Changing My Perspective on "Diet"

So, before I dive in, I just want to say that this blog focuses on my journey and is not intended to be a prescription for anyone else's. In other words, I'm in no way suggesting that anything I did or do is what everyone should do or be. I'm mainly writing this for myself. If anyone out there finds anything I say helpful, that's great! I am very aware, however, that those of us outside the norms of what society finds acceptable in terms of size are so often bombarded with advice directives in the form of advice -- everyone is always telling us what we should be doing differently, or what we should never eat, or how we should be changing any and every little thing. I'm trying to be sensitive to that, and only speak about what helped ME.

That said, there are two things that have really helped me get to where I am over the last year: feeling good (i.e. healthy) and looking good (i.e. finding clothes and other things that help me love what I see in the mirror). I'm hoping to alternate posts between these two things and general inspiration/thoughts about body positivity in our culture.

I'll start with feeling good and how I changed my diet to positively impact how I feel. On April 1 of last year, I decided to start just tracking what I was eating. I had gained a lot of weight, and I just didn't feel well. But, I have plenty of experience with so very many diets, and wasn't enthusiastic about re-committing to any of them. I just can't face another low-carb diet, even though they work for me. Calorie restriction also works, but I'm very concerned about the unnatural the additives in "diet" food, and the emerging research that shows that a lot of these additives mess with your body chemistry. I promised myself no judgement and no guilt -- I was just going to log everything I ate and get some insight about what I might, eventually, want to change.

I knew there were apps that would help me with this, and the first one I went with was HealthWatch 360, for one major reason -- the micro-nutrient tracking is the best I've seen anywhere, and since I was more interested in my overall  health than simply in losing weight, I really liked having this information available.

HealthWatch 360 food log and calorie tracker

HealthWatch 360 has a website and an app (iPhone and Android), and I used both (they sync, even though the website and the app have slightly different names). Basically, you enter everything you eat, doing the best you can to be accurate as to portion sizes, and their software calculates not only calories, carbs, protein, fat but even things like iron, vitamin D, Zinc, Potassium, Niacin and 22 other micro-nutrients, including cholesterol. It also breaks down the fat and carb analysis into various categories. As you track, the app calculates a nutrition score (out of 100 points) that tells you whether you're in the "green," "yellow" or "red" for that day. Below the score, little green smilies, yellow neutral faces or red frownies tell you which particular micro-nutrient is contributing to your score, for better or worse, and which foods contributed to the problem, if there is one. A click will take you to a more detailed analysis.

Like many other similar apps, you can set weight loss goals with HealthWatch 360, which will give you a calorie goal for each day, but the other unique feature is that you can track how you feel, how you're sleeping, your blood pressure and other health indicators and then set the app to look for trends that might be linked (or not) to diet. Like you can track sugar intake and energy levels, or protein intake and how well you sleep. There's an exercise log as well, where you can track your exercise, and also gain back calories (if you're tracking those).

Starting out, this was exactly the kind of information I was looking for, and it was a big eye-opener, especially when it came to exactly how many calories, and how much fat and sugar, I was consuming, and how little of other vital nutrients. It wasn't so much the amount of fat and sugar that was shocking -- it was the percentage of my diet that was taken up by those two components. Just having that knowledge motivated me to pay a little more attention to what I was choosing to eat, and how much. After a couple weeks of tracking, I felt ready to begin a more concerted effort to try to lose weight, and improve my health, by staying under a specific calorie target, and watching fat and sugar intake was a major component of that effort. I also used the micro-nutrient information to make sure I was choosing things that were lower in sodium and higher in iron, B vitamins and other places where I know my typical diet is deficient.

After a few months I did get really frustrated with their food database, which was very limited compared to My Fitness Pal, especially because I cook a lot and it was hard to find specific products for the recipe ingredients. So once I had a good baseline in terms of the kind of food I should and should not be choosing, I switched over to My Fitness Pal, which has a fantastic database and also has a more generous (in my opinion) calorie allowance for weight loss goals. Over the summer, however, HealthWatch 360 made some upgrades, which included expanding their database, so I switched back. It definitely is better than it was, but the searches are often a little weird and it's not always easy to find some products or ingredients.

As I continue to monitor my health, I'm no longer that interested in weight loss per se, or calorie counts. But I've stuck with tracking my food intake via HealthWatch 360 because I have chronic deficiencies in a couple areas (iron, Vitamin D and calcium, to name three). The iron deficiency is caused by biologic and genetic factors so it's not entirely addressable via diet, but it is good to know when I'm in danger of having a day with little to no iron intake.

I can't stress enough how important it was to head into tracking food with the attitude that I was just seeking information, rather than using it as another way to beat myself up. Just knowing how what I'm eating contributes to how my body functions and approaching nutrition from a health perspective, instead of from a perspective that emphasizes restriction and "good/bad" foods, was a really eye-opening change for me that helped me see eating as something I could do to take care of myself, rather than something that was either a punishment or a reward.

If anyone knows the original source of this image, let me know.

One Month Progress Report: I'll Take It

So yesterday, Dec. 31, was the one-month mark of my 13-month odyssey to the land of no carbs. While this experiment isn't about weight loss so much as getting a handle on my tendency to overload on dietary sugars, I'm not too proud to admit I hope to lose some weight as well. So I'm pleased to report that I've lost 8 pounds so far. That works out to about .25 pounds per day. At first, .25 pounds per day doesn't sound like that much, but if I lost .25 pounds per day for the next 365 days, I'd lose 90 more pounds. I don't have 90 pounds to lose, and I'm also not naive enough to believe that I won't eventually run into a plateau or even a brick wall; but even if I lost half that amount in the coming year, I'd be smaller than I've been since high school. That would be interesting, to say the least.

In other news, I've been trying to practice body appreciation instead of body hatred over the last month, and I've been surprised at how quickly some of my perceptions have been changing. It's not that I see myself differently, per se, but my internal dialogue is a little different. If I catch sight of myself in a mirror, or see a picture of myself, I still experience that shock that comes from seeing what I really look like, versus what I think I look like. But instead of feeling despair, I more often have felt acceptance. I'm more likely to think, "Well, that's what I look like, and that's ok. If I want to change how I look, then I should, but for now, it is what it is." That's progress, for me.

As for my commitment to eating no carbs, I'd say I've been about 85% this month. I've already written about the trouble with family meals, which continued on Christmas day when I was confronted with a meal in which absolutely nothing, except the roast, was LGL. So I ate, but I took small portions of everything and didn't go back for seconds. I did, however, have dessert. And my body freaked right out. So lesson learned there. If I don't eat sugars that immediately impact my blood sugar, I don't experience racing heart rate and palpitations. Seems pretty easy to figure that out.

I'm also getting much more sensitive to sweetness. I was at a meeting before the holidays where lunch was served (it was supposed to be ham, but turned out to be lasagna; I ate about half). I figured since I had already violated my "diet", I might as well have a cookie. I took one bite and almost passed out -- WAY too sweet. I also had a bite of coconut shrimp the other day at Ruby Tuesday -- it tasted like a doughnut. The only sweets I have been eating (other than these deviations) have been Cutie oranges, very dark chocolate, and the occasional CarbMaster yogurt. It's amazing, to me, how quickly things can change.

This is about as sweet as I can take right now.

So one month down, 12 more to go. So far, so good. And I promise, I'll have more posts about dance coming soon!

Happy New Year, and all best wishes for you for 2013!

Eating for Others

No, I'm not pregnant -- no, no, no, nevermore. What I'm reflecting on today is how difficult it is to disentangle the emotional ramifications of food from its purely nutritive aspects. I'm not really talking, here, about eating to self-comfort, but about how other people respond when you decline something they have made (or bought) for you that you do not want to eat. Or that you really, really do want to eat but shouldn't. Or that you've promised not to eat for a whole year (who would do something that crazy, I ask you?).

Oh beautiful pineapple -- why do you hate me so?

It's one thing if you're allergic. I'm allergic to avocados and pineapple (wah!) so I feel no guilt whatsoever in not eating food containing those ingredients. But I'm not allergic to cornbread, or cookies, or potatoes. And that's what I was faced with this weekend -- delicious, delicious homemade iron-skillet cornbread, sugar cookies made specially for us, and potatoes that couldn't, by any stretch, be politely picked out of a vegetable soup.

Nom. Nom nom nom.

So, as you've probably guessed, I ate what was set in front of me. We went to visit some elderly relatives of my husband's and she had prepared a delicious meal just for us. To be honest, health-wise it was not over the top. No scalloped potatoes or deep-fried chicken. The desserts were fairly light. But none of it was "on my diet."

Yes, I could have said "no thanks, I'm on a diet." Maybe I should have said that. But there is something so off-putting, to me, about sitting at a table where everyone is eating except one person, who is not eating by choice. It seems rude, to me. I know that our hostess would not have been offended (probably), but she probably would have felt guilty  in that good Southern hostess way, that she didn't cook something I could eat. And while I'm on the subject, I also think it's rude to require someone to change their whole menu just for you. [Again, I'm not saying that these are immutable etiquette rules -- I'm talking about how *I* feel about issues surrounding refusing food.]

So yeah, I could have lied. I could have said that I don't like any of that stuff. But that also comes across, to me, as rude, having been raised to at least try something of everything on your plate and not to refuse to eat food offered by one's hosts. I REALLY don't like seafood, of any kind, but honestly, if I go to someone's house and they serve seafood, I'm going to pretend that I like it. I was raised to believe that's just good manners.

I could have lied and said I'm allergic to corn, or wheat, or meat. But that kind of lie, besides being a little over the top, can also come back to bite you in any number of ways. First of all, all my in-laws were there, so they'd know I was lying. But even if they didn't, it would mean, given the fairly basic nature of the food we were eating, that future meals with this couple would be pret-ty limited (and also more likely to contain seafood -- urgh).

I could have said I was full. But again, that seems rude to me. If you know you are going to someone's house for a meal, why would you fill up beforehand. I get pissed off at my husband if he snacks before dinner, if I'm cooking, because I see that as disrespect for the effort I'm putting into making him food.  I could have brought my own food, but that also seems off-putting to me -- it seems supercilious and snobby TO ME. It's like saying, "Yes, I'll spend time with you, but I can't eat what all you normal people eat -- I need *better* food."

The mantra of many diet programs is probably familiar to many of you: If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. But I did plan (a little). I ate some cheese on the way down, hoping it would curb my appetite a bit. But I wasn't prepared for the emotional landmine that surrounds family meals. Or formal family meals at any rate. I know some of you will say "But it's family -- they have to take you however you are." That's true, to an extent, but this is family we don't see very often, and I am very new to this family. I mean, she got out her good china for cornbread and beef stew.

I know that a lot of what I've said here reveals a lot more about my own issues with food than it has to do with the etiquette of dining.  But I also have to think that I can't be alone in this -- what is it about food, and eating in groups, and *preparing* food, that causes such intense emotional reactions?

No thanks, Grandma -- I'm just going to have a salad

In the end, I ate. I had cornbread, and soup (two bowls!) and cookies. I skipped the pecan pie, but that's mostly because I don't like it, and I felt I had earned one refusal since I had eaten everything else. I didn't go overboard. And I know I paid the price for it, both in breaking my pledge for the first time and in setting back whatever progress I've managed to eke out over the last two weeks. But I made a sweet lady happy (or kept her from being unhappy) and it seemed worth it at the time. I've been otherwise very disciplined over the last two weeks, but mostly by avoiding situations where I'd be tempted. But I'm going to have to come up with some strategies for dealing with more difficult eating situations if I'm going to manage to stick it out until 2014.

The Fat Dancer's Dinner: Curry Coconut Lentil Stuff

So it's Day 5 of the great experiment, and everything is going well so far. I've been doing meal planning and thinking ahead so that I don't get caught without any LGL (low glycemic load) options. For example, on Day 1, we went to a lovely wedding (congrats, Joey and Keith!) that included a buffet-style dinner. I had already heard about all the awesome food, like mac and cheese served in a martini glass, and chicken and stuffing, and baked brie -- all things that I can't imagine NOT eating. But, diets are easiest to follow the first week when motivation is high, and this was the first day, so I planned ahead. I made some soup (not this one -- this one is better) and ate a big bowl of it before we went. I truly wasn't hungry.

I did have some punch though. Everyone was in line for punch so I lined up too -- it wasn't until I was halfway through the glass (which was more like a mug) that I realized "Hey, this is full of fruit juice" (no sugary drinks for me until 2014). Then about 2/3 of the way through the glass I realized "Hey, what is IN this stuff -- whoo hoo!" But I just had the one glass. I normally don't drink fruit juice, so I wasn't too worried about this one lapse.

I do drink wine, though. Almost no glycemic load. And there was plenty of that. So -- whew! -- it's all good.

I did eat one tiny mac and cheese noodle off my husband's plate while he was busy taking pictures, if I'm being honest. BUT, I did not have any cake. It was really too beautiful to eat, anyway:

Check the cake topper -- so cute!

Anyway, on with the show. One of the main issues for me with low-carb diets is boredom. But, y'all, I found this recipe for Red Lentil Coconut Soup, and it is so versatile, and so freaking delicious, that I could have this once a week or so and not get tired of it.

I adapted the recipe a bit for my family who a) don't like soupy soups and b) don't like meatless meals, and here's what I came up with. I'm going to start with the base, because you could do almost anything with this base and I think it would be awesome. I'm not calling it a soup -- I'm calling it "stuff" because it's not quite a stew, but definitely not a casserole.

Coconut Curry Lentils -- Base

• 2 cups red split lentils (I couldn't find *red* lentils at either major grocery in town, so I just used lentils)
• 1 onion, finely chopped (the fineness of the chop is up to you, in my opinion)
• 1 red bell pepper cut into 1/2 inch dice
• 1 fresh jalapeno, finely chopped, including seeds if you want some heat
• 1 tablespoon fresh peeled and minced ginger (about 1")
• 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 1 tablespoon curry powder
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1/3 cup tomato paste
• 5 cups of water
• 1 can light coconut milk, unsweetened
• 1 tablespoon lime juice

Heat the tablespoon of olive oil in a dutch oven or large soup pan and add the onions, bell pepper and jalapeno and cook for 5-7 minutes until the vegetables have softened and start to take on some color.  Add the garlic, ginger, spices and tomato paste and continue to cook for 2-3 more minutes until the mixture is toasty and fragrant.  

At this point, the original recipe called for 7 cups of water. That's up to you. I only used 5. Add the water, coconut milk, and lentils and cook uncovered for 20 to 25 minutes adding the lime juice at the end of cooking. Adjust the seasonings if necessary before serving.

Now change it up...

I added three diced boneless chicken breasts when the liquid started boiling, stirring as I added, and let it cook with the lentils. You could also do any or all of the following:

• leftover cooked chicken, chopped
• leftover cooked roast, chopped
• crumbled, cooked bacon
• a bag of frozen cauliflower florets
• a can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed
• spinach or kale (we are not kale fans around here -- we've tried, honestly)
• substitute a bag of colorful lentils for the plain or red ones (our Kroger carries a couple lentil mixes) -- just be sure not to use a bean mix that includes beans that need to be soaked or pre-cooked

Garnish and Serve

Cut a little cilantro over the top. I haven't actually tried it, but I imagine some plain yogurt or even some fresh goat cheese would be good on top.

One problem for us with soups and stews is that we're used to eating them with rice or noodles. In this case, I steamed some spinach and put that in the bottom of the bowls, then ladled the stuff over that. But you could also serve this with cauliflower "rice," which is a staple of most low-carb eating.

Here's how it turned out:

Please ignore the state of my stovetop. Thank you.

Nom.

Now, I realize that lentils are not technically low carb. But they do have a relatively low glycemic load -- although every reference book calculates GL differently, which is frustrating. But according to Self Nutrition Data, a cup of lentils has a GL of 13, which puts them in the "medium" range. Good for a day when you're on the low side and can afford it. By contrast, a cup of chick peas has a GL of 23, but they are bulkier and you won't get as many in your bowl if you only use a can of them in place of the lentils. Or you can cut the amount of lentils in half and add more veggies.

My next big challenge is this weekend's workshop with Mardi Love. Not the workshop itself so much, which I'm sure will be fabulous, but eating. I'm used to stopping at Wendy's on the way home but I'll have to plan better now, because I know I will be ravenous. I'll need snacks that are portable, non-perishable, and non-starchy. Making my list now -- I'll let you know how it goes!

Eat Slow, Step 2: Empty Mouth

I've been cheating and working on doing this one before I've completely mastered eating with empty hands. But they just seem to go hand in hand: don't put more food in your hands while you're still chewing (step 1) and chew until all the food is gone (step 2).

I was skeptical that I was going to make progress on either of these things, given how ingrained my eating habits are, but it's actually getting easier to practice mindful eating. So, yeah, maybe behavior modification experts know what they're talking about.

In fact, I've had a really stressful week so far, and I have still managed to stay focused on my baby steps, so I'm feeling really optimistic that even if nothing else changes, just eating slowly is going to have an impact on how much I eat, which is less about weight loss than about not feeling sleepy and exhausted all the time from being in a carb coma.

Ok, time for coffee and a little pre-work work. Maybe I'll even get some dancing in today.

Progress report:
Combo 1, step 1: eating with empty hands -- 95%
Combo 1, step 2: chewing completely -- 85%

Working the Steps

So, getting the "inside me" to meet the "outside me" in the middle will definitely involve changing some things, including changing some things about the way I think, but also accepting that maybe there are some things that just aren't realistically going to change in the next year, or five years, or maybe ever.

One of those things that's not going to change is my relationship to carbs. Carbohydrates are my kryptonite, but only if Superman was not only weakened by kryptonite but also loved it and wanted to roll around in it every chance he got. When I was a kid, it was a family joke that if we ever went to a buffet, my plate would be covered in white food -- mashed potatoes, white gravy, rice, chicken and dumplings, noodles, pudding -- if it was starchy and sort of mushy and filled your mouth completely with awesomeness, then I was all over it (or it was all over me). I'm still that way, although that family joke has done what most family jokes do and shamed me into changing my behavior -- sort of. I mean, don't get me wrong, I love vegetables (and not just the starchy ones) and protein and foods of all colors, but does anyone ever crave a green bean? I don't. When I think about sinking into a state of food-induced ecstasy, I'm thinking french fries, mashed potatoes, orzo, egg noodles, dumplings, fresh hot white bread, cookie dough. I am not thinking chicken breast.

C'mon, admit it -- you didn't even notice that there WAS chicken in this picture.

My daughter has a friend who does not like mashed potatoes. I do not understand how this is possible. My stepson does not like anything that has a pudding consistency. What is wrong with these people? In the interest of full disclosure, these people are also both skinny. So... yeah.

Carbs literally make me happy. And in that sense, although I have never done the kinds of drugs that get you thrown in jail or cause you to need rehab, I believe that carbs are heroin. For me. My behavior in relation to carbs is very much like what I have seen on TV shows about rehab (so I'm totally an expert on this subject). I know they are bad for me, but eating them makes me physically happy in that they feel good in my mouth and emotionally happy in that I get very excited about eating them and am sad when they are gone. I try to give them up, which means going cold turkey, and it's ok for awhile, but I know they're out there. Other people are eating them. People all around me are enjoying that thing that I know would be so awesome.

People rehabbing are supposed to get new friends so they aren't tempted back into their old ways. I totally get that -- but I also get the junkie's resistance to doing this. Who wants to hang around a bunch of non-carb-eating people? How can they possibly be any fun? What joy do they have in their lives? A life without carbs must be a very sad and colorless life, pretending to be enthusiastic about any food other than bread, potatoes, rice and pasta.  But I hang in there for awhile; I try to think about all the reasons that I'm not eating carbs. I try to convince myself I feel SO MUCH BETTER without them. And I do lose weight.

But the siren call is always there and eventually I'll have a piece of bread. And it's so fucking good. Like better than sex or anything else. No, really. This is something I don't think naturally skinny people get. The best physical sensation my body produces comes from eating. Yeah, orgasms are good, but they require effort and don't last very long. Eating a chocolate chip cookie hot from the oven requires no effort, lasts as long as the cookies last, and is instantly repeatable. That's the problem, really.

Once I've had that piece of bread, I'll be back on carbs within a week, wondering why I ever thought not eating carbs was a good idea. And then the weight comes back on as well.  I totally understand why addicts cycle in and out of rehab -- the negative effects of your addiction get bad enough that you want to do something about it, so you try to stop indulging your addiction and the negative effects go away, but the addiction doesn't go away, and the memory of how awesome that addicting thing is doesn't go away either. Once the negative effects subside, that memory takes up a little more of your active consciousness every day.

I know 12-step programs are designed to help people re-construct a life knowing that they will always be addicted and that they can't have the thing that they're addicted to. Maybe Overeaters Anonymous is where I should be. But at this point in my life, I'm not going back to rehab (no, no, no). I'm going to try to be the alcoholic who still drinks a little instead. Lucky for me, if I do fall off the wagon, with my addiction I'm unlikely to kill anyone or get arrested, so the stakes are a lot lower. Also lucky for me, it appears that, in the realm of food addiction, there's some good evidence that it's actually possible to eat your cake and have it too (but not too much!).

So the thing I am willing to change is how I eat, to start with, as well as what I eat, within reason. I'm not quite ready for the total life makeover that 12 steps require, so I came up with my own 5 Steps:

1. Eat slow
2. Eat small
3. Eat smart
4. Stop Sitting!
5. Stay positive

Let's call them the 5 (or 6) S's. My goal is to work on one step at a time until I get it down to a habit that I don't have to think about anymore. I'll be tracking my progress here, starting tomorrow. I'll also be supplementing that with other stuff I've found helpful from The Beck Diet for Life, which is based on cognitive behavior therapy -- in other words, changing the way you think. Maybe if I work these 5 steps long enough, someday I'll actually believe that green bean fries will make me just as happy as McDonalds fries. 

So, yeah... This is my blog

Hi. About two weeks ago, I had the most unoriginal idea for a blog ever. "I know," I thought to myself, "I will write an awesome blog about dieting, where I will track my progress, and work my steps just like a heroin junkie (more on that later), and be really real about losing weight, and it will really WORK this time." In those two weeks, I gained 6 pounds.

I also realized that I am tired of dieting. Like, not bored with it, or cranky about it (well, maybe a little cranky), but just bone, dead, exhausted. I haven't tried every diet out there, but I've done a lot of them. I've done Atkins -- four or five times -- and it worked great, until I had a bite of potato and then all bets were off. I've done NutriSystem, and it worked great -- until I went broke (and also, their food tastes really, really weird). I've done the Six-Week Body Makeover -- apparently my "Personalized Body Type" requires a diet of nothing but broiled chicken breasts and brussels sprouts. That's not happening. I've done eDiets (I think I'm still paying for that, actually) and I've done Weight Watchers Online. I've logged calories on LiveStrong, and counted points and counted carbs and weighed every piece of food that went in my mouth. I've logged exercise and kept food diaries. I've done The Firm (like really done it, every day, for weeks) and Zumba and the Belly twins and on and on. And guess what?

I'm fat.

My husband and daughter say, "Shut up! You're not fat." But I have eyes, and also, I have seen pictures.

Photo credit: Bob Edens

I'm fat. My mom is fat (sorry, Mom!), my dad is fat, my husband is fat, my brother is fat (but getting skinnier), my aunt is alternatively fat or scarily skinny -- my family is a fat family (most of the time). My daughter takes after her dad's family and is totally normal weight but she is the only one in a sea of fat people. I think it's really too bad that making a statement of fact (person X is overweight) has turned into an attack. I'm honestly not trying to be self-hating when I say I am fat, or hateful when I say someone I know is fat. It's an objective observation that has become an insult, which is part of the problem I have with the whole body image issue.

I personally have never known what it feels like to be normal weight. When I diet, I don't even know what I'm aiming for -- and I think that's part of the problem. That number, whether it's a specific weight or a specific number of pounds, is a total abstraction. What would it feel like to weigh... let's say 60 pounds less than what I weigh now? I have no idea.

But that's not actually true. I was at least 60 pounds lighter in high school than I am now. When I was a young thing just out of college and living in Manhattan, I was so stressed out that I developed a weird eating disorder where I couldn't eat in public -- swallowing literally made me gag. I was a size 12! 12! I haven't been near a 12 in 20 years. But even though I have been in the magic normal BMI range before (if that's a real measure of anything), I've never, ever felt normal weight. I don't know what it feels like to not feel fat, even when, objectively, I wasn't fat.

I know what it feels like to feel fat, though. I felt fat most of my life. When I wasn't really fat, my inside image of myself was totally out of whack with what people were seeing. Part of the issue is that I'm tall and have big boobs and a really enormously broad back (thanks, Dad!), so people tend to call me things like "Amazon" when they walk by me on the street. I was always self-conscious about my size, even when size wasn't really an issue.

When I was in my late 20s, I moved to England, which is when something changed. The script flipped, so to speak (ha, I'm so hip). These days, if I never encountered a picture of myself, or looked in a mirror when I wasn't prepared, then I wouldn't feel fat either. In my head, I am awesome. Not thin, but curvy and shapely. In my head, my stomach is flat. My imagined self, as I'm walking around and doing my stuff and teaching my classes and dancing (more on that later, too) is freaking gorgeous and cool. I think that has a lot to do with why I have never been able to lose weight long term since I turned 30 -- now, in my head, I'm not THAT fat. But look at me (pictured here with one of my idols who is 10 years older than I am and at least 100 pounds lighter):

Photo credit: Pixie Vision Studios

Oh yeah, I'm that fat.

[Just to head off a bunch of negativity right from the start, I'm also healthy. Really. You can ask my doctor. She's not even worried about my weight. She's far more concerned that if I don't stop being such a stressball I'm going to collapse. But my blood pressure and everything else is A-OK. I even had a stress test recently, and they were NOT prepared for how long it took for my heart rate to get to whatever it has to get to. At first I could tell they were thinking, "Last one of the day. I'll get to leave early," but I just kept going.]

Seeing pictures of myself literally makes me want to kill myself. But one of my two chosen professions is highly picture-intensive, and also is totally about getting up in front of people and going "Look at me and my body! I'm awesome!" (My other profession is so totally the opposite -- although I do get up in front of people for about 12 hours a week, it's mostly to say "Look at this novel! It's awesome!" and then I go back to my office and sit in solitude [if I'm lucky]). I'm a big girl (ha!), so I don't kill myself every time I see a picture and even though I usually feel like crying, I don't. I skip past the really horrible ones and look for ones where I can go "That's not too bad." That's about as good as it gets. Here's a not too bad one -- I am winning a competition in this one:

It's still bad.

Or is it? I mean, that's my point, I guess. I am finally at a point where I feel like saying, "Hey, world -- this is me. Deal with it." But I have to be able to say that to myself first.

So I am fat. I am a dancer. I am a belly dancer. And I am awesome. But I would also like to be less fat. Because that is the world I am stuck in.

This blog is about my journey to having the outside me look more like the inside me. We need to meet in the middle.