My run with the flu pushed me off track with my gym and weights routine, and screwed my eating habits. Well, no, that’s not true. My eating had been getting out of hand again as I was swallowed by stress, most of it having to do with trying to get the rewrites on the fantasy saga done. I felt like Iwas caught up in a tornado and then dropped into a big pool of sludge and I was floundering around, sinking faster and faster with every pitiful stroke…
It’s no wonder I was literally bedridden and starving for a week, dreaming of food and the day when I could once again read a book without feeling like I was puzzling out a physics equation written in ancient Egyptian.
My week post-flu was spent being hungry all the time, eating lots of bread, pasta, yogurt, and soup and worrying about how much I was eating.
Last weekend, B came into town and said, “You know, I hate to say this, but you really have lost weight. It’s a little disturbing.”
Well, yes, it is. Because secretly, I really don’t mind the way I look. For all my wishing and hoping that I’d drop two fucking sizes, I really don’t mind looking the way I do. I like being substantial. But… but…
Now that the book’s gone out, the major stress is off. I’m still living too much with my credit card, but I’m hoping to take care of that by the end of the year. My eating this week has been reasonable and very filling. I feel terribly content. I’ve been eating a big breakfast, snacking on grapes and yogurt during the day, partaking of communal roommate dinners at night (usually consisting of pasta and salad or fish and salad and asparagus, or eggs and vegetables, and etc.).
I’ve had no binging stress at all.
And I worried about that.
I worried about my weight, worried that I hadn’t been able to get back to the gym, worried about what pancakes for breakfast every morning would do to my waistline. Worry, worry. Not a big worry, just that little, nagging voice, “You’re eating too much. You’re enjoying yourself. You won’t lose weight this way. You’re going to be confined to buying clothes from the same 3 stores for the rest of your life.”
Boo-hoo
But nonetheless, there I was, sneaking out of the house last night and going to Borders to look for a list of books about compulsive eating, overeating, and body image.
I spent an hour going from shelf to shelf to shelf. With no luck. I couldn’t find any of them.
And as I perused the “Recovery” section of the bookstore, looking at books purporting to cure me of smoking, bulimia, alcoholism, anorexia, and drug addiction, I thought, “What the fuck am I doing here?”
I was struck again at how much time, energy, and effort I put into thinking about dieting, weight loss, body image. It’s not on my mind all the time now, but when I get to being worried, when I’m uncertain of myself, this is where I go back to. I think, “If I could just fix this one thing, everything will be all right.”
Which is horseshit. Utter, utter horseshit.
I’ll still be me. I’m the same person at a size 12 as a size 16. There’s no difference.
And the real kicker? The real fucking kicker is that there’s nothing wrong with me. I’m totally healthy. I take the stairs everywhere. I walk over an hour every day. I eat reasonably. I have no health problems whatsoever except that I overstress about things. That’s going to be the source of any of my ill health problems, not the fact that I weight 200 lbs (or whatever). No doctor has ever told me to lose weight. I don’t have any strange aches and pains in my back or my knees. I don’t have diabetes. I don’t smoke.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with me, and here I’m standing in the “recovery” section like I’m slowly choking to death on whipped cream.
Hardly.
So I left the Recovery section and went to the “General Military History” section and picked up a ridiculous number of books for God’s War.
Fuck this shit.
I have more important things to do with my time.
Yea, I’ll get back to the gym and hopefully jogging next week, but I don’t intend to lose one bloody pound doing it.
I’m so tired of hating myself over a number.
