Irascible Ink

Ostensibly, this is blog is devoted to the pursuit of physical fitness and not so much to the narrower goal of weight loss. However, since the desire to lose weight was my primary motivator in beginning this quest 12 years ago, for me, the two are closely, and sometimes problematically, intertwined.

Somewhere along the line, I began to believe that if I was thin enough, my body would somehow become more acceptable–both to me and to society, at large. The association between thinness/physical beauty and success/happiness is something that most women–and nowadays a lot of men–struggle with. So in this self-flagellation over proper diet and body size, I am, sadly, very normal. One well-loved piece of advice to avoid obsessing about your weight is to concentrate on what your body can do, not what it looks like. But when a large part of your struggle is frustration at what your body refuses to do, this advice falls pretty flat. These days, thanks to the Botox, my body and I have called an armistice after many years of bitter fighting–heck, I think we might even have a diplomatic relationship in the making! So now I’m going to give this perspective shift a shot.

I read a study a few years ago–which now I can’t find– that showed that carrying extra weight had a adverse affect on the mobility of children with cerebral palsy. It makes sense, if your body mechanics are inefficient to begin with, hauling around extra pounds is especially difficult. Once I read that, the desire to trim off those last 15lbs pounds has become less about vanity and more about easing the load on my body.  Some habits though, like angsting over what size I am and what I eat, die-hard. I yearn to be one of those people who doesn’t worry about food, who eats what they want, when they want, and stops when they are full. I’m not there yet, but I am hopeful that once I am happier about what my body can DO, I can stop obsessing about what it looks like and relax.

So forgive me as I have digressed into a post about healthy eating habits, but I thought this interview with Michael Pollan, author of the Omnivore’s Dilemma, is pretty terrific. In it Pollan offers general eating advice rather than diet tricks:

Michael Pollan Offers 64 Ways to Eat Food

I like this quote in particular: “’It’s not food if it’s called by the same name in every language.’ Think Big Mac, Cheetos or Pringles.”

Yesterday’s workout report: 20 minutes, Dreaded Step Mill (3 minutes more than I thought I could take!); 40 minutes ArcTrainer, intervals level 8, average heart rate 142.