Hello everyone. Thank you so much for reading my posts, which means a great deal to me. I am going to be tabling this blog until Dima and I settle in to our new life in Paris.
Right now I am on a marathon of trying to wrap up two major work projects and it’s just too much to blog at the same time. I wish I had unlimited time and energy, but just like money, those things are finite and must be carefully budgeted [insert chagrined facial expression]. I hope you won’t mind the break and will decide to read again in the new year–although at that point, this may be more of a living-abroad blog.
Love,
Tania
I was just reading an article from Woman’s Day by Michelle May, MD about eating and exercising ideas that are popular but don’t necessarily work. Here were the two points I felt aligned best with my own ideas:
“Myth #4: Exercise More When You Cheat
I hate this one because it has caused millions of people to equate physical activity with punishment for eating. As a result, many people either hate to exercise or use exercise to earn the right to eat.
While it’s true that your weight is determined by your overall calories in versus your calories out, exercise is only part of the equation and it has so many other important benefits. Instead of using exercise to pay penance, focus on how great you feel, how much more energy you have, how much better you sleep and how much healthier you are becoming. In the long run, you are more likely to do something because it feels good than because you are forced to.
Myth #5: Follow Your Diet Six Days a Week, Then You Can Have a Cheat Day
This is absurd! What if you were a harsh, overly strict parent six days a week, then completely ignored your kids every Saturday? How would this approach work for your marriage or managing your employees?
It just doesn’t make sense to try to be perfect (whatever that is) Sunday through Friday while obsessing about everything you’re going to eat on your day off. Then on Saturday you overeat just because you’re allowed to, so you end up feeling miserable all day. Huh? Personally, I would rather enjoy eating the foods I love every day mindfully and in moderation. I call this being “in charge” instead of going back and forth between being in control and out of control.”
Going back to Thursday’s thoughts about “good” and “bad” labels for food, I also believe that exercise should be about a more holistic goal than simply losing weight, maintaining weight, or achieving a certain look. Enjoyment should be part of the equation. Strength and health should be part of the equation. The concepts of “earning food,” making up for food with exercise, or “cheating” strike me as tapping into the “good/bad” or judgmental and–as May said–punitive part of ourselves.
As a recovering perfectionist, I work every day on this goal, which is harder than it sounds to achieve:
In all of your actions, be self-loving and kind.
I call it the reflexive golden rule.
That doesn’t mean being overly permissive, either. As May implies, we have to be good parents to ourselves–and that means setting limits. Dragging my sleepy self to the gym at 6AM is self-loving, just like taking particularly disgusting medicine is self-loving. Overeating is not self-loving; even if I think I want to eat a pint of ice cream, I wouldn’t let my (hypothetical) child do it and so I shouldn’t allow myself. The same goes for overspending.
I still have a long road ahead of me, but I am happy to be on the road rather than standing resolutely with my back to it.
I’d love to hear reader’s thoughts on this expanded topic: Why is it often so hard to be nice to ourselves, forgive ourselves, and/or go easy on ourselves? Why is there sometimes a double standard for the way we treat others and the way we treat ourselves?
That is what my coworker (with whom I have a great relationship) interjected when I paused in my sentence while adjusting my scarf. “I was going to get a candy bar, but-”
“Yeah, you should eat something healthy.”
What I was going to say next was that I was only mouth hungry and would save my treat for later. His evaluation of my chosen treat as unhealthy did not escape my attention.
“There’s nothing wrong with a candy bar,” I replied, I am sure failing to hide the prickliness I felt.
At this point, he said something else to the effect of his first statement–in a friendly way, I must add.
“There’s nothing wrong with a candy bar,” I repeated. He clammed up. Then to save our relationship, I explained what I had wanted to say in the first place. That was the end of that.
This brief exchange brought one of my concerns about the U.S.* mentality on food and exercise to the front of my thoughts. Why do we assume that an indulgence is a negative thing—that a candy bar can’t be part of a healthy lifestyle?
In a comparative study on food mentality (I think I read this in In Defense of Food), people from France and the United States were asked to give word associations for “chocolate cake.” The most common French answer was “celebration.” The most common U.S. association was “guilt.”
Is it any surprise that my coworker labeled a candy bar forbidden rather than exciting? Until very recently, I would have too. I used to call days when I avoided sweets entirely “good” and those when I overindulged in them “bad.”
I was the kind of person who ate dressingless salads during the day and then splurged on two Weight Watchers ‘ice cream’ bars at night. I never allowed myself the real thing, like, say, Ben and Jerry’s Chunky Monkey, which is what I really wanted to eat. But I didn’t feel I could allow myself. Being an extremist somehow felt safe, even if it meant lessening my enjoyment or nourishment, eating tasteless or additive-stocked ‘food.’
“Good” and “bad”: really, they have no place in my pantry—or my body. After much struggle, I have banished critical judgments from my kitchen, instead embracing the relative judgments of “too much,” “too little,” and “just right.” Call it the Goldilocks approach to wellness.
What did I end up getting at the corner store? A Snickers Almond bar to eat when I actually did get hungry for a treat. Let me tell you, it was delicious. I think I’m going to try the new Snickers Fudge next time.
Incidentally, Dima and I will be moving to the land of “chocolate cake celebration” in January so that he can spend a semester abroad. Despite my nerves regarding the transition, I am very pleased to have this opportunity to immerse myself in a society with values—at least where health is concerned—more closely aligned with my own. I hear the yogurt selection in French supermarkets is mind blowing.
*I have ceased using the term “American” to refer to citizens of the United States after listening to a talk on history textbooks. There is a growing movement to reevaluate the term “American,” which really refers to people from Chile through Canada and not just the United States.