Recognize.

Every day is such a series of little choices and it’s curious how one little choice can start you down a path that gets more and more twisty-turny, more and more familiar and frightening.

These days, I feel like I’m doing really good, feeling strong and centered and cared for.  Lately, though, as I’ve been working on increasing my running speed/endurance, I’ve been logging workouts as a way of monitoring my progress.  Just a few jotted notes: distance, speed, time.

Then I thought it’d be good to add a little column of keeping track of my fruit and veggie intake, and then before I knew it, it had of course turned into a food journal. 

What can I say?  I like the orderliness of a list, the illusion of control that comes with knowing numbers.

But it is just an illusion.

I realized what I was doing today when I found myself craving a steak and my husband suggested going out, and one of my first thoughts was, “How do I journal that without knowing measurements/prep/sides?”

Oh, sugarplum, that’s diet thinking. 

But I recognized it.  And the food/exercise journal?  Those pages have been trashed, the pen is back in the drawer, the journal itself is empty of all but clean, white, neatly-lined pages.  It hopes to find a new life as a poetry notebook.

And my steak?  It was excellent.  I had it with a baked sweet potato dusted with cinnamon and some lovely broccoli, and tomorrow is a new day of living without the numbers-net. 

It’s more fun that way.

Crush-worthy.

Right now, I am in love with my body.

If today were Valentine’s Day, I would be cutting up doilies, pasting them on folded red construction paper, dusting it all with glitter, and and then writing sweet messages inside, carefully dotting my i’s with fat, perfect hearts.

It’s a strange and beautiful thing to look at my body and feel pride and love and joy.  To see the curve of my shoulder or the bend of my knee and think, Oh, yes.  That’s me.  To run that last mile and feel fatigue begin to seep into the muscle, but to feel my lungs still strong and my heart pounding and taste the sweat on my lip and think, Look what I can do.

Dieting distanced me from my body; I had to forget it in order to a be a successful dieter.   I exercised only for the needle on the scale, my only success coming when it budged. 

But now…now, working out is a celebration (yes, sometimes a celebration I must force myself off the couch for) and connects me to my body in ways I couldn’t have imagined.  When you begin to listen to your body and respond to its needs, the joy that it gives back is incredible.

 I’ll never be a fast runner, and I’ll never have a visible triceps muscle, and my little curvy belly will always be attempting to roll over the top of my pants, but this body?

It’s mine.  And I adore it.

On Dieting.

The internet is a-twitter and it’s fascinating reading, and has really crystallized some of my thoughts for me.

See, for me, what it all comes down to is this question: “If it has no effect whatsoever on my weight or my body or the lushy lushness of my ample thighs, would I still do it?”  If the answer is, “No,” and I do it anyway?  Then I’m officially Dieting.  For me, that’s the tipping point.  It’s health or it’s weight loss, because it can’t be both*.

It goes like this:

Megan’s Brain: “If it has no effect on my weight, do I really want to run five miles?”

Megan’s legs: “Yes, please!”

Megan’s lungs: “Running makes us stronger!”

Megan’s Crazy: “We seriously need the endorphins, or we’re probably going to fork someone in the eye at lunch tomorrow.”

So, I run.  Because my body and my spirit want it for the joy and the physical exultation and the fact that I look kind of smokin’ in my sports bra.

But if the answer is this:

Megan’s ankle: “Geez, woman, can’t you see I’m swollen?”

Megan’s shin splints: (inarticulate screaming)

Megan’s Crazy: “Worthless beast of a girl, why are you so lazy?”

Then I don’t run.  Because then I’m not listening to my body; I’m listening to the world that says my thighs are too chubby and my belly too squishy and that my worth can only grow by me becoming smaller.

I try not to speak in absolutes, because invariably I’ll be backed into a corner by someone far more articulate than I and forced to eat my words (which, tragically, do not taste like strawberries), but I think I can safely say this:

Dieting as defined as trying to lose weight for the sake of losing weight?  It is an act of self-harm and self-hatred.  Body acceptance requires ACCEPTANCE.  It’s kind of key, what with it being right there in the term and all.

Are there times when weight loss is a positive thing for someone? Sure.  Are there times when it is a negative thing? Oh, absolutely.  But is it ever, in and of itself, a worthwhile goal?

I gotta say no.

Running a personal best is a goal.  Going off medication is a goal.  Eating foods that make your body sing is a goal.  Lifting heavier weights or bringing your cholesterol down or feeling completely beautiful and powerful in your skin?  Goal, goal, goal.

The point is, these things can all happen whether or not you lose an ounce of body weight.  They can happen no matter how fat or thin or in-between you are.

But saying you’re going to lose weight because you want those things to happen?  Well, you’d better be careful, because your cart is about to be run down by your horse.

If you want to be stronger, do things that make you stronger.  If you want your body to feel better, feed it the best food you can (and that includes the good chocolate, not the yucky stuff).  Push yourself, challenge yourself, move your body in new and interesting ways until you find the ones that make you feel like you’re flying.  Take your vitamins.  Take deep breaths.  Sleep more.  Be nicer to yourself.

Taking care of yourself does not require that you become diminished in any way, and dieting, by definition, is only about becoming smaller.

Don’t fall for that.

*Sure, weight loss can be a side effect of focusing on taking care of yourself in the best ways you know how — I’m the Poster Child of that right now.  But in addition to weight loss, I’m also getting awesome calluses on my hands from free weights and my toes…well…have you seen a runner’s foot before?  Totally Hobbit-like.  However, the side effects are not the goal.  I’m not running so I can have sexy runner’s toes any more than I’m doing it for weight loss.  I’m doing it because the doing is the reward.

Homecoming.

I’m feeling less conflicted today for two reasons:

1.  I had a delicious double-chocolate cookie at lunch today because it was warm and gooey and I like warm, gooey cookies.  If I were on some kind of secret, subconscious diet, no way would that have happened.

2.  I had a 6 mile run planned after work, but at 5 miles I felt very tired so I stopped running.  Again, if I were back in the grip of my disordered behaviors, I would have completed all 6 miles and maybe even thrown an extra couple of miles to burn off that cookie.

For now, I’m just  going to ask lots of questions of myself and if I find I’m doing things because I think I “have” to, then I stop right there and do some serious self-evaluation.  If I start looking at my body and seeing flaws in a negative light instead of being all, “Ohh, adorable thigh dimples, how cute you are!” then again, serious self-evaluation.

I’ve printed out this amazing list and hung it on my bulletin board above my desk.  I’m focusing on #10; right now, it feels like my body and mind are really connected for the first time in my entire life.  I’m not disconnected from what’s happening below my neck; I’m not ignoring pain, hunger, fullness, tiredness.  I’m listening to all the cues and heeding them.  When my head asks for cheesecake, but my body really just wants an egg sandwich and a good long cry, I eat the egg sandwich and settle in with the Kleenex. 

I’m feeding my body, not my rage or my sadness or my loneliness or my rebellion against deprivation.  And when I exercise, I’m doing it not to burn calories, but because I love feeling strong.  I was never an athlete growing up because they don’t make them clumsier than me, but now?  Maybe I am just a little bit of an athlete and it makes me proud.

Proud of what I can do, the awkward, clumsy girl.  Proud of how strong I’ve become, body and spirit.

And to completely change the subject but only because I’m giddy with girlish delight:  my husband is being sent on a special 6-month assignment to….wait for it….our hometown!  Starting on MONDAY.   That’s right, beginning Monday, my husband, the man I’ve lived apart from for these past 14 months, will be moving home for the next 6.  I’m so excited I cried a little bit like a hysterical four-year-old when he called.

Yay!

Down.

I feel like a traitor.

I’m losing weight.  Not on purpose, and not necessarily permanently, because tomorrow I could fall out of love with vegetables and go back on the Whoppers.  I could decide running 6 miles is the height of insanity and spend more time sleeping and reading good books.

This morning, I pulled a pair of pants out of my closet and had them on before I realized they were a pair that hadn’t fit since early June.

But this morning, they fit.

I wish I weren’t pleased.  That makes me feel ashamed, but more importantly, it makes me feel like a dumbass for buying into the idea that weight loss is, independent of all other things, something to get excited about.  On an intellectual level, I know that’s ridiculous.

And yet…and yet…and yet…I really like wearing these pants.

My mom and I were talking about the Weight Watchers yesterday, and she said something to the effect that there’s nothing wrong with wanting to lose weight.  And I don’t know quite how I feel about that statement.  I know there’s definitely something wrong with wanting someone else to lose weight.  But as a personal decision?  Is it wrong?  Is it any of my damn business what someone wants to do with her body?

Physically, I feel my best weighing in the mid-130s.  Running is very comfortable at that weight.  I feel strong, I feel solid, I feel confident in my body moves.  I don’t have to overexercise or restrict what I eat at that weight; it’s where my body settled for about 3 or 4 years before I decided to see how skinny I could get.  So, it’s not about the weight, it’s not about the size, it’s not even about how I look.  I’m still pretty round in places when I’m in that weight range.  But the actual living in my body?  Feels really, really good right there.

If my body is finding its way back to that range as I get better at feeding myself and working out in a way that makes me feel stronger and challenged, then is it wrong to feel grateful about that?

Is it wrong to feel like I’m coming home? 

Sugar and spice and everything nice.

I’ve been working on cleaning up my eating for the past few days, so my fridge is brimming with all kinds of veggies and fruit and yogurt and it’s making my kitchen a happy place to be.  I enjoyed my months of eating whatever I craved at any given second, but my body?  She is sad.  She feels kind of sluggish and running is harder than it should be and let’s not even discuss the sad state of my digestive system.

I feel better when I eat less processed stuff.  Period.  And I have to get it through my head that eating fresh, lovely, wholesome things is not a diet.  It’s honoring my body.  And my laziness of late and my reliance on quick, easy foods is not honoring anything except…well…laziness.

I’ve been thinking a lot about my imaginary self, the secret person I wish I were, the person I am in some life that split off years ago before I screwed myself up but good.

She eats things like almond butter and veggies dipped in hummus and big bowls of homemade soup.  She does not eat Whoppers by the fistful when she doesn’t really want them just because she can.  She goes for long runs on Saturday mornings, and then sits on her back porch while she writes in her notebook and eats whole-grain waffles with real maple syrup.  She wears cute, sporty capri pants with many pockets for the things she needs on her adventures and she owns hiking boots.  She does not cry over $20 pants that no longer fit.

She is not lazy.  She does not consider taking care of herself a burden.

There’s this picture of me from when I was three years old that I love.  I’m standing there, hands on my hips, shirtless (…yeah…I don’t know…), hair a wild halo of spun gold around my head.  The expression on my face is one of confidence, defiance, bravery, joy.  I look at that little girl and I wish I could be her again, have her openness, her fearlessness.

I framed that picture this weekend and placed it at my bedside.  Then Saturday morning, I went for a long run, then sat on my back porch in the shell-pink, early-morning light, wrote in my journal, and ate my whole-grain waffles.

I don’t always want to invest time and effort in myself because honestly?  I don’t 100% believe that Megan-at-30 is really worth it.  But Megan-at-3?  That little girl who is still inside me somewhere?

Maybe I can do it for her.

Viral.

Last night, I hung out with my sister and girl-cousin, the Weight Watchers.  They were on some kind of “free day” (though I’m, like, 98% certain there’s not a “free day” in Weight Watchers), so we ate nachos* and played Scrabble and chatted. 

My sister mentioned that she was halfway through the first book I recommended and that she was enjoying it.  My cousin then asked the name of the book.  When my sister answered, “When Women Stop Hating Their Bodies,” my cousin snorted and asked, “When does that ever happen?”

My cousin is very large (even though I’ve embraced the word “fat” as merely descriptive, I can’t bring myself to use it here because it would possibly devastate her and that would suck).  I suspect there may be some undiagnosed medical conditions at work as well as a genetic predisposition to having a fatter body.  She’s also pretty and funny and bright, but I know her size bothers her.

I told her a little about the book and she asked if she could read it after my sister is done with it.  I, of course, said heck, yes.

I can’t save everyone but maybe I can save the ones I love.

*Total diet-induced deprivation at work: I ate a very small portion of nachos because that’s all it took to make me feel satisfied.  They both had second helpings, all the while complaining about how full and uncomfortable they felt.  Deprivation and that stupid “free day” idea was so clearly driving their eating.  I really don’t miss that at all.