Good With Cheese

This week’s question for Aunt Fattie has gotten me thinking about how I define Health At Every Size for myself.  As best I can tell, it usually goes something like this:

Today, I practiced HAES. 

I woke up at 6, which meant I got about 8 hours of sleep last night. I function best with 9 hours, but it’s not always possible.

For breakfast, I had a toasted whole wheat English muffin with peanut butter and strawberry jam, coffee, and a glass of milk.  I usually have something with more protein at breakfast, but I wasn’t feeling it today and I no longer believe in eating things I don’t want just because I think I should.  And my English muffin was awesome.  I drank two more cups of coffee as I read the paper.

I then showered and got dressed for work, making a point of putting on sneakers because my feet are achy from running yesterday; I probably need new running shoes, so I’ll pay attention to the signals my feet are sending and go shopping this weekend.

At work, I drank a glass of water and took regular breaks from my desk (usually to head for the bathroom, tiny-bladdered-freak that I am).  Around 10, I snacked on some carrots and hummus, and two squares of dark chocolate.  Tasty!

Lunch was pretty typical: ham and cheddar on whole wheat, a huge banana, a cookie (today was double chocolate chunk), and coffee.  I took the stairs back up to my office because it’s faster than the elevators.

Mid-afternoon, I got peckish, so I had a granola bar and deeply regretted not packing cheese and crackers this morning because that’s what I really wanted.  Oh, well.  Sometimes I just have to eat what’s available when I’m hungry; I don’t always make perfect food matches.

I got home a little later than usual because it was my on-duty day at work and I had to see all the walk-in clients.  It’s always super stressful and when I got home, I wanted nothing more than to pull on my comfys, pour a glass of wine, and spoon Little Dog.  During my dieting days, I’d usually force myself to run even though I didn’t feel up to it, but these days I know my health isn’t just about my body; my spirit counts, too.  So, a glass of shiraz, a Sudoku, and one sleepy wiener dog were healthy choices for me today.

Neither my husband nor I felt all that inspired at dinner, so we grilled some chicken and had it with brown rice, veggies, and a few fantastic strawberries.  After dinner, I played a little Wii and then had my nightly ice cream.  This week’s flavor is Turtle Brownie, and while my husband wasn’t looking, I dug out a few extra brownie chunks for my bowl.  I felt pretty calm and centered today because I managed to eat all day without counting calories one time.

Today I took care of myself: by eating foods I liked, not foods I thought I should eat; by wearing comfortable clothing and shoes; by passing on formal exercise because it felt more punitive than pleasant; by getting enough rest; by engaging in activities that reduce rather than elevate my stress levels.

HAES, for me, means taking good care of myself regardless of the physical appearance of my body.  It doesn’t mean eating in a certain way or working out X number of times per week.  It doesn’t mean perfect food choices or textbook intuitive eating.  It doesn’t guarantee that cancer or heart disease or Alzheimer’s won’t find me in the future (the only guarantee of that would be, like, getting hit by a bus tomorrow.  I’ll pass, thanks).

Good caretaking is acknowledging what my body and spirit are asking for today and meeting those requests to the best of my ability as often as I am able.  It’s treating myself as valuable and my needs and preferences as real.

So, today I practiced HAES.  I’ll practice it tomorrow, too, though it may look like a 5 mile run and tacos for dinner, or maybe yard work and a grilled cheese sandwich.  What exactly I do changes day to day, but the goal always remains the same.

Whatever you did today that made you feel happier or stronger or calmer or more like yourself, that felt good in my body and your soul?

That’s HAES.  You’re doing it exactly right for you.  And good job.

I ran outside today for the first time since last fall.  I twisted all through our neighborhood, breathed in warm spring air, listened to birds singing, coveted brilliant jewel-box flower beds.

But none of that is the exciting part.

The exciting part is: I ran in shorts and a sleeveless tank.

Okay, so that doesn’t sound like Big News.  But here’s the thing:  the last time I ran in shorts was almost five years ago.  I was just learning to run (that sounds…weird.  But you know what I mean), it was one heck of a hot summer, and I only wore the shorts because I was running at 5:30 in the morning before it was light out. 

I’ve never felt comfortable exposing my pasty, chubby thighs to the world;  even at my thinnest, I didn’t wear shorts out of the house.  It didn’t matter if it was 100 degrees out; I was running in track pants and a t-shirt with sleeves.

But I’ve decided that I’m not going to continue to treat my body like it’s shameful in this one area of my life.  After all, my legs deserve air and sunlight and balmy April evenings.  And for the love of baby-flavored doughnuts, running feels best when I’m comfortable and shorts are comfortable.

And you know, anyone who doesn’t like looking at my chubby thighs? 

Well, they can survive the five seconds it takes me to leave them in my dust.

March zoomed by in a blur of reality television and college basketball and many hours of Wii boxing (because throwing wild punches into the air soothes the savage beast that is my soul), and I’ll be damned if it’s not already April.

So, this upcoming Wednesday is the first anniversary of giving up my diet; it was on April 16, 2007, that I wrote my contract with myself to try three months without dieting, overexercising, or weighing.

One year.  And I really am beginning to feel okay.

It sounds a little crazy to me — a whole year, and I’m just to “okay” on the self-love continuum?  Not “awesome” or “completely self-accepting” or “body image rockstar.” 

Just “okay.”

But you know?  That’s good enough.  That’s Megan 1, Diet 0.  The diet is now in the past.  But me?

I’m still here.  I survived the 2o+ pound weight gain.  I survived leaving behind the 4s, 6s, 8s, and most of the 10s, and every morning, I pull on my size 12 britches and the world doesn’t end.  I’m still loved.  I’m still me.

I’m just not afraid anymore.

As for food, I ate the world for a while and then I stopped eating the world and now I just eat.  I pick what I like and what makes me feel good; my food choices are no longer little dances I do with my disordered body image.  I don’t have to go hungry now.  It remains such a tiny ecstasy, this eating-to-fullness — it still sometimes takes my breath away.

I’ve been working out consistently, intensely, thrillingly, these past several weeks, and it’s been an actual pleasure.  I run hard, I sweat, I push my limits — but I don’t have to do it.  I do it because I can.  Because I am strong. Because I am powerful. 

I stopped feeling those things when I was abusing my body, but now?  I feel like a force of nature.  I didn’t know I could be so proud of my body in a way that doesn’t even consider how it looks in shorts.

It all sounds better than “okay,” doesn’t it?  But in all honesty, there are still moments when I miss certain items of clothes that don’t fit now or when the Weight Watchers talk about that thrill of a lost pound.  In those moments, I hear echoes of my old self-loathing.

But they are just echoes.  And every day, they sound farther away.

So, one year.  I can’t really sum it up in any way that sounds profound, so I’ll just steal this quote from Winston Churchill:

“Every day you may make progress.  Every step may be fruitful.  Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path.  You know you will never get to the end of the journey.  But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and the glory of the climb.”

Yeah…happy anniversary to me!

I’ve had a pretty significant shift in how I eat this last week or so, and I’m quite excited about it.

Many of my food rituals while dieting were built around the clock: breakfast at 6, snack at 9, lunch at 12, snack at 3:30, dinner at 6:30.  I didn’t deviate from this schedule and, of course, there were also all kinds of rules about what I could eat at those times, but all in all, I was quite time-focused.  Frequent small meals = calorie-burning machine, after all.

Since giving up my diet, I’ve found myself still eating on that schedule for the most part.  There may have been a 10 or 15 minute window around those times, but my hunger usually appeared right on cue at those dieting times.  It was a clearly a habit, and one that made me crazy.

But here recently I’ve noticed that something has sort of just clicked off in regards to the clock.  I’m zooming through most of my morning without feeling like I need to eat: no 9 AM snack.  I get close to my lunch break before I even feel the early stirrings of hunger.  And, like, real hunger - not just a response to the clock.

This is a small thing, but it carries big importance for me.  These little shifts in my thinking add up, these moments when I eat a hamburger without feeling guilty or when I snack because I’m hungry even though I just ate an hour ago or when I stop running at 2.41 miles even though I had 4 planned just because my knee feels wonky and I don’t want to injure myself.

It’s so easy not to give ourselves credit for the daily tiny steps we take, for those small choices we make that honor our bodies instead of harming them. But enough of those tiny steps? 

Well, we can cover a lot of distance that way.

It all started when I read this post by Attrice. It kept rattling around my head for days and days, and resisted my best efforts to pretend I hadn’t read it.

Then I was snuggling with Little Dog a few days ago, kissing the tawny brown spots over his eyes and burying my face in his neck scruff, and I had a sudden, visceral connection about that warm wiggly body and the ground beef my husband was cooking in the kitchen. 

It was kind of ghastly.

I haven’t had any meat since then because I can’t quite shake that moment of horror.  And because a girl can’t live on salad alone, I’ve been looking at various vegetarian resources to see if I can handle a meat-free life.

Oh.  My.  Stars.  That is some head-exploding information out there.

In this process of figuring out how to love Megan-As-Whole-Person, I am trying to be kinder to myself; I’m learning how not to take in every negative message about what it means to be a woman and a non-dieter and fat to boot.  I’m working at making exercise a gift to my body, not a penance.  I’m focusing on feeding myself well, nourishing my body and my spirit with foods that make me feel my best.  Basically, I’m approaching myself with compassion and gentleness.

And honestly?  I’m having a hard time reconciling that path of compassion with the way I’ve always eaten.  Knowing what I know about the meat industry, knowing that pain isn’t only felt by those of us at the top of the food chain…well, I can’t quite stomach it any more.

What it comes down to is this:  I don’t want to bring any more violence against my body, and that includes violence that comes on the end of a fork.

Anyone have any good recipes?

I’m not much for the bad language.  That said, I’m not offended by most curse words as long as they’re not demeaning to any group of people other than assholes.  But I just don’t use those kinds of words in my everyday speech; it’s not a habit I’ve picked up.

But you know?  The single most useful phrase I’ve discovered while giving up dieting and body hatred and self-hatred is this:

Fuck that.

You’re not pretty because you’re fat?  Fuck that.

You’re not “a good girl” because you eat meals that are not portioned and calorie-counted and Pointed?  Fuck that.

You don’t deserve to love yourself because you have cellulite or wrinkles or gray  hair or a size 26 ass?  Fuck that.

You’re a quitter because you refuse to starve yourself any more?  Fuck that.

You’re too short?  Too tall?  Too wide-hipped?  Too big-chested?  Too loud?  Too quiet?  Too demanding?  Too hungry?  Too confident?  Too proud of yourself? 

Fuck that all.

That phrase has saved me in dressing rooms.  At grocery store checkouts.  While watching television.  When flipping through magazines.  On the doctor’s office scale.  When faced with packing up a closet filled with clothes that have become too small.

I like it because it very simply affirms what I’ve come to believe is true:

Anything that says you are not a worthy person just as you are right now is noise.

And fuck that.