Day 3 (Thursday, May 31) went by with very little to report. I had a small decaf in the morning, and decided to accept that as part of my routine. I then had another Starbucks Small Soy Decaf Orange Mocha at 4pm before teaching, and decided that would be part of the routine too. Since I'm not having any other dessert-like things, nor alcohol, one fatty treat in the afternoon seems OK. (And no, this isn't a weight-loss thing, exactly. In fact, I am trying to GAIN weight, and it has been recommended that I eat MORE fat. But there's that whole "good fat/bad fat" thing. Things were so much simpler in the 70s, and I was on a strict diet even back then!
My mother and father are both overweight. My mom has always been a little overweight, but she has a very found face, and I think has often perceived herself as more overweight than she is. My dad, on the other hand, I call "Shamu". And yes, after 2 years of blogging, I am convinced my dad doesn't read this, so I'll go ahead and write it here. But Dad, if you do catch wind of this, FOR GOD'S SAKE, YOU DON'T NEED TO ORDER THE EXTRA-LARGE EVERY TIME BECAUSE IT'S A "GOOD DEAL!" OK, there I said it. In my Dad's defense, I only see him once a year, and he reports having lost 20-30 pounds on occasion. But since I always see him around the winter holidays, of course he is probably at maximum weight.
So my sister and I spent most of the 1970s and the early part of the 1980s on my parents' fad diets, despite the fact that we were (and still are) rail thin. I remember enjoying the Scarsdale diet because it seemed to let us all eat quite well, and even pig out sometimes (we called it the "Scarfsdale Diet" every time we had steak).
The only real downside (at the time) was my mother's side project, which she initiated after reading "Sugar Blues": no cereals with sugar as higher than the 4th ingredient (unless it was a treat), no white bread, limited candy except around Halloween. In my mom's defense, she was lenient compared to some of the sugar-phobic moms she befriended during this time. And the funny thing is, to this day I eat only healthy cereals unless it's a treat, and I never even think to have white bread (and if it's served to me, I treat it like it's a sugar snack). I'm not even that much of a dessert person, which is funny, since both of my parents admit that if there's cake in the house, they will eat it! (The difference is that my mom sends the cake home with me to prevent herself from eating it; my dad, on the other hand, eats the whole thing as soon as possible. Psychologists could have a field day with this stuff.)
Post-divorce, things got somewhat worse. I was in my teen years, and probably needed bigger and more frequent meals, but we were on the poor side, and mom was dieting, and we all developed a taste for Lean Cuisines. I don't fault my mother with this; she always made sure we had food on the table, and I never "felt" poor. However, I got used to only eating a little, and pretty much stayed that way into my late 20s.
What finally did me in was Dunkin Donuts. In my late 20s, I got the chance to be a full-time independent writer for 6 months (I was unable to write a novel in that time, though I took several interesting side jobs to keep myself busy. Yet now with multiple jobs I can write a novel in 30 days, go figure). Part of my routine during that time was to get up every morning and go to Dunks for a #4: medium coffee regular (which in Boston means lots of cream and sugar!) and a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich on a croissant. It got to the point where even on mornings when I felt I should just stay home and write and not bother going in to Harvard Square (it was raining or I'd just missed the bus or I wanted to save money), the craving would get to me around 10am and I'd find my way into the square. And then I'd pig out.
Yeah it's not much food, only a few bites for Shamu. But you never watched ME eat one. It was also only a few bites for me; shoulda been more. I would take one little bite and as soon as the melted cheese and bacon hit my palate, wham, it was all going down the gullet, like a White Castle slider. Wash down with a gulp of hot creamy coffee. Yum.
But yeah, do that for a couple months, and on a body that isn't used to absorbing fat, and watch what happens. In college when I tried to eat more to gain weight, it felt like most of the food just passed through me; I was 115 pounds when I started college, and 115 when I graduated. I really had looked forward to the "freshman 15" too!
Well, I only weighed 120 after the Dunks gorging for a few months, but to my dismay, I had the beginnings of LOVE HANDLES. Not a huge deal, and some people even commented that my face finally was healthier and fuller (which didn't really thrill me, since I'd always liked having lean features in the face area)... and then the guy I was seeing at the time commented on my waist getting fuller and more spare-tire-ish.
Around the same time, Zeitgeist-meister Douglas Coupland published "Microserfs", a book that has had great impact on my life at a number of junctures. One of his choice phrases in this novel was "skinny fat person", the concept that you can be underweight and still be out of shape. It had never occurred to me before. And thus, my time at the gym began!
Flash forward 13 years and a handful of relationships. My current boyfriend says he "loves my little tummy", but of course it bugs me to no end that any weight I've managed to gain (I now weigh a healthy 140 pounds) seems to drift downward: My legs always develop nicely, but my arms are still toothpicks, and my tummy is still soft. I'm reminded of the guy in college who people used to call "potato-body" because he had a big body and little spindly arms and legs, like one of those science experiments where you put the toothpicks in the potatoes. I'm not that bad off, though.
In fact, one annoying and yet comforting this is that my friends often marvel at what good shape I am in. This makes me happy, but it also annoys me because they don't realize that what I hope for is a bit of a change in shape. I don't expect rock-hard abs (only had those once, when I was sick for 2 months and was puking several times a day; NOT a recommended way of doing it, so don't get any ideas!) or "big guns", but it would be nice to see the next 10 pounds I gain feel like muscle, not fat. I've watched friends of mine go from skinny to jacked over the years, and sometimes I wonder if they have some deep dark secret (well, I know a couple of them do, but that's a story for another day...)
Anyway, the good news is that I didn't have a headache Thursday morning, and that I felt much better about the whole Linden Lab thing after talking with some friends. Now back to my crushing deadline: Geckoman has to be ready to present to the National Science Foundation on Tuesday!
