weigh myself every day. Because why not? Isn’t this super fun? Isn’t this just the best time ever? To be obsessed with each morsel I am putting in my mouth, fixated on what fits me again, enchanted by my cheekbones reappearing, but never fully satisfied because there’s always more weight to lose. “Just keep working at it, Ruth. Just a few more pounds. Be patient.” And I settle in for the painfully slow, death dirge which is any weight loss that comes after the first 10-15 pounds.

But knowing it will never be enough. Never. Losing weight is the really un-fun game that never ever ends.

But back to how things go:  Then, I get hungry. Or shaky. Or tired. Or bored. Boredom is a big one: I can lose weight easily when I stick to a tiny menu of ‘safe’ things – but, like most living creatures, I adore food and flavor and after a while, usually about six weeks, I would rather pluck out my eyeballs than stick to the same claustrophobic eating plan day after day, week after week. I decide to give myself a break, and the break feels so good that I slowly slip away from worshipping at the altar of all my ‘healthy habits’. Even as I cower under the guilt of succumbing to my appetite yet again, I savor being able to enjoy pizza with my kids, cream in my coffee, a piece of the birthday cake at the party without worrying all the dang time about calories, fat content, the size of my rear-end…

Until I decide it is time to take control of the situation and monitor my caloric intake…

Put this cycle on repeat, to more or less degrees of freneticism, and you have the last 32 years of my life.

On good days, I can say I have put dieting behind me, that I am past all that crap and I no longer waste time on it – and that can be true for months and months at a time. I won’t weigh myself, I eat intuitively what sounds good to me, I exercise daily but just because I love it, I’ll soften all the incessant ‘rules’ about food and just live. I like being in that mental place. It is a relief, because then I’m able to focus my energy on things that actually matter: my family, my writing, work, travel, living and enjoying life!

But that seed of insecurity still lives in me and sometimes it still grows strong. I crave the affirmation, the self-satisfied weird pleasure that comes from giving in and just dieting a bit – shrinking into the ideals of the world around me.

In 2012, I finally received my doctoral degree after nearly six years of hard work (not to mention I did it while raising my small children, and while going through the sickness and death of my parents). While everyone around me knew this was a big accomplishment for me, any accolades or congratulations I received were sparse and lukewarm at best.

That same year, I lost a significant amount of weight…and you would think I found the cure for cancer with how people were in awe of me for that, constantly stopping me at church and on the street to compliment me.

I knew how lopsided it was – to be congratulated for counting calories, to be congratulated for not putting stuff in my mouth, for taking up less space in the world. I knew it was messed up that this seemed like my really big accomplishment that year – to others, and to me, too.

But this is the price we pay for the world we live in. This is what I get for growing up in this culture, a child of the 80’s, subjected my whole life to commercials featuring thin, thinner, thinnest. Heavier people being portrayed in media as punchlines, sexless, expendable, or just plain invisible.

Most of the time now I fight this ridiculous culture, I damn the word ‘diet’ to hell, and just eat when I’m hungry, stop when I’m full, and exercise for no other reason than it makes me feel good and I love it. But just yesterday I found myself lingering over the image of a new diet book on Amazon, wondering if I maybe ought to try it.

But I won’t! I won’t, because dear Lord, I don’t want to look back over my life someday and realize I spent most of this gorgeous existence on the hamster wheel of dieting. It would be different if the outcome was ever something new, but it is always the same – for me and for 95% of people who go on a diet: Yes, weight is almost always lost with dieting, but eventually the weight always comes back, and oftentimes more than what was lost in the first place.

I want my children to remember me as a person who was passionate about all sorts of interesting things, that I loved and lived extravagantly – not with my head buried in a little book where I tediously wrote down my calories and exercises for the day, not bound to a cycle of consistent, certain, repetitive frustration. Let me give my energy toward celebrating this strong body, this healthy body that has never had to be on medication for anything even though according to the body mass index charts I have been considered “obese” most of my adult life, this body that has borne two healthy children, this body that has climbed mountains and run marathons, and holds my brain which is full of good, kind thoughts.

It’s so hard to shake the seduction of dieting. She’ll always call out to me, promising all sorts of false glory, but I am so infinitely tired of her. She’s already stolen way too much of my time, energy, thought process, and money. Not a second, a smidge, a dime more.  Join me, for your sake and for the sake of the generations who follow us and say a huge, emphatic NO to the diet industry. Tell them to take their diet books, plans, monitors, pills, bands, meditation CD’s, exercise DVD’s etc. and shove them all. Join me in ceasing the effort to take up less space in the world.  You are never “bad” for eating the delicious cake. You are lovely – no matter if your pants are snug or loose today. You are so freaking beautiful, just as you are, in the body that God gave you.

She’s a Beauty

By The Tubes

Step right up and don’t be shy
Because you will not believe your eyes
She’s right here, behind the glass
You know you’re gonna like her ’cause she’s got class

You can look inside another world
You get to talk to a pretty girl
She’s everything you dream about

(But don’t fall in love) She’s a beauty
(She’s one in a million girls) She’s a beauty
(Why would I lie?) Why would I lie?

You can say anything you like
But you can’t touch the merchandise
She’ll give you every penny’s worth
But it will cost you a dollar first

You can step outside your little world
(Step outside your world)
You can talk to a pretty girl
She’s everything you dream about

(But don’t fall in love) She’s a beauty
(She’s one in a million girls) One in a million girls
(Why would I lie?) Why would I lie?
(But don’t fall in love) If you do, you’ll find out she don’t love you
(She’s one in a million girls) One in a million girls
(Why would I lie?) Now why would I lie? Uh

(Step outside your world)

(But don’t fall in love) She’s a beauty
(She’s one in a million girls) One in a million girls
(Why would I lie?) Now why would I lie?
(But don’t fall in love) If you do, you’ll find out she don’t love you
(She’s one in a million girls) One in a million girls
(Why would I lie?) Why would I lie?

(But don’t fall in love)
(She’s one in a million girls)
(Why would I lie?)