I have been repeating this phrase over and over to myself lately:
I Easily Eat Healthy Every Day.
Just like biting my fingernails, there HAS to be a way for me to learn how to eat healthy. I KNOW that I will eventually get to the point where eating healthy is second nature.
Until then, I repeat that affirmation to myself whenever I am alone.
Of course, affirmations don’t work if I don’t.
I would visualize things coming to me. It would just make me feel better. Visualization works if you work hard. That’s the thing. You can’t just visualize and go eat a sandwich.
Jim Carrey, Oprah Winfrey Show, 1997
I’ve heard people talking about walking in malls for exercise. I’ve seen people doing it during the cold days of winter and opressively hot days of the summer.
This video is a great introduction to mall walking.
“I think this is good. It gives you an opportunity to meet other people. It gives them a way to meetup and get some good exercise.”
He says that many of the early morning mall walkers are retired folks, but obviously not everyone is retired, because Mike does it before work in the mornings.
This postcard from PostSecret feels vaguely sinister to me. There have been times when I’ve contemplated suicide because of my weight and eating issues. Looking back at those times, it seems ludicrous that I would even think about offing myself just because of fat, but when I was in those dark times, it made perfect sense.
Just seeing this postcard reminds me that there are other people out there who are so desperate to get thin that they would be willing to take harmful drugs, indulge in purging, or even resort to suicide because of the simple shape of their bodies. I KNOW that they are out there because I remember feeling that way myself.
What can I tell you?
Do I have a perfect body now? Nope. Have I ever had that perfect little body? I don’t think so. Do I still want to die because of it?
Hell, no.
What would I tell that Laura from so long ago to keep her from killing herself because she’s not as thin as her popular friends?
Hold on. Don’t do it. Wait a few years and see if you feel better. Plus, if you try to kill yourself and you fail, you might end up horribly scarred, brain damaged or in a position where you won’t have another chance to kill yourself. It’s safer just to muscle through this.
I promise, there will come a day in which you are infinitely grateful you decided that you’d rather be fat than dead.
PostSecret‘s beneficiary is the National Hopeline Network. It is a
24-hour hotline (1 (800) SUICIDE) for anyone who is thinking about suicide or knows someone who is considering it.
I found this video on YouTube the other day. This unnamed girl has an online journal. She’s talking to the webcam on the top of her monitor about her day. She is trying to decide whether to take the diet pills, stay up all night and try to burn off the food she ate today.
“I wish there was a magic cure that would make me happy with who I am.”
She talks about wanting to be a photographer, but after looking at the pictures she took, she feels like the pictures were unacceptable. She doubts her photography abilities and it affects her body image.
“So, I’m doubting my ability… I feel fat. I AM fat… I’m ugly. I have no talent…”
How many times have I said this to myself? Because of these feelings, she contemplates taking diet pills. She’s frustrated.
“They don’t do anything. I don’t know why I keep taking them. And then I feel worse because I’m taking them and I don’t lose weight. Then I go bingeing, then I starve myself for a bit, and then I binge again, and then I take diet pills. It just goes ’round and ’round in a circle, and I just want to break out of the circle, and just be better… be happier…”
“Surely it would be better to be thin and not happy than fat and not happy.”
“I just wish that I could do something to make myself feel better. Normally, that thing is taking photos and editing photos, but I can’t even do that…”
In the end, we never find out whether she took the pills or not.
“So, do I take diet pills? Do I not take diet pills? Pros and cons… our choice…”
I just feel like reaching my arms out to her and giving her a huge hug. I want to tell her that it’s okay to feel like crap and that it passes. We all doubt our abilities. We all face the idea that we have no talent, but if we keep on working, we feel better. We still feel like fat and talentless hacks, but our talents grow despite our emotions.
Next time you’re feeling like indulging in destructive behavior, whether it’s taking diet pills, bingeing, starving yourself or purging, remember this girl from Leicester.
This old commercial shows the AYDS Diet Chews. I remember my mom tried them. They didn’t help her lose weight. I tried them, thinking that I might lose weight. They tasted like Tootsie Rolls.
It seems like every decade has their own strange diet remedies. They were just as bad in the 1980’s as they are now. In twenty years, the Trimspa commercials will seem just as strange, except for the unfortunate choice of names.
She is astute enough to notice that she has made food a moral issue. How many times have I felt just as she does here?
“At the end of the day when I tally up the calories in my diet notebook, I feel smug and virtuous when the total is minuscule and guilty when it’s higher than the day before. I don’t just feel that I’ve let myself down. I feel like a bad person.”
When faced with 300 calories of Lean Cuisine or 300 calories of ice cream, she has very strict ideas. Dinner is GOOD and ice cream is BAD. Fortunately, she is working to change her perceptions.
“I don’t think the choice should carry a moral imperative. A once a month serving of ice cream shouldn’t have the ability to destroy my sense of self. But in the moral universe, it does.”
In the end, she’s right. Learning to love ourselves when we’re thin and when we’re overweight is the only way to have a healthy body AND mind.
“Beating ourselves up in self-loathing isn’t conductive to improving our nutrition. In the end, it’s no one’s business but our own. I can’t change anyone else’s judgment of me, but I can change my own.”
We are heading into the time of year when zucchini is available everywhere. Anyone who has planted even one zucchini plant has lots of squash to give away to you.
What to do with it? Slashfood has several recipes here. They may not be low calorie, so beware.
My favorite way to eat zucchini is raw. A fresh zucchini from the refrigerator sliced into little circles and sprinkled with salt is refreshing and low calorie.
I love this time a year for fresh vegetables. It makes eating healthy easy.
This handy little gadget solves the Nike+ problem. If you don’t want to spend 100 bucks on a pair of shoes that might hurt your feet on long runs, you have another option: The Shoe Pocket.
For ten bucks, you can use this velcro shoe wallet to hold the Nike+ sensor with room to spare for a house key, identification and a credit card. Suddenly, the Nike+ iPod trainer looks like something I’d be willing to spend my hard earned money on.
Since the Nike+ sensor is an accelerometer, not a pressure sensor, it should work in the Shoe Pocket. Other people have tried it and say it works great. I’ve ordered both and I’ll give you my full review after I’ve had some time to play with them.
Over the weekend, I wrote about a correlation between my bingeing and nail-biting issues and my grandmother. Our family members are tremendous influences on how we feel about our bodies.
What is your first memory?
Were you fat as a child?
If you were, how did you realize that you were fat? Did the kids at school tell you? Did family members tell you? How did your parents or other authority figures treat you?
Do you consider yourself fat now?
When did you decide that you were fat?
Are you fat just because you decided that you were?
Could it all just be a lie? Maybe you’re NOT fat. Is that possible? What do your family members say now?
The Question of the Week is meant to be an Inner Workout for you. Find some time during the week and allow yourself to write the answers to the questions posted. You can write them on paper, on a word processor or here in the comments section. Whatever works for you as long as you do it.
Keep writing until you find out something about yourself that you didn’t know before. I’ve also heard that it works to keep writing until you cry, but that doesn’t really work for me. Whatever works for you. Just keep writing until it feels right.
My grandma was insane about how “fat” I was. She was insane about my fingernails. Until about three years ago, I had hangups about my fingernails. I felt guilt every time I bit them, but it didn’t stop me. The only thing that stopped me from biting my fingernails was artificial nails. After four years of having them, I removed them and found out that I no longer needed to bite.
What happened? Can I get over my food issues the same way?
I couldn’t bite my nails: With artificial nails, I couldn’t bite my nails. There was no possible way to do it. I couldn’t even bite the artificial nails because they were so thick. I could bite my cuticles, but doing that too much hurts.
I got out of the habit of biting: Instead of biting my nails when I was nervous, I would click them against each other (an entirely DIFFERENT irritating habit). I eventually stopped that also. The most important part was that I COULDN’T bite, so I got out of the habit.
When I stopped wearing artificial nails, I didn’t go back to biting: I suppose that there was a moment when I could have picked up biting my nails again. For all I know, I will always be at risk for biting, but I didn’t. I click my nails together every once and awhile, but I am continually shocked at how easy it is for me to grow long fingernails without even trying.
What if I could stop bingeing just like I stopped biting?
It’s not like my bingeing behavior is any more psycho than my history with nail-biting and my grandmother. What if I could just stop bingeing and never pick it up again? What if I could just look down at my body and be continually shocked at how easy it is for me to stay thin?
How would I do that?
I have no idea, but for once in my life, I KNOW that I can beat bingeing and never go back to it. I KNOW that I can have a thin and healthy body without writing down every morsel of food that goes in my mouth. I KNOW that I can have an indifferent relationship with food.
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This postcard from 