Part Fourteen: Better Late than Never

So, writing about acid reflux? - Not a crowd pleaser. Who knew?

There’s no other way to say it: I am (feeling much like Violet Beauregarde in Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory when she turned into a giant, round blueberry because of what she was chewing) rolling my way into the “heaviest I’ve ever been” category at a rather alarming and troubling speed. The relapse I referred to in my last article was, in fact, not so small. Nor had it seen its end at that point…in fact, it remains to be seen if it has seen its end at this point. It appears that inexplicably I have had only roughly a week away from regular exercise and watching what I eat closely, and I’ll tell you: apparently, a week is far too long.

A couple of weeks ago on Superbowl Sunday, we had some friends over. For these friends, my boyfriend, and myself, I made some tacos in addition to some other snacks. As you can imagine, cooking that much ground beef (I am a struggling vegetarian, I believe “flexetarian” is the term; I’m attempting to get back on the wagon but keep getting kicked off) generated quite a lot of grease to drain from the pan; enough to fill half of my giant measuring cup to give you a visual. Anyway, as I was cleaning up from this feast later and eyeballing the now solidified contents of my giant measuring cup, getting grossed out in advance about the idea of emptying it into the garbage, I thought, “That’s it right there isn’t it. The fat. In its naked form.” When it came time (having saved the best for last of course) to scoop out the goop, each globule-laden spoonful was a fresh, jiggly yellow-tinged reminder to me that the excess weight in my body actually looked just like that mound on the spoon underneath my skin (after that last sentence I can just tell that this post will be just about as popular as the last one. :)

Well, that can only mean one thing: it’s time to “drop some bows” (thank you Ludacris) on this jive. I’ve actually got to get serious in a much more active way than I have been. I’ll admit: trying hard to get in shape, sticking with extremely “good” eating plans at all times and watching my calories with a magnifying glass doesn’t (and most likely never will) sound like it will work for me at all. It takes all the fun and enjoyment out of eating to regard food as your enemy. Frankly, if the food that we surround ourselves with is actually food, than it is only there to help us as we eat and savor it. I regard eating delicious food as one of the great pleasures of living, as well as one of the most exquisite ways to experience life. When we are stressed, we want to find comfort in food, when we are at our best, we want to be nourished and driven by good food; when we travel, we go for many reasons, but a huge one is always the food - it is something that should not be demonized, but rather enjoyed. And yet there is this conundrum: eating too much of the food that is readily available to us particularly in this country has its consequences. Not one of us knows all of the true long-term consequences of being lost in the processed food chain. 30 years from now, will we even recognize our food? Will we be able to grow it from a seed? There needs to be a more stark definition drawn between the food that is good for you to eat and the other stuff out there which is merely edible; but not necessarily food.

Food is defined by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary as, “…1 a : material consisting essentially of protein, carbohydrate, and fat used in the body of an organism to sustain growth, repair, and vital processes and to furnish energy; also : such food together with supplementary substances (as minerals, vitamins, and condiments) b : inorganic substances absorbed by plants in gaseous form or in water solution. 2 : nutriment in solid form. 3 : something that nourishes, sustains, or supplies …”

Evaluate in your mind what you eat in any given day.

Does it always fit that criteria? In every single meal? And do all the café americano’s and croissants and decorative chocolate snacks that we have the ubiquitous opportunity to snack on every day in place of real meals (due most likely more to time and convenience than to personal choice...right) living up to that definition? In more cases than we would like to admit, I doubt that they do. By that definition, I can re-learn how to eat the foods that fit the bill.

And it’s a long road - the supplements to this series as well as this series in itself are all explorations of different facets of the same problem: how to deconstruct the many-headed monster that is our mainstream profit-driven industrial food system and to glean and choose from that source which things still cut the mustard (pun intended) as food. And more importantly than that, it means reacquainting ourselves with the food that is grown locally, by people we know, and (if we can) through eating and growing food that comes from organic and traditional methods. It does not mean that we have to give up everything we have come to know and love though either. In fact, we can only gain by eating the robust and full-flavored foods that are grown with the practices and time-tested wisdom of those generations that came before us. We retain our history and grow ourselves into a scrumptiously delicious future that will nourish us and guard us against many of the problems that are becoming endemic on our society all at the same time.

So, with being just as stubborn as I am about getting into shape, I am equally as stubborn that I can do it on my own terms. Compromises? Yes. There have to be some compromises. I cannot, for instance, order an entire pizza with bread and dipping sauce and eat it in front of the T.V. as I watch reruns of The Facts of Life on “on demand.” But, through entering this new mode of eating only real food (and that includes real desserts from time to time for sure), it will kill several bad things with one stone: getting away from heavily processed foods, “franken-foods”, ingredients I don’t recognize and ingredients I don’t even know are there that are doing god knows what to my body. I can see myself through this and learn to change what I want into what I want that is also good for me.

It’s February 18, 2010, and I am publishing this post a day late because sometimes life invades on your writing schedule, forgive me. In the coming weeks I am going to be trying some drastic measures to get back in balance and harmony with health; no more messing around.

More confessions of a (very) curvy girl will come out every Wednesday. Also, look out soon for the two new “Curvy Girl” supplements, “Unfit” and “Food/Foe Thought.”

You can contact Elizabeth by e-mailing her at elizabethpalmer@annarbor.com.