I bought $20 worth of Thin Mints from some Girl Scouts. It's true. I did it, even though I was a Camp Fire Girl. Then I ate an entire box of the chocolatey minty wafer cookies in a week. I'm not ashamed! It's more than just a cookie; it's a charitable and educational event. Right?? That's why, ounce for ounce, they cost a lot more than store-bought cookies, and a mega-lot more than homemade cookies. I have to remind myself that I'm not literally eating money, I'm only metaphorically eating money. The first time I successfully lost a bunch of weight, it was because I was flat freaking broke. I mean, so broke I had to go to the Laundromat and ask people if they could spare some lint so at least I would have something in my pocket. My major goal at that time of my life was to convert money into food as quickly as I could. The connection between the two goes a lot farther for me than the realization that so many foods are coin-shaped. (Pizzas, donuts, potato chips, burgers, most cookies, banana slices, OMG MIND BLOWN) When I was in college, my stated goal was to get a job that paid well enough that I could eat every meal in a restaurant. I basically did that when we were on our honeymoon, and that is why this is no longer a goal for me. I can gain a full clothing size in under two weeks. I've done it at least twice. If there was a TV show about me, it would be called 'Biggest Gainer.' I can basically look at a picture menu and gain three pounds. I sometimes wish I were ten inches taller, so I could eat more, although if that actually worked I'd be a redwood tree by now. The result of my love affair with cookies and restaurant food has been a cost of thousands of dollars in fitness equipment, gym memberships, race fees, gym clothes, running shoes, and a stint with a personal trainer, not to mention the various health issues. When we're trying to get out of debt and move toward financial stability, much less financial freedom, we can't ignore the issue of what we spend on food. There is an extremely interesting relationship between food and finance that is very reflective of our attitudes toward scarcity and abundance. I am in a place of financial comfort now where I can afford basically any food I want, anywhere, at any time. I could pick up my phone and have a wide range of steamy goodness at my front door within twenty minutes. What has been instructive to me is that I no longer eat the vast majority of 'comfort foods' I used to love. I lost interest. I used to stand at the vending machine in my office longer than most people stand in front of the Mona Lisa when they visit the Louvre. The beautiful mystery that is food packaging! I calculated recently that I spent at least $300 a year on vending machine snacks at a time when I really could have used that money for other things, like a new winter coat. I also could have had triple the calories for the same price by buying healthier foods at the grocery store, or I could have acknowledged my habits and gotten the same snacks in bulk at Costco. At the time, I was framing this habit as a not-habit, as a one-time splurge multiplied many times, as a "treat." A "treat" is a band-aid on a disappointing life. My real issues were an unfulfilling job, an unsuitable relationship, a conflicted relationship with my body image and physical health, an objectionable commute, and a climate that almost never suited me. No bag of vending machine snacks or pro-social cookies was going to help with that. Health food is expensive. Well, yes and no. I will never stop pointing out that a bunch of organic kale costs the same as a modestly-sized bag of chips from the convenience store. A five-pound bag of potatoes costs the same as a Big Mac. At least some of the cost of healthier groceries can easily be offset by changing our purchasing habits. Vending machines and convenience stores are expensive! I've been to the discount grocery store, the one where they have half-off frozen foods, and discovered that it's still significantly cheaper to buy bulk goods and cook from scratch. That process can feel like such a depressing, exhausted, onerous chore from a position of scarcity, though! Cooking in a tiny, scuzzy, outdated kitchen with dubious pot handles, dull knives, and poor lighting. Bleah. There's a reason why upscale homes always have ginormous foofoo kitchens. When I was poor, I hated to cook. I was tired, I worked on my feet a lot, I commuted on the bus, and when I got home I was wiped out. I didn't understand the connection between my dietary habits, my energy level, and my quality of sleep. Now that I have nice pans, a vast spice cabinet, and a dishwasher, I love cooking. We can our own produce, soup stock, jam, and pickles. It's really weird that I have probably triple the energy as a middle-aged person than I did in my twenties. This is definitely linked to the optimism that comes with prosperity. I suspect this works both ways, although I can't go back in time to prove it. It helps to reframe the way we think about treats. Is it really a treat if I feel physically icky the next day, like when I overdo it at a buffet restaurant? Is it really a treat if I've been trying to get off medication? Is it really a treat if I feel like my weight is out of control and I hate the way I look and feel? THIS IS NOT ME is not a treat kind of a feeling. Does what I've been doing lately fit with my vision of Future Me in a thriving career and a super-awesome personal environment? Are my habits leading toward greater abundance and fun, or am I trading my future for momentary pleasure? Would I feed my pets the way I feed myself? That one tends to stop me in my tracks. I would never let my beautiful fluff-babies eat the amount of sugar that I do. If someone tried to feed my parrot a cookie, I would slap it right out of their hand. Meanwhile [crams stack of cookies in mouth]. What would a happy person do? There is this idea that impulsive decisions and living for the now are the happier choice, but only young people really believe this. Once we pass the age of thirty, we start to feel it more. Yeah, I used to love to party and stay up late, but then I got tired. Domestic contentment is an abiding form of happiness, one that is reliable. When you can be happy on an average day at home, in full acceptance of your current situation, then you've won the game. Part of this domestic happiness includes financial stability and part of it includes the elusive sensation of "loving the skin you're in." It's much easier to appreciate these feelings when you've attained them after years of not feeling either. Believe that these feelings of peace and satisfaction truly exist and that they are possible. When I was fat, I didn't think I was fat. I thought I was average to thin. I did not think my health issues were connected in any way to my size, my habits, or what I ate. I thought I ate a healthy diet. I thought my health problems were fate, and that everything else in my life stemmed from that, rather than the reverse. I thought I was doing pretty well, considering my family tree in general. I had always been told that I had "birthin' hips" and so, if I had a big butt, it was the fault of my skeleton. Darn you, bones, always getting me into trouble! Now that I'm thin, nobody believes I was ever heavier. I tell them I lost 35 pounds, and the reaction is almost like reading off a script. "I can't picture that at all." "I don't see it." The skeletal structure is the same, but nobody says I have "birthin' hips" anymore. Now that I'm healthy, I see everything differently. I see that I ate what I would now consider a dessert 3-5 times a day. I see that I ate more sugar than vegetables. I see that I was deficient in key micronutrients over a period of decades. I see that fixing my diet fixed my parasomnia disorder and my migraines, and that the excess weight was simply one more symptom. Now that I'm a marathon runner, I see my thyroid disease in a different context, as something that could have been managed through activity level. I can feel it now, when I haven't been able to work out for a while, and I start feeling chilly and lethargic again. Yes, the migraines, the thyroid disease, and the parasomnia disorder came from genetic tendencies, but that does not mean they are fixed, irreversible traits. It simply means I have those underlying traits instead of something else, and thus my focus should be on managing them instead of something else. Isn't it weird, though (she said ironically), that making one change fixed several problems at once?? I bought into a mindset that I now recognize in many people. I didn't think I was fat, statistics be damned, and that's because almost everyone I knew was bigger than me. I thought that any suggestion that women should be a certain size was fundamentally misogynist, part of a marketing conspiracy to brainwash women into hating their bodies and buying more clothes and cosmetics. I thought I was the size I was due to family legacy and health problems. I thought weight loss required hours at the gym. I thought every time I ate something healthy, it somehow canceled out anything else I ate, like eating a quarter cup of broccoli would erase a can of cola. It's like matter and anti-matter! I thought thinking about weight loss would lead directly to neurotic body image problems, and that it was a foolish distraction from intellectual matters. The gym was for people who weren't smart enough to read a book. I didn't know anyone who could be described as an athlete. I figured I was doing just fine, so why change? Now I think that obesity is a natural consequence of the Standard American Lifestyle. I think that what is really bad for women's body image is not feeling strong and physically capable, that contemporary body image dogma overlaps perfectly with pre-feminist Victorian ideals of passivity and exaggerated curves. I consider myself an athlete, which I NEVER thought I would say, and the athletes I have met tend to be smarter and more interesting overall. Athletes are certainly better informed about nutrition and physiology than the average layperson. As I have learned more about health and fitness, it has become easier to BE fit and healthy. I talked myself into it first, and started seeing results afterward. I now want to find out just how much I can do, just what exciting new horizons of performance I can coax out of myself, how awesome and trend-setting I can be as an elderly lady. When I think about the habits I had when I was fat, it makes me want to stamp my foot. Oh, Past Self, you stubborn little ninny! Some things change and some things don't change. I read more than I ever did, only now some of it is on the elliptical and some of it is via headphones. Some of my reading material is skewed toward medical journal articles. I eat as much as I ever did, only now I cook more of it myself and more of it is skewed toward vegetables. I don't think as much about body image, because I have nothing to prove and nothing to gain from that kind of conversation. I don't really get sick anymore and I am pain-free as a general rule. In many ways, I look and feel younger than I did 15 years ago. It's hard to look back and recognize that my Past Self would have been mentally locked down against anything I had to say about what I have learned. I didn't think my body mattered because I identified with my head. I was like a floating speech balloon or thought bubble in a comic strip. Or the operator of a giant mecha-robot. I drove my body like a car... kind of a junker car, but an impersonal vehicle nonetheless. Most of the time, I didn't pay attention to my body at all, unless I was in pain or had a physical need I couldn't ignore. I sat perfectly still for long periods, often until my foot fell asleep, and I would swing between mindless snacking and going too long between meals. If I'd treated a child the way I treated myself, I would have been in big trouble. I just didn't think my behavior had anything to do with my physical self. I still don't think much about my activity level or my diet, because now I know what to do. I know how to cook basic meals that take half an hour and meet my nutritional needs. I have an inner sense of when I need to get up and move around. I have several types of workouts that interest me, and I can do them while reading or letting my mind wander. I don't give much thought to my physical needs, not because I'm pretending I don't have any, but because I know how to meet them with a simple routine. I still don't think I'm fat, only now this belief meets scientific consensus. I prefer my body the way it is now, and I'd rather be 40 than 20 if it meant the twenty-year-old I actually was. Being strong and active satisfies my mind. Physical vigor allows me to do unusually interesting things. I still do what I did before, in terms of academic pursuits and pleasure reading, and I've added more. Now I can hike up to a Neolithic cave site instead of reading about it. I can spend hours walking around a museum or archaeological site and not get too tired or collapse with a migraine. Now my body can keep up with my mind. "Lose weight" is not just the most commonly failed New Year's Resolution. It's probably the single biggest reason that people don't believe in resolutions, period. I can speak to this. I lost 35 pounds and kept it off. That's a lot for a 5'4" person! I've maintained my goal weight for three years. Before I lost my weight, I probably believed every possible wrong thought about weight gain and weight loss. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. Usually, when I lost any weight at all, it was by accident. Given my experience, my opinion is that most people fail at weight loss because we set the stakes too high. Try to do too much, on too tight a deadline, without knowing exactly what you're doing, and failure is guaranteed. Guaranteed failure can be reassuring because we can shrug it off. Oh well, I tried. We can even try something else and then say, I'VE TRIED EVERYTHING AND NOTHING WORKED! I say, just lose three pounds. Three is plenty, and I'll tell you why. Three pounds is the difference between pants that won't zip, and pants that will zip. Three pounds is the difference between tight and comfortable. Three pounds is the difference between not being able to use your pants pockets, and being able to put your phone in them. Three pounds is just enough to maybe start noticing a difference in knee pain, ankle pain, foot pain, or back pain. Three pounds is just enough to prove that hey, it is actually possible to lose weight. Three pounds is enough to reverse the tendency to gain weight without noticing it, and bring focus and attention to your body. Not gaining for a year is a victory. Three pounds over a year is a quarter-pound a month. Three pounds is manageable enough that, if you feel stymied and that this is an impossible goal, it's a solid indicator that your real issue is trusting in your own self-efficacy. Do you believe you have the power to make any meaningful change in your life? Three pounds is enough that, if you do it every year, then you'll be down thirty pounds in ten years. Think of yourself as ten years older and ask whether Future You would appreciate this. (I know that if I'd asked 19-year-old me if I would want to be 35 pounds heavier at 29, plus chronically ill, single, and lonely, Younger Me would have burst into tears). What would it take to lose three pounds? It starts with writing down your starting weight. This can be regarded as exactly like looking at your credit card balance if you are worried about money. Knowing the truth can feel panicky. Knowing the truth can make you want to berate yourself and call yourself a loser or various other horrible names. It is what it is, though. Reality is easier to live with when we acknowledge it. I would say we should all feel excited about high starting numbers and super-unflattering Before photos, because they'll be all the more impressive when we put them up next to our After photos. But nobody realizes that until later. I don't even have any pictures of me from my top weight. First there's the initial weigh-in. Then there are follow-up weigh-ins. Then there is an ongoing plan to keep tabs on it and preserve that victory. At Curves, they weigh in on the same day every month. At Weight Watchers, they weigh in every week. I weigh in every day, unless I'm on vacation and don't have access to a scale. I bought a scale for $25 and I'm still using it a decade later. Keeping a resolution or reaching a goal requires some kind of reminder system. The default is to make commitments and then gradually forget about them. The more people in your social circle who are not goal-setters, the more likely that is. Many people will actively sabotage someone else's goal, I guess because they have nothing better to do. Losing three pounds, though, is a small enough goal that you can keep it to yourself and they might not even notice. It can be private. Just schedule a reminder in your phone to weigh in on a predictable basis. Three pounds is a small enough amount that making any one change will probably work. Stop eating bagels. Don't carry cash at work so you won't buy things from vending machines. Switch to a smaller size of drink. Change your evening snack from cheese and crackers to something else. Quit buying food when you stop for gas. Don't eat in your car. Don't eat on the couch. Eat a half-cup of vegetables at dinner every night. Something. If it comes from a gas station or a bakery, or it involves booze, sugar, or cheese, you're probably on the right track. Pick one change and remind yourself, the goal is three measly pounds. Lose three pounds. If you don't like it, you can always gain it back. You don't even have to tell anyone. Losing three pounds doesn't require changing your self-image or changing what other people think of you, either. Try it and see if you like it. New Year's is coming. This, as far as I'm concerned, is the most wonderful time of the year. There's just that big red-and-green speed bump to get over. I've already written my New Year's Resolutions because I couldn't help myself. As with every year, one of my areas of focus is physical fitness. It was that way when I was obese and out of shape and had no idea what I was doing. It was that way when I was fumbling around, trying to learn how to think and act and live like an athlete. It's that way now, when I'm confident about my strength and abilities and ab definition. My goals and resolutions about my body have been different over the years, but the one thing that has stayed the same is that I've always taken my physical needs seriously. One way to know that there is a hidden source of power in your life is when you find yourself acting like a defense lawyer about it. Whatever you're defending is something you know you've outgrown in yourself. Imagine being an adult and trying to wear your baby shoes. Not happening. Why would anyone want to hang on to past versions of oneself from younger, more immature ages? Simply move in the direction of the resistance. The power that will be unleashed is like the eruption of a subglacial volcano. For some of us, the resistance will be found around an expired personal relationship. For others, it will be around a safe but annoying job. For others, it will be around a substance addiction, and bless you if that's you. Enough of that now, it's time to live. For most of us, the resistance will be around body image. It's an American problem. Two-thirds of women and almost three-quarters of men in the US are overweight. I've traveled over four continents now, in nine countries, and the one thing that's clear is that everyone can always spot the Americans. There's something different about the way we do things here, and we can have a lot of discussions about what that might be. The upshot is that what has happened to us is not genetic, it's not fate, it's not a natural result of aging, and it has nothing to do with becoming a parent. That means that it is within our sphere of influence. What we resist persists, so desist and feel blissed. (I just made that up!) I chose to start running because it was the worst thing I could think of. I had an ulterior motive, which was to encourage my husband to work out, and I knew I would get his attention by doing something extreme. I asked him to help me. He would do anything to help me, of course, and when I couldn't even make it 1/3 of a mile, it was clear just how much I needed him. (Not sure if it would have occurred to him that I wouldn't "need" him in that way if I simply stayed on the couch with my head in a book). I didn't love running but I did love my man. I knew I had the grit to sacrifice my own comfort if I thought it would benefit him. The joke was on me, because I fell in love with running, and I didn't even make it four years before I finished a marathon. Then I took two years off while recuperating from a series of sports-related injuries. Now I'm getting up to speed again. I have the mentality of a marathon runner and the cardio endurance of a beginner. I went out last week and managed to make it barely over a mile. I got a stitch in my side. I was pleasantly surprised with my pace, but saddened that I probably couldn't even make it through a 5k right now, even if my family was watching. During marathon training, I never bothered with a distance shorter than four miles. I ran at least four to six miles even in 90 F heat. It's tough on the ego to feel like you're struggling to handle something which in the past wouldn't have been worth the effort of lacing your shoes. As a grown-up, I realize that I need to respect my limits. This is part of why a middle-aged person can always out-distance people in their teens and twenties. Kids have no idea how to pace themselves. They'll sprint as hard as they can until they have to walk, then start sprinting again, and then fall back. I've been passed by people half my age dozens of times, only to pass them again and leave them behind by the halfway point. Meanwhile, I'm getting left in the dust by someone twice my age. I've seen octogenarians crush me running up a steep hill, unfortunately more than once. I love it, though. It gives me something to look forward to. One day I'll be a little old babushka thumbing my nose at all those forty-year-olds trudging behind me. Choosing a body-related goal means including the beginner level. If we're trying to get back a fitness level we had in the past, it also means including things we might find boring or embarrassing. It's hard on the old pride. It's hard to tip over in yoga and it's hard to have the instructor come and work out next to you in step aerobics because you keep getting on the wrong foot. It's hard being stuck behind an eight-year-old child in a 5k. (Sharing all my secrets here). Just like any game, though, the challenge rounds are more interesting. That's why we play. The resistance that we beat when we reshape our bodies is the same resistance that holds us back in every other part of life. We have to remind ourselves why we're doing it: A better life for Future Self while we're still young and strong enough to make it happen. We finished our ten-day juice fast. The experience was different than I thought it would be. It was easier to do, and we also didn't lose as much weight as I expected. I lost three pounds and my husband lost six. This makes sense, because we were eating the same meals and he weighs twice as much as me. (I am short and I have a small frame). I didn't really have any weight to lose, and it wasn't my intention, but there was nothing exactly frightening about three pounds. It's the difference between tight pants and comfy pants. As to pants, it works like this: **0 to **3 pounds: comfy. **4 to **6: fits. **7 to **8: have to wrestle them on. **9: do not fit no matter how hard I try. Most people could get dramatic wardrobe results by dropping two or three pounds. It's enough of a difference to bring old favorites back into circulation. It's definitely enough to make tight clothes more comfortable. At this time of year, what matters to me is that it makes it possible for me to wear thermal underwear under my pants and still be able to button them. Back to the juice. The big drawbacks to juicing are that it's expensive, messy, and time-consuming. Anyone who has an attachment issue to washing dishes or cooking is going to struggle committing to a juicing program. We were constantly washing knives and cutting boards and emptying out the compost bucket. We also wound up going to the store three times as often, because we were going through fruit and bags of kale much faster than we had anticipated. Juicing turns into your major hobby during the days you're doing it. The benefits, though, were better than anticipated. I found that I slept better and slept more. My husband cut his caffeine consumption by about half. We couldn't manage all the meals on the plan, because it was simply too much food, and we didn't need it. (This would probably be different for someone with a lot of weight to lose). I found that my energy level was higher than normal, and that I was getting more done. Using the blender started to feel easy and natural. In particular, the plan included "hot water with lemon" first thing in the morning. A lot of people swear by this, but it always sounded depressing and gross to me. I was picturing a cup of hot water with a tiny trickle of lemon juice in it. In reality, the juice of a whole lemon in hot water is more like warm lemonade. I love it. It didn't occur to me until I'd been drinking it for a week, but I'm certain not to get scurvy! It makes me wonder whether all this extra vitamin C will affect whether I get a cold this winter or not. Now that we're done, I plan to keep making juice in the morning. I'll just eat normal meals the rest of the day. We're in the fortunate position that our rental house came with productive fruit trees, and we have more citrus fruit than two people can handle. That includes tangerines, grapefruits, and of course lemons. I have a historic tendency to gain weight rapidly when I travel. That includes family visits as well as backpacking trips and foreign travel. It's really frustrating. The first time I went overseas, I couldn't button my pants by the time I went home. Most people aren't tuned in to this, but life is easier and cheaper when you stay in one consistent clothing size. You don't have to store several sizes worth of clothes in case of weight fluctuation, and you don't have to buy new things when your old stuff gets too small. Now that I know that juice fasting is an acceptable way to drop three pounds, I'll definitely try it again if my pants start getting tight again. If you're like me, you're still eating Halloween candy. I start my holiday weight gain season in mid-October and I like to keep going through the end of December. I mean, I have to assume that I like it because that's what I always do. First the Halloween candy. Then the fall foods I can't make through most of the year because it's too hot to use the oven. Then the Thanksgiving bacchanalia and the leftovers. Then the cookies and cocoa. Then Christmas. Then something fancy for the New Year. By then, it's impossible not to notice that all my waistbands are tight. Unless someone gives me a muumuu for Christmas, I'm going to be forced to acknowledge, in the midst of my New Year's Day food hangover, that I either need to change or I need to buy bigger clothes. Bigger clothes it is, then. The trouble with gaining one pound is that it keeps wanting to stick onto previous pounds. When my clothing size crept up, I chalked it up to inconsistent size charts. When my weight crept up, I compared it to what it was a few months ago, not a few years ago. When I crossed the line from average to overweight to obese, I didn't feel or see it happening. I always felt like the same size, and I never once thought of myself as "A Fat Person." The average American gains about a pound a year, and I can tell you from experience that I can do this in one meal. And keep it. The figures are skewed because heavier people tend to gain more than a pound a year. Almost all of us gain our annual weight over the holidays. It's like a gift. A package of cookies turns into a nice little pair of love handles. Or perhaps some saddlebags or a muffin top. We're never going to stop, though. Turning down a cookie during the holiday season must be a form of psychosis. It's demented. Who would do that?? Not eating holiday sweets is exactly, exactly like slapping someone in the face. Not eating the holiday sweets is like self-harm. It's like canceling Christmas. It's like spending Thanksgiving locked in a closet. There is absolutely no way we could ever tolerate the feeling of Holiday Food FoMO. It's okay, though. It's much easier to adjust to weight gain and the perpetual search for clothes that don't pinch than it is to handle The Feels. Those left-out, crushed, disappointed, deprived feels. How can it be the holidays without a tub of butter cookies? (For starters?) So the question is, how much do I want to gain this year? Am I on track? I should be gaining at least as much this year as I did over each of the last five years. Maybe there's something in my closet from that time period that I can hold up to make sure I'm sticking to the plan. Because if I'm not gaining, I must be missing out on something sweet somewhere. There actually is a way to over-over-over-indulge and still not gain weight. It takes a certain amount of planning, and that takes self-knowledge, imagination, focus, and awareness. I CAN Eat All the Things and maintain an intentional fitness level! I CAN fit all my favorite yummies into my favorite tummy and still fit into my favorite jeans, too! I can if I plan. Look, I know myself. I know I have no willpower. I know that because, as I often state, there is no such thing as willpower. What I do have is a lot of self-discipline and about 19 sweet tooths. They co-exist peacefully inside me, because I am a mix of passionate and determined. What I know is that when I'm at a party or meal or gathering, and I see my favorite foods, I will eat them. I will eat them all. There is no decision involved here. So I have to plan around all the times during the year that I am *not* at a special celebration. I eat well, as a rule. My husband and I eat vast amounts of cruciferous vegetables. For instance, we routinely finish off a head of broccoli or a head of cauliflower between us at dinner. This practice essentially eliminates food cravings. Getting sufficient micronutrients and insoluble fiber makes sweets and processed foods taste yucky. Getting enough sleep and hydration helps regulate appetite, as does strenuous exercise. We also tend to switch to more soup in the fall and winter. When we stay on track for the first nine months of the year, we can only do so much damage to our poor organs in the last three months. That's not much help, though, to those of us who've spent most of 2016 drinking soda, eating appetizers and restaurant portions, raiding vending machines, and snarfing gas station food. What do we do if we don't like where we are right now, and yet we still can't bear missing out on the holiday saturnalia? This is what I do. If I know I'm going to a gathering with a lot of food, I eat lightly earlier in the day. This generally involves delaying breakfast by an hour and skipping my afternoon snack. We usually overeat at these occasions to the point that we're still full when we wake up the next day, and the very thought of throwing breakfast down there sounds painful. Skipping a snack and a breakfast, in my case, adds up to 500-600 calories. Tacking that on to the amount I normally eat at dinner is doubling my normal meal. That's as much as I can eat without feeling actual physical pain. Believe me, because I always push that limit. Learning about the Hunger Scale was really helpful to me. Fortunately, it doesn't involve trying to grab weapons out of a cornucopia and hunt the other invitees down with a crossbow. The Hunger Scale is an estimate of how full or hungry you feel. A "one" would be passing out from hunger, while a "ten" would be full to the point of acute nausea. "It's wafer thin!" Ideally, on a normal day, we'd eat when we're at a three and stop when we hit a five or six. My tendency was to eat until I hit a seven at normal meals, an eight when I went out to dinner, and a nine on holidays. I've been at a ten a few times, and hated myself for it. I try to remind myself now that I really, really don't like the physical feeling of going past a seven. I pull up vivid memories of myself claiming I'll "never do this again," like the time I went to the County Fair, drank 32 ounces of soda and ate about 4 cups of curly fries with a half-cup of ketchup (plus a burrito), and then spent the rest of the night curled up into a ball and moaning. I want to enjoy myself and enjoy the delicious food, not make myself sick. Past Self, can you help me out here and give me a little recall? Another way I have dealt with my intense drive to pound food down my gullet with a funnel and a plunger is to couple it with my other intense drive. That is for endurance running. I love to run, I love to run up hills, I love to run up hills in the mud. Fall and winter are the best times for running in my climate, and this works out pretty well. When I'm putting in thirty miles a week, I can burn off quite a bit. I can plan a long run either the morning before a party, or the afternoon afterward. It turns out that I have a lot of extra energy and some pretty great athletic performances after massively overindulging. This has not failed to escape my attention! The only problem with this has been that running seems to have switched off at least a few of my sweet tooths. I no longer really enjoy things like donuts or Oreos. I used to eat Nutter Butters during my training runs, but now I can only really handle nuts and unsweetened dried fruit. Oh well. It tends to feel worth it whenever I catch a glimpse of my awesome new thighs. I've spent at least a year in each of eight clothing sizes. It always felt natural, except for the part when my stretch marks turned red and purple and started itching constantly. I believe and know that I have the power to change my body through my daily habits. I also believe that there are many connections between my daily habits and the amount of pain and illness I experience. Beating chronic pain, fatigue, migraine, and sleep problems means a lot more to me than not being obese anymore, but they all go together. I will probably never stop going crazy over holiday food, but that doesn't have to mean I am fated to be a certain size or to have certain health issues. It's a false dilemma. I choose both wild indulgence and an intentional physical form. We're a couple of days into our first juice fast. I'm going along in solidarity with my husband. This project is what I refer to as a Fact Finding Mission; it's one of many that I've undertaken out of a spirit of curiosity. I prefer to find out what something is like for myself, based on direct experience, rather than my inner sense of resistance. I'm not a true believer, not yet anyway. I thought our experiment might provide useful information to both skeptics and the hesitant. The first thing to share is that in no way could I have guessed what fasting felt like from observation. We've both been on diets, generally not at the same time, and it's similar. It's similar to other ordeals, such as Finals Week or caffeine withdrawal, which may have been undergone and then largely forgotten. It's a human failing not to have much sympathy for others, whether they're suffering something we have suffered and overcome or something with which we're unfamiliar. Doing this fast together helps us to remember that we're both struggling. The second thing to share is that it's not really as bad as all that. We're hungry but functioning. The big thing is to remember to start preparing the next juice, soup, or salad on schedule, because delaying by an hour or more turns into crashing. We're doing about double the food prep that we do for ordinary meals. My husband has to make his next day's pitcher of juice after dinner, as well as packing up his breakfast and lunch, so the first day was front-loaded with extra effort. I used to have a second-hand juicer, which I eventually gave to a friend. It created a great deal of pulp. We went out and bought a high-end blender, which is technically a different beast. It is about ten times easier to clean than the juicer and there's no pulp afterward. This was a good decision. The juice itself tends to look scary and taste fine. This may be because it IS fine, or it may be because we eat a lot of cruciferous vegetables already. I'm really not sure whether a picky eater who hates vegetables could get behind this. It's not just the juicing part but also the vast salads and the vegetable soups. You're literally eating nothing but fruit, vegetables, herbs, and a little salt and oil, so if you hate those things, it probably won't work out. (But then, consider whether your default is working out...) On the second day, I walked five miles, went grocery shopping, did three loads of laundry, moved some furniture, and made four separate dishes. This surprised me somewhat. When I went on a strict calorie-cutting diet, eating the same number of calories as on the juice fast, I felt lethargic and mopey. There is definitely something to be said for ingesting massive amounts of micronutrients and fiber, as opposed to subsisting on tiny portions of more ordinary fare. (A packet of oatmeal, a tiny sandwich, a single piece of fruit, and a dinner salad or other measured, minute quantity). Fasting has a gendered aspect. A big, hockey-playing, chainsaw-wielding man such as my husband, who has an advanced degree, can go on a strict fringe diet and make it look like little more than an interesting athletic challenge. Such stamina, such dedication! A small-framed, delicate flower of femininity such as myself sends more of a message of insanity, body dysmorphia, or narcissism. All I can say is that I know my own mind. I've done all sorts of things out of curiosity, from riding a mechanical bull to jumping over open flames. What I've found is that my own physical limitations have yet to be reached. Every time I try to do something, it turns out that I can do it. That includes running a marathon. Concern in our culture over excessive weight loss is so strong as to approach hysteria. Perhaps this is because 70% of us are overweight now, and even 25 pounds overweight looks small. Perhaps this is because most of us don't like contemplating at what age we will develop diabetes, if we don't have it already, and so we turn our focus toward health problems at the opposite end of the spectrum. This taboo aspect of physical transformation is part of the fascination for me. So few people know about the experience of being not-fat now that it's become alien and alarming. Perhaps a bit of reassurance is in order. According to the charts, I would have to lose a full 15 pounds to be underweight, and that's not happening in such a brief time period. Even if I did drop a dramatic amount of weight, say from food poisoning, I can gain a pound a day without even trying. This is not a project that is likely to result in permanent harm, or even short-term harm. My goal is not to lose weight or to look a certain way, but rather to share an experience with my husband. Although, when my goal was to lose weight, I did it and have maintained it for two and a half years. No crazy was gone. Athletes do it all the time. Actors do it all the time. Spiritual practitioners from most, maybe all, religious traditions do it all the time. Pre-Industrial people of every culture did it every winter, and do it still, in an unbroken chain that goes back before human history, before human prehistory, and undoubtedly all the way back to the beginning. Animals in the wild cannot rely on steady access to a standard amount of calories every day, in all seasons. Occasional, unintentional fasting is the way of the world for all life forms. Occasional, voluntary fasting is a common cultural trait. Both of us are over forty. We look around and see that almost everyone we know in our age range relies on pharmaceuticals to live. We have a dozen friends who rely on medical appliances, either for diabetes or for sleep apnea. There always seems to be someone we know who is going into surgery or recuperating from it. This is nervous-making. My husband just filled out a questionnaire for his health insurance at work, and it included the question, "How many medications are you on?" There was an option for "5+." Neither of us have been prescribed anything. Our blood work has come back in the healthy range the entire time we've been together. Deviating from the Standard American Lifestyle seems to be working out pretty well for us so far. The older we get, the more we start looking for healthy role models who are rocking it at our age or older, and the more willing we are to make habit changes. Our initial commitment to this juice fast is for ten days. I will of course report back on the results. Willpower fits in your pinky finger. Hold up your hand and look at that finger. Now try to pick up your backpack with it. It's not much of a much, is it? Whenever I hear people saying that they wish they had willpower, I know they have no idea what willpower is. Willpower barely exists. Willpower is so scanty it's like a paper towel. It can be used for tiny jobs, but not for anything serious. I don't expect to mop the floor with one, and I definitely don't expect to use one during a plumbing crisis or natural disaster. I recognize that it's designed for a specific purpose, and that is not a life-changing, earth-shattering kind of a task. Willpower comes in wisp-thin little perforated sections. There's exactly enough of it to handle brief spills. What can willpower do? Allow you to clap your mouth shut milliseconds before blurting out a hurtful remark Restrain you from slapping your child Push you past the entrance to the cookie aisle, but only if you don't look back Tie your workout shoes Stand your sorry self up out of your chair Dial a phone number that you don't feel like calling, but you have to Pour that drink down the sink, but only one time Force out a gracious apology Never expect willpower to get you any farther than fifteen seconds. If you're a driven, ambitious person, you can work up to about two minutes. What do I know about willpower? I've done things that people think require willpower, but I know they don't, because I have none. I once ate half a pan of brownies at a social occasion, and there weren't enough for everyone, and another guest called me out publicly for it. I have no excuses because there are none. There were brownies. I saw them. I ate them. Then I ate more. If there was a second pan, I might have eaten those as well. I would have eaten them in front of a crying child. I know, because I once ate a donut with sprinkles and pink frosting in front of my crying niece, and there weren't any more donuts. I didn't share. Not even a bite. I don't act like an out-of-control, selfish jerk around sweets anymore. It has nothing to do with willpower, because, again, I have none. I changed my mind. I lost thirty-five pounds because I changed my mind about deprivation. I thought it out and I decided that I now had enough money to access whatever food I wanted, 24 hours a day. Therefore, I could pass up enticing treats without FoMO. If I really need a brownie or a pink-frosted donut with sprinkles, I can get one, I can store them in my freezer in case of Donut Emergency, or I can make my own. My heart will not break if there are still desserts sitting there and I am not putting them in my face. I became a marathon runner because I changed my mind about my history of chronic pain and fatigue. I thought it out and decided that doctors don't know everything. I knew that fibromyalgia isn't fatal. I already knew that I could handle intense pain on a daily basis. How much worse could it get? It turned out that distance running drastically increased my pain threshold, helped me resolve my sleep issues, lowered my anxiety, and brought me happiness I never knew was possible. Willpower had nothing to do with it because willpower could only get me into my socks and shoes. I got my drivers license at age 29, after failing the test twice, because I changed my mind about driving. I thought it out and decided that I needed to be able to operate a vehicle if I was on a backpacking trip with friends, someone got injured, and I was the only one able to go for help. I changed my mind about being a passenger and sitting passively while someone else handled the burdens of driving, which are many. Driving is one of the worst, most annoying and stressful things to do, but I can do it now. Willpower never would have gotten me there because I loathe driving. I convinced myself that I needed to be responsible and accountable and learn it. I force myself to do things, not because I have an iron will, but because I changed my mind about chronic procrastination. The moment I feel the feeling of I DON'T WANT TO or I DON'T FEEL LIKE IT, that is my trigger to jump on it and do it. I decided that the feeling of resistance is a clear sign of something valuable and important for me to do. If I feel that I don't want to do it or I don't feel like it, this means that I feel I must. Otherwise, it wouldn't even cross my mind. I don't have to whine that I don't feel like riding a donkey or I don't want to play the tuba, because those activities are irrelevant to my interests. I don't feel like looking for a new dentist and I don't want to mop behind the toilet, but I like it even less when I don't do these things. Having a necessary task using up my mental bandwidth is a way of annoying myself. Might as well get it over with and go back to thinking about condors. Once I've decided that something is important to me, I'll make it happen. I've never failed at getting desserts into my face or staying up too late so I could finish a book. I have all the persistence, focus, attention, cognitive skills, and emotional wherewithal to make those things happen, even when they're logistically complicated. I have the resources to get things done, WHEN I WANT TO. The only way to want to do something is to talk yourself into it. You have to sell yourself on it. The way to do that is to start by humbly admitting that not everything in your life is perfect, that small changes in certain areas might be nice to try for a while. Changing your mind for the sake of changing your mind is good discipline. There's no commitment. You can test out a new idea without letting it change your personality. You can sample it. You can pull it over your head, and then whip it off again if it doesn't fit or it isn't your color. Practice, though, has a tendency to demonstrate very clearly why changing your mind is easy, obvious, and gratifying. Why didn't I figure this out sooner? If only I'd known then what I know now. Change is easy for me now, because I know how to learn new things. It starts with resistance. Then comes reluctance. After that is awkwardness. Then there's a very long period of not even being mediocre. A year later, there's competence. By the time I've decided to move on to something new, what formerly seemed to require willpower is now ordinary routine. I did it when I went back to school and got my degree. I did it when I learned to drive. I did it when I learned how to lose weight. I did it when I trained for a marathon. Now I'm doing it with public speaking. I'm already considering what dreadful, obnoxious, willpower-requiring thing to take on for next year. The secret is that willpower has nothing to do with anything. It takes changing my mind, and that takes curiosity, imagination, and an adventurous spirit. If you're curious what it's like to have your body fat professionally measured, I'll tell you about my experience. I just had it done. I've measured or estimated my body fat through several methods over the years, at various points from obese to athletically fit. To me it's a matter of scientific interest. I'd be equally curious just what bacteria live in my dental plaque, and for much the same reasons. I didn't choose to put it there and I want to know how to get rid of it! At the same time, I don't judge myself, because at this moment, my body is what it is. I want an accurate read. I want to know where I stand for longevity reasons, for Alzheimer's prevention reasons, and for athletic performance reasons. Others might care more about other factors, such as knee pain, sleep apnea, or heart disease. Whatever works. What have I tried? In chronological order: I've tried using a measuring tape and calculating my waist-to-hip ratio. (W/H). I've tried the BMI chart. I've used a hand-held body fat monitor that works through bioelectrical impedance. (Omron) I've used a scale with bioelectrical impedance. (Weight Watchers) I've used a body fat caliper to do the pinch test. All these methods gave me similar results. I don't particularly endorse or dispute any of them. I can say that I had some issues with data collection; all of these things are easier with the help of a second set of hands. I had to mail-order the calipers because I couldn't find them for sale anywhere. The impedance monitor can be gamed by drinking extra water at your starting measurement and then being dehydrated at your ending measurement. The scale doesn't let you reset your age. The waist-to-hip measurements can be tricky to find. Where is my natural hip exactly? I didn't particularly have a waist at the time. The very concept of BMI tends to make Americans apoplectic, but look. It's endorsed by the CDC, the Mayo Clinic, and the Harvard School of Health, and that's good enough for me. I have no reason to dispute their findings and I have no more authoritative sources. I'm out for my own personal optimal health results, not a scientific debate for which I have no credentials. Also, I'm not defensive about my body image or my state of health. Back to the professional body fat test. My new personal trainer at the gym sprung it on me. First he had me weigh in, which is fine. I hit 123 pounds in clothes and shoes. (I'm 5'4" for reference). It was afternoon, and I'd already eaten and hydrated. I'm more interested in what I weigh for the majority of each day, not that fraction of a second first thing in the morning when my stomach is empty. I have nothing to worry about. Thirty-five pounds ago, maybe. Now, I'm in the healthy range for my height, as I have been for the past two years. Next, he got out the calipers. They're like the pair I bought, only bigger. The major difference was that he took four measurements, three of which I couldn't have taken by myself. The instructions with my calipers said to pinch some fat an inch from the point of the pelvic bone, the area I used to refer to affectionately as my jelly roll. My trainer took two measurements on my upper arm, one on my back near my shoulder blade, and one on my side above my ribs. He took notes, and I could see that the form leaves room for future entries. The plan is to repeat the measurements once a month. I laughed while he was measuring my back. I told him the story of my first wake-up call that I had gained weight: I ran down the stairs and my back jiggled. I paused in mid-step and thought, "WHAT THE HECK JUST HAPPENED?" Not that that inspired me to try to lose weight or anything - that didn't happen until a few years later. So anyway. My body fat measured at 27%. That put me right in the middle of the 'Acceptable' range, because I'm 41. At age 39, the same exact measurements would put me at 24%, which is teetering on the edge between 'Acceptable' and 'Fit.' (That was likely true, because I trained for my marathon that year). The reason it changes with age is the sad fact of sarcopenia. (Spell check just tried to correct that to 'sarcophagus' - thanks, jerk). Sarcopenia is the gradual deterioration of muscle tissue with age. Note that this does not mean we are biologically required to become frail and weak with age. It just means we have to work harder to build muscle and preserve our posture and bone density. I want that for myself. I want to retain my independence until the ripest old age I can reach. The next step was to calculate how many pounds of body fat and how many pounds of muscle tissue I likely have. I'd rather do this with mathematics than through an autopsy, if you know what I mean. I don't need actual vivisection to trust the science. It was roughly 33 pounds of fat and 90 pounds of muscle-slash-bone, blood vessels, organs, etc. Much of that body fat I will keep. The desirement is to BUILD MUSCLE. If I gain twenty pounds of muscle, I will walk around aggressively pulling up my shirt and flaunting my midriff at everyone. Weight gain is excellent when it's planned and intentional and made up of TRUE GRIT, aka muscle. I love muscle. I want to be eighty and be so ripped I freak people out and make them immediately grab their phones and call someone to tell them. "Dude, I just saw the most jacked grandma!" Some body fat charts rate percentages as "overfat," "healthy," and "underfat." These are designed for average people, not active people. The concern would be for a gaunt person (perhaps elderly) who wasn't eating enough. I don't think there are (or were) enough muscular, athletic people to measure for these studies. There is a huge difference between someone who has lower body fat due to malnutrition, and someone who has lower body fat due to physical strength and stamina. I haven't yet seen a chart estimating average lean body mass and suggesting that certain ranges are "undermuscled." I would have fit in that category in my late twenties and early thirties, even when I was obese, because I was so unfit I couldn't climb a single flight of stairs without seeing black spots. Two weeks later, the trainer took my measurements again. I had already dropped from 27% to 24.6%. I had lost two pounds of body fat and gained 3.5 pounds of lean mass. I had trouble believing it, but a pound of fat a week is totally plausible. I have made dramatic physical transformations in the past, and I have also been training really hard. I have something like forty minutes of isometric and body weight resistance exercises to do every day, not including my twice-weekly training sessions and trying to go to yoga a couple of times. I've been consciously correcting my posture while I walk and sit throughout the day. On my frame, I can burn a pound of fat and build a pound of muscle at approximately the same rate. That's why weighing in on a scale without measuring inches or body fat can be so discouraging. Technically I "gained weight" while adding muscle and dropping fat. Usually when I gain weight it's because I went on vacation and ate too many chimichangas. I wouldn't have bought into the idea of having my body fat measured when I was younger. That's because nobody under age thirty-five really, truly believes in the concepts of aging, mortality, or death. The ego simply won't allow it. As I get older and watch my friends and family members go through surgery or become dependent on pharmaceuticals and medical appliances, I've started to believe. I'm forty-one, and yes, death will happen to me, perhaps later today. I do have to die, but I don't have to become frail or infirm. I don't have to believe that aging is crippling. As I compare myself with sixty-year-olds instead of twenty-year-olds, I set my sights on those who are still lean, active, and happy. I hope to turn eighty one day, and to celebrate by sitting on the floor and standing up again. That's why I rely on health metrics, to keep me informed and to keep me honest with myself. I was having a conversation with a close friend the other day about body image. We both realized that nothing about my outlook fits the cultural narrative about body composition, shame, and empowerment. It’s really like I’m speaking a different language. I used to be fat and chronically ill, so losing weight was part of a major victory in reclaiming my body for myself. I always thought that would be important and valuable to share, to let others in my situation know that there are ways out. It hasn’t proved motivating for most people, though. Telling my story tends to make people who aren’t in optimal physical condition feel defensive and irritated. I’d like to explore why that is. First off, the health angle absolutely does not inspire most people. It’s exactly like talking about saving for retirement, getting enough sleep, or not texting and driving. Everyone knows this stuff already. It comes across as one more lecture. Coming from the defensive position, the feeling is that I CAN’T EVEN LISTEN TO THIS RIGHT NOW. You don’t know my life. Don’t judge J. Even talking about how much better and easier everything is after making these changes is not something that overwhelmed, resentful people want to hear. Yeah, just rub it in my face why don’t you. Second, everyone doubts the data. Skepticism is a good and healthy thing, and I always applaud that. I do wonder, however, whether we’re skeptical about the right stuff. What results are we getting? How’s that working out for you? Say someone has sleep apnea and also falls into the category of severe obesity. Maybe weight has nothing to do with it whatsoever. *shrug* Maybe it does. Basing your behavior around one belief or the other is a gamble. Better hope you’re right. To me, it’s like Pascal’s Wager, in which he states that the cost of believing in a non-existent deity is less than the cost of disbelieving in a real deity and then spending eternity in Hell. I would say that a secular version of this concept is useful for every major decision in life. For instance, I remarried, although we have both been divorced and the statistical risk of our marriage failing is discouragingly high. I decided that the cost of missing out on a happy life with the man I love is higher than the cost of possibly having our relationship not last forever. I save for retirement, even though I might die this very afternoon, because the cost of putting aside a little for old age is less than the cost of being elderly and poor (and possibly ill and frail) for decades. If I’m wrong, I’d rather be wrong the smart way. I’d rather keep believing in love and communication than live alone as a cynic. I’d rather die with money I never spent than live in desperation when I’m too old to work. I’d rather exercise more than I “need” and “deprive myself” of hundreds of pounds of added sugar in my food than revert to being sedentary, overweight, and ill. Again, it’s a gamble, and I’m always going to place my bet on the side of the happiest, smartest, and/or most successful people. These are things that make sense to me. What does this have to do with shame, though? We’ve already established that people don’t care about the health argument, and even people who do have serious health issues will resist nothing harder than the idea that lifestyle is related to their problems in any possible way. I know I did. I was a resister, too. I just didn’t have a shame problem. Well, I did, but it wasn’t about body composition. I was bullied pretty severely throughout my school years, almost all about my appearance. My hair. My clothes. My body hair. My shoes. Whether I did or did not smell bad. I don’t like talking about it because this big black ball of solid tears starts to form in my chest. I still don’t trust anyone to give me an honest compliment. If someone so much as glances at something I’m wearing, I assume they’re inwardly laughing at me. Once you’ve seen people physically pointing at you and encouraging their friends to laugh out loud in joyous group ridicule, you start suspecting it everywhere. It’s true that people adore mocking, shaming, and humiliating others. That’s why there’s a People of Walmart website, and it’s where internet flame wars come from. We’ll ridicule people for mispronouncing words, misspelling something, using improper punctuation or grammar, and all sorts of other things. A perceived misstep in behavior can result in tens of thousands of comments, tweets, and memes aimed at public shaming. Never go viral for the wrong reasons. We think shame is a useful, important social tool, as long as it’s directed at others. We believe in it. For some dumb reason, we seem to think that shame will correct other people’s behavior, even as we know firsthand how incredibly painful and debilitating it is when we feel it ourselves. This is one reason why I say shame makes no sense. We know it doesn’t work. We know how negative, even crippling, it is. It’s a form of fairytale justice, though, and we think that as long as we’ve suffered our share, we’re sure as heck going to make sure people who Deserve It More are going to be meted their appropriate volume, with maybe an extra scoop just to be sure. Body shame is just one aspect of this. What I’m hearing is that many people feel devastating shame about how their bodies look. They don’t match what we see in film, on television, in advertisements, or on the runway. They feel frustrated by their available fashion choices. They won’t wear swimsuits on the beach. They may or may not have been taunted, hassled, insulted, mocked, or lectured about their appearance. (It’s a moot point, because as long as it happens to one person, we all know it’s possible and may be coming our way any minute). Shame in one area tends to spatter all over anything. Someone who feels ashamed of her body may also be ashamed of everything else: the way her house looks, the state of her finances, her education or career, her lack of Pinterest perfection, her parenting if she has children. Taking in new information or perspectives, or even thinking or talking about these topics, tends to rip off the scab and cause more shame to leak out like pus. I know I don’t want to tell you all in public that my childhood nickname was Medusa. I did it, though. Shame is just a cloud of smelly vapor that burns off and dissipates in direct sunlight. Part of why I never felt ashamed when I was obese is that I let go of any attachment to the idea of Being Pretty when I was a little kid. I figured that if everyone I met was so hateful and cruel about every part of my appearance, then I just wasn’t objectively good looking. I decided to let it not matter. I wanted what was important to be my intelligence, hard work, and academic results. I wanted to be nice, friendly, and compassionate… “unlike all you nasty people,” she shamed inwardly. I built my identity around other positive things. I realized that hotness or whatever would not last a lifetime. Many of the vicious little 12-year-olds who tried to ruin my young life probably quit being cute or popular shortly after high school graduation. That’s the thing. Adults are certainly capable of far greater bullying and much more creative psychic torture, but these were children. Why should I let the opinions of children, formed in the 1980s, have any effect on my life today? What’s funny is that at 41, I’m probably on the top end for looks. I have the taut body of a marathon runner. My thighs are noteworthy. I never dreamed of such a thing as body pride when I was a sensitive, weepy, socially ostracized teenager. Now, I know that my body is capable of very impressive feats of strength, endurance, agility, and balance. I’m traveling the world and earning race medals. Objectively, I look AMAZING. It’s much more important that I FEEL amazing, but hey, I’ll take it. I’m intensely proud of my body because of everything it can do, because of its healing powers, and because I’m walking proof that it’s possible to beat chronic pain and illness. Also, my husband thinks I’m sexy, and that’s not a bad thing. If someone who bullied me around, say, 1986 happened to show up in my café today, and we recognized each other, that would be interesting. If she happened to have gained a bunch of weight, and she envied my newly athletic build, I would laugh my gorgeously tiny little butt off. If someone who had shamed me felt shamed next to me, I admit, I’d take some gratification from that for a day or two. Then I would just feel sad that she was ruining her own life by not enjoying it. Fat, thin, doesn’t matter. Pretty, plain, doesn’t matter. These are not moral values. They’re superficial. We get that, right? When we think about it, we know that integrity, loving kindness, and accountability are things that really matter. Whether we’re honest with ourselves, whether we live up to our own values, whether we’re emotionally present and available to the people we care about the most – that’s why we’re here. If we let a bit of cellulite take over more space in our thoughts, we’re taking our attention away from our loved ones and our purpose in this world. Shame makes no sense. It doesn’t do anyone any good under any circumstances. All the wrong people feel it. (If you carry more shame than a serial killer or human trafficker, think on that). We dish it out even when we know how hard it is to take it. Shame can stop us from going to the doctor, saying Yes to love, moving forward in our careers, or even enjoying a day at the beach. Look around. Notice how many other people there are who are the same size as you. So freaking what? Smile at them, high-five, and make friends. We get more of whatever we focus on. That means more shame leads to more shame. We have to drop a manhole cover on that. We have to let it go. The only way to feel empowered and develop true body pride is to develop a vivid, intense image of what you want, and put your focus and effort on that. Whether that’s bold fashion, perfect hair, the ability to shellac people at every dance battle, being able to put your foot behind your head, doing a cartwheel or a handstand, or having visible abdominal muscles, pick something and go for it. Just please, for the love of all that is holy, call out your shame for what it is, drag it into the light, and watch it disappear. |
AuthorI've been working with chronic disorganization, squalor, and hoarding for over 20 years. I'm also a marathon runner who was diagnosed with fibromyalgia and thyroid disease 17 years ago. This website uses marketing and tracking technologies. Opting out of this will opt you out of all cookies, except for those needed to run the website. Note that some products may not work as well without tracking cookies. Opt Out of CookiesArchives
January 2022
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