If I had a “Favorite Things” list like my friend Oprah, food
would be at the top of that list. Not something specific like Cocoa Dusted Georgia Almonds in a decorative
tin ($76 for 100 grams) that she might list. Just food, plain good old
fashioned food would be at the top of mine.
You don’t get to be my size by not liking to eat. I have
never bought the whole “the reason I am fat is that I don’t eat enough” argument
but lord knows I have used it. When I was a sales rep on the road I rarely
would eat lunch so I would come home famished. I would then proceed to eat a
balanced meal followed by a 3 hour snacking marathon. Some nights it might be
cereal, other nights it might be multiple trips to the vending machine if I was
staying in a hotel. Regardless of the sustenance, I can guarantee that I ate
far more calories during my post-dinner snack fest than had I eaten a large
lunch earlier in the day. I would say “I
don’t know why I am fat, I barely eat all day!” and I said it enough that I
actually started to believe it.
The thing with me is that I actually do really like healthy
foods. Love veggies and will enjoy a kale and spinach smoothie as much as an
iced cappuccino. Don’t buy white bread or rice, potato chips (often) or a lot of
processed crap. My main problem when it comes to food is sheer quantity and taking
the time to prepare food at home. While I don’t bring a lot of processed or bad
foods into the house by way of groceries, we eat take out and restaurant food
WAY too often. The logical side of me knows that I can whip up a healthy meal
for my husband and I in far less time than it takes to wait for a pizza or run
out for burgers. In fact, most nights we both would probably prefer some good
homemade food but when that 6:00 hits our willpower goes out the window. So we
go back and forth deciding what we would like to eat, finally decide and off we
go. An hour later we both feel bloated, disappointed in our decisions and
tired. This is not an every night occurrence but it happens more often than I
like to admit.
Then there is the portion thing. This is a biggy for me and
we live in a society where big is better (when it comes to food at least!). Restaurant portions are bigger, plates are
bigger, coffees are bigger and as a result PEOPLE are bigger. Now common sense
dictates that if you want to lose weight you need to eat less, at least less of
the “bad” foods. I wish it was as simple as that for me but my head always gets
in the way. I am the queen of extreme when it comes to my diet. When I am
watching what I eat, I am really driven. I can easily cut out whole food groups
and won’t miss it. Bread, fruit, sugar, meat, dairy…whatever the scheme of the
day is for me. The problem is that I can only sustain that for so long before I
fall of the wagon. When I fall, I fall hard. I roll into the ditch and the damn
wagon rolls right on top of me. It can take days, weeks and sometimes months to
get back on the road again. All of the progress I made is undone and I am back
to where I started, just in a more discouraged state of mind.
Diets are the devil, of this I am sure. The first diet I
ever went on was Nutrisystem when I was in grade 6. I BEGGED my parents to let
me enroll. It involved them having to drive me 2 hours each way once a week to
pick up my food and get weighed in. I desperately wanted to do it because for
the first time I was beginning to be teased for my weight at school. Teased is
not likely the word for it, full blown bullying would be more accurate (more
about this when I talk about my emotional connection to food). It was the first
time that I was acutely aware that I was overweight. My first weigh in at
Nutrisystem I weighed 165 pounds. What I would give to weigh 165 pounds today!
That was my first diet and 25 years later I have dozens of diets under my belt.
You name it, I have tried it and likely more than once! All of this is very hard for anyone to admit
but even harder for a Nutritionist but it is cleansing to get this out. More on me and dieting
tomorrow when I continue my exploration of the other f word…FOOD J
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