Diet is my new four letter word

When I was in grad school, I gained a bunch of weight.  It was way too much-- long days, lots of Jack in the Box, driving 5 hours back and forth from College Station-- all of those things added up to me being rather pudgy.  And unhappy with that. So I went on a diet, lost 40ish pounds.  Got certified as an aerobics instructor.  Was muscled, bellydancing, and pretty fit.  It was kind of easy... calories in less than calories out-- lose 2 pounds a week.

Then I got pregnant.

It wasn't the pregnancy's fault-- I simply stopped exercising. Yes, I was asked to consume 3000 calories a day to help the twins grow well, since twins are often expected to be preemies. I did that partly by eating a whole pint of Ben & Jerry's every day (oh Heavenly Host that was fun!)

But, after the babies were born, I lost a bit, but have been up and down with that "extra 20 pounds" ever since. Last year, I decided to take it really seriously and diet and finally lose that last little bit.

I started working out every day.  I counted calories like a maniac. I lost 20 pounds. Yay!  Only ten more to go!  (It's always "just ten more pounds," though, isn't it?) Then summer hit, and I felt it was just too challenging to hit the gym while the kiddos were home.  So I gained some of that 20 back.  Lost some of it again in the Fall when they went back to school.  Had been trying, again, off and on, to focus on the calorie counting and really take that last few pounds off.  But, this time, in spite of really working hard and doing all the things I did the last time I easily lost those 40 pounds, it was NOT easy.  Those pounds kept coming back again!!

But recently I realized:  dieting makes me into a person who is not my best self.  I can be rather petty, sometimes even mean, about other people's weight (and weight loss) when I am overly focused on calories. I've said things that I really shouldn't have simply because I'm jealous that someone else finally did it, finally got themselves through hard work down to that goal weight. I'm a bit ashamed, but you can't take that level of "mean dieting girl" back, so I own it. I have a competitive streak that comes out occasionally in places like this, sometimes unexpectedly. I may try to hide it with it being a joke, but honestly, it really is just being jealous. I wish I could apologize to one person who I actually did say something too snarky to but an apology still doesn't fix it.

And seriously, it's not like I'm sticking to it enough for me to really have any grounds for being jealous.  It's my own "fault" if I keep a few extra pounds around my middle.  I like food, and I like wine, and I don't stick to going to the gym or running the way someone who likes caloric intake as much as I do ought to in order to be lean and fit.

But what I've realized is this:  I have a bad relationship with my body, with dieting, with food & calories.  I used to not-- but then, it's easy to have a good relationship when you're skinny and can eat at Burger King every day because you're 21 and work at a high calorie burning job and walk everywhere.  It's a lot harder when you have to make deliberate decisions.  I LIKED eating Whoppers and I like potato chips.  I like food!

I DON'T like counting calories, and (here's one of the biggest things) teaching my 8 year old daughter that "women count calories and worry about what they eat."  


My new resolution to stop punishing myself every time I eat a bag of chips has a lot to do with that daughter. She was asking me how many calories were in something, and I visualized the way, even at 18 when I was seriously skinny I thought I was fat and wore baggy clothes.  My mother never, as far as I remember, dieted, so I don't know exactly where my own obsessions with weight came from back then.

Anyway.  So now, I'm trying to re-educate myself. I'm eating food, without constantly trying to count calories. I'm trying to exercise deliberately, and with a goal towards long-term health, not weight loss.  I figure if I lose some weight, I'll be able to tell. But weight loss is not my goal.  And, while I plan to be aware that something has high or low calories, and make conscious choices because of that, I am NOT going to not eat something that I really want, when I'm hungry, because "it has too many calories".  Eat the damn bag of chips. Don't beat yourself up about it. Go running later or not, but stop thinking about food all the damn time!

And I'm trying to forgive myself for sometimes being petty or jealous of other people who have done a better job at their balancing act than me. I'm trying to genuinely love myself, for myself.  Not my skinniest self but me, the way I am, right this second-- messy hair, PJs, a little heavier than ideal, but able to run and catch up with my kids and strong as heck from all that weight lifting.

Why is that so hard to do?

Red Headed Running Girl

There she was.  Running so fast she was lapping the kids who were walking and chatting.  Ostensibly the "running club."  Very few people actually running.  But she was zooming, long red hair flying out behind her.

Months ago, when it was still hot, she would come up to me, cheeks blazing red, sweaty, having run close to 3 miles in less than an hour.  She was so proud, and made running look easy.

So, little by little, I decided that if my 7 year old daughter could do it, so could I. Run.  Jog.  That "four letter word" of sorts for me.

"I have always hated running" I said.  "Ugh.  Shin Splits and foot pain, no thanks!"   Many years ago, a dear friend of mine tried to hook me on jogging.  We went running through the cool night air of the Seattle area.  She didn't have a plan, a place she was going, and she ran easily ahead of me.  I hated it.  The bug did not bite.

My  husband tried to teach me, about 10 years ago on our last serious fitness campaign.  I liked it-- slightly-- better.  We had this discussion about, of all things, 9/11.  On that day, I saw news footage of a woman who had been shopping in downtown Manhattan when the planes hit.  She was trudging, I assume as fast as she could, out of the danger zone when one of the towers came down and that huge overwhelming cloud of gray smoke and ash and burning jet fuel billowed down, enveloping her in its darkness.  From far behind her, a young camera man zoomed, racing.  He was carrying what is probably a very heavy camera, and I assume he had been filming the destruction as he realized the cloud was growing.  He RAN.  He ran past the woman.  He did not get covered in dust and soot-- at least not as deeply into the cloud as the woman who could barely walk, carrying her shopping bags, her precious goods clutched in two hands.  My husband and I talked about wanting to be the person who could run from the dangers.  Outrace the poisonous cloud.

But it still did not stick.

Then, a seven year old red headed girl began running club.  And I begrudgingly found a motivational app for my phone-- the Zombies, Run! game.  It intrigued me enough that I said I would try.  I only promised to do it until the game was over.  I could not, I said, be sure I would keep running after the game was finished.  Yes, the game is super fun and I like the added humor of a game that is about the zombie apocalypse that is training one to potentially outrun the zombie apocalypse.  It's twisted enough that the dark humor kept me going outside, even in the cold, for weeks.  And the story is sweet, at times, and funny, and like reading a good book mixed in with cool songs that keep me moving.

But what has happened, really, that has kept me running at least three times a week, has made me run more than a marathon in mileage since January, has me planning to run a 5K in two weekends with my red headed lovely daughter, is a memory, one that slowly arose while I was running.

Of a red headed girl. Who was very fast, who loved to run like the wind, red hair streaming out behind her.  Who was ferocious.  Who chased the boy who teased her, and was so fast that he needed a burst of unnatural fear speed to get away.  A girl who was lost to puberty, and a lazy young adulthood where a high-ish metabolism kept her thin for a long time and a lazy lower metabolism made her pudgy through grad school.

A red headed girl, who I am remembering every time I go running, and find that I actually have started to love running.  I love the way I feel after, the slow burn in all my  muscles for the rest of the day.  The accomplishment of having racked up specific mileage.  Of getting to know the houses in my neighborhood.  Of running just a little bit farther, to that stop sign, to the next trash can, to the park, before slowing to a fast walk.

All because my little red headed girl found the one I had lost, too long ago.  So when we go on our 5K Color Run in a couple of weekends, there will be two red headed girls, running as fast as we can, at least part of the time.  Training each other to survive the dark clouds that are inevitable in life, but we, if we can, will outrace them, carrying that heavy load and dropping the things that are not vital.

Let's go.  Because we can.

Whew.

Holidays, for me, are officially over today but my working vacation is still a few more days (a week, I guess). I ought to take down the Christmas tree today (we'll see). Kiddos are back in school, with not too much fighting the system this morning. I have soooo much work to do this week-- publishing my magazine, writing my new syllabus (at this time I only have one to do but may end up with two). I need to get a new perm, get my eyes looked at so I can get new contact lens prescription (by the way-- I think optometrists have a racket-- my eyes haven't changed substantially in 20 years but I need a new prescription every year? Humbug.) School starts back for us on the 13th, and I have a full load of classes, and will be pretty busy.

While I don't DO New Year's resolutions, what I am doing is planning one of the more typical things people do at this time of the year. This is not really inspired by the New Year. It's inspired by me getting on a scale when we were at Grandma's house.... something I rarely do. Ugh! Really? So, then= weight loss, fitness plan. I had so little time with my odd schedule last semester to work out, but I believe that this semester I have a little more free time in the day. My plan is to lose 20 pounds by my big conference, which is the PCA/ACA one in New Orleans, by April 1. To accomplish this I'll need at least two vigorous workouts a week, and a sort of diet. Mostly, just not drinking a glass & 1/2 of wine a night for a few weeks will accomplish an amazing amount. It's not that wine has so many calories (which it does, enough) but that after a glass of it, cheesecake et al sounds like a good idea.

Anyway. I hope to get all my work done properly this week. We'll see. In the meantime, here's a nice picture. Grandma has a lovely player piano, and the kids LOVE it. This visit, they actually did more than just bang on it. They tried to finger-play songs, and followed along with the machine. I have cool video, and this is a still from one of those videos. Please to enjoy.