Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Food and Everything

If you pay attention to what our culture says about weight loss – articles in women’s magazines, ads for weight loss programs, or television shows like The Biggest Loser – you will hear one constant theme and it is:

What You Will Gain When You Lose.

Because everyone knows that losing weight is nothing if not a winning proposition. You will gain greater health. Increased confidence. Delight in being able to do whatever it was you couldn’t do because of your weight. Other people will admire you. And find inspiration in your accomplishment. It will be a happy-happy-joy-joy experience.

This is untrue but the idea persists, I believe, because most of us don’t spend too much time in weight maintenance. Most of us lose a lot of weight and, after a few glorious months as a thinner version of ourselves, gain it all back. And then we must start the cycle all over. This would be an accurate description of my life with weight for close to fifty years.

Somehow, in 2007, I found a way to break that cycle – I lost a lot of weight and have kept it off for over five years. Not that my weight has been completely static during that time. The actual situation is that I gain a few pounds, then I lose it, then I gain it back, then I lose it again. The key is “a few” pounds. Not one-hundred pounds.

Another way to describe my life in maintenance is that I’ve slowly been coming to grips with what I lost, in addition to the weight, that is. It took a few years for this to really sink in, which is probably why I never got here previously – I’ve never spent this much time in the maintenance phase before. When the novelty of being thinner wore off, I started noticing some things. Like the fact that many of my relationships involved going out to eat. That my ability to deal with stress was directly proportional to my ice cream consumption. That chocolate could fill any void. Without the balm of food, it’s just me and my problems, all alone in an often exasperating and disappointing world.

So this is my challenge now, to live a satisfying life, one in which food nourishes my body and soul, but is not everything. The idea that food is not everything would have been inconceivable to me for my first fifty years. Now, five years into this maintenance thing, it’s a belief that has got to go. And that’s a loss as big and as real as anything I’ve ever contemplated losing before.

Friday, July 19, 2013

Vegetables Are Where It's At!

It’s hot!

For most of my life, hot meant summer and summer meant ice cream. This summer, I’m trying something different. This year, I’m going hog-wild for fresh fruits and vegetables!

On Tuesday, I made my favorite green bean salad in herb Dijon vinaigrette. Plus, I’ve got Brussels sprouts and carrots in the fridge, waiting for roasting – and I will roast them, heat wave or no! I’m also thinking that I need to buy cauliflower (to be roasted with garlic and paprika) and kale (for a luscious kale and mango salad). We had corn on the cob on Tuesday too, and even though corn is really best considered a carb, fresh, local corn is a summer luxury for those of us who live in the Northeast. I decided I was worth it!

On the fruit front, I made an apple salad this week. When I came across this recipe, it was billed as an “autumn salad,” but it’s pretty good in the summer too. The recipe goes like this:

2 Granny Smith apples, washed but not peeled, cut into bite-size pieces
2 large celery stalks, finely chopped
2 large scallions, finely chopped
1/2 cup dried cherries
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
3 tbsp walnut oil
1-1/2 tbsp sherry vinegar
Salt & pepper to taste

Combine all ingredients, toss until everything is coated, and marinate for at least a few hours. This salad tastes better the second day and even better the third day.

 


With all of this fruit and veggie goodness, who has time to obsess about creamsicles?

Saturday, July 6, 2013

Creamsicle Dreams

It’s been pretty hot here and I’ve found myself fighting off cravings for soft ice cream. Not just any flavor, but one specific flavor. Creamsicle twist.

You may recall my run-in with creamsicle fudge at the holidays last December. I don’t know what it is that makes this taste combination so tempting for me. Maybe it’s the nostalgia, the memories of sticky, muggy summer days when I was a kid, running under the sprinkler and licking those cool and creamy orange and white bars.

The other day, I was dreaming of creamsicle again and a question hit me. Why am I still struggling with these cravings? WHY? I’m over five years into weight maintenance and this stupid stuff is still a problem for me. Shouldn’t I have it all handled by now?

Ah, yes.

You can see it in the ads for the popular weight loss programs, and it doesn’t matter which program we’re talking about. Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, Nutrisystem. What they all have in common are the jubilant pictures of their success stories, the people who have lost a bazillion pounds and have their weight “handled.” Folks who proudly proclaim that they will never be fat again.

Yeah, right.

Anyway, back to creamsicles. I think I might be going through the five stages of creamsicle grief:

  • Denial: I have evolved beyond such non-food as creamsicles.
  • Anger: Damn you Evil Food Industry, why do you even make this addictive crap?
  • Bargaining: If I run a couple extra miles this week, can I have a creamsicle cone as a reward?
  • Depression: I. Can. Never. Have. Creamsicles. Again.
  • Acceptance: Let’s see, acceptance means… um… uh… hmmm.

It seems I haven’t completed my mourning for creamsicles yet.