Betty Crocker Clinic

The above title refers to a hilarious episode of Sex and the City in which in a moment of weakness, Miranda calls up Carrie and exclaims: “Your good friend has just taken a piece of cake out of the garbage and eaten it. You will probably need this information when you check me into the Betty Crocker Clinic.” After hanging up, Miranda then proceeds to dump dish soap all over the trash-ridden chocolate cake.

What we women do to stop ourselves from eating.

I’ve had my share of strategies to stop myself from eating that “one last” chip, or french fry or cookie. When I used to hit up my university’s dining hall my friends and I would pour soda on our food to make us stop eating it, I’ve covered my leftovers with threatening post-its, and I’ve taped that wonderful phrase “nothing tastes as good as being thin feels” to my fridge, to my door, and to my mirror. And by the way, to whoever first uttered that phrase, I beg to differ.

The topic of these “stop eating strategies” was touched upon in the notorious and controversial Marie Claire article (The Hunger Diaries). While I think the author of the article gave an extremely biased, poorly researched, and unprofessional view of the 6 bloggers (especially Caitlin Boyle, whose Operation Beautiful is incredibly inspiring), I have to agree that food sabotage simply is just not healthy. There is clearly something bigger going on when it takes threatening messages or literal spoiling of food to stop eating. I already admitted that I was an avid food spoiler myself, but I’ve recognized that there has to be other alternatives. For me, it was trying to create a healthy relationship with food, one in which I did not want or need to ruin what I was eating. I had to convince myself that I am lucky enough to have food every day, and that I don’t need to stuff myself with as much food as possible because it will be there tomorrow.

These days I find myself cringing as I watch my friend buy a $5 pastry, take 2 bites, and then throw it away. Her explanation is simple: if she doesn’t throw it away, she won’t stop eating it. Does anyone else see a problem with this?! There are poor and starving people all over the world! I have a feeling that my healthy-food-relationship-epiphany was sparked from the 5 months I spent in South Africa; I couldn’t believe that I used to buy expensive food, then waste it because I just “couldn’t stop eating”. It was time to get a grip. I think that people who rely on food sabotage as their #1 weight loss/management tool need to take a real look at themselves and what they’re doing. For anyone who wants to create a healthy relationship with food and more importantly, themselves, the pathway is not through spoiling, destroying, or threatening.

Self Sabotage

This morning as I listened to an old Two Fit Chicks and a Microphone podcast on my commute to work, I got to thinking about self sabotage. It seems that in my own life I have been sabotaging my weight loss efforts for years, both consciously and subconsciously.

Two weeks ago I hit a major milestone weight wise. After a two pound loss I was down to a lower number than I’ve been at since freshman year of college. That was October 2006 – over four years ago. I remember feeling ecstatic and excitedly wrote on my private blog that for the first time in a long time, there was nothing stopping me. I wrote about how I had never felt so hopeful and was positive that I was going to succeed. Somehow, between then and now I’ve gained those two pounds back. Now, I’m no longer a slave to the scale as I once was (weighing myself multiple times a day etc. etc.), but I can’t help but think something besides my weight is up. How, in my extreme pride and excitement, did I manage to veer off track?

Looking back at my food log, it’s pretty obvious. My weekends have consisted of quite a few more drinks than normal, I gave in to drunk munchies on Friday night, and consumed more French fries and pizza in the past two weeks than I have in about 6 months. My exercise for the past few weeks has been pretty on track – in fact, I actually ran farther on Friday (7 miles!) than I ever have in my life. So why is it that instead of using my progression in fitness to further my weight loss, I chose to order Dominoes at 3 AM? I never thought about self sabotage before this morning, but I truly believe that is what’s going on with me – on a subconscious level at least.

I remember being in high school and thinking lots of “Once I _________, I will be happy” thoughts. That blank space was always changing – it could be “lose weight”, “get a boyfriend”, “get out of this town”, “go to college” and so on. I was always waiting for something. Once I got to college those thoughts continued and the blank space was adjusted, but the desire to lose weight was consistent. I always felt that once I lost weight, I would be happy; everything would suddenly make sense and have a purpose. This thought was exciting and always lingered in the back of my mind, but I wasn’t ready to lose weight yet. I knew that no matter how many attempts I made, the weight was not going to come off permanently. Now that I’m at a point where I know my weight loss will be long term, these thoughts are beginning to scare me. What if I lose the weight and I’m not happy? Perhaps my recent regain was a subconscious attempt to sabotage my success in order to avoid finding out the answer to that question.

But I think I already know it. If tomorrow I woke up and was miraculously at my goal weight, the happiness would be fleeting. The truth is, weight loss in itself is not going to make me happy. Through my horrendous breakup, I’ve realized that I have always relied on another person for my happiness. The reason I felt so stripped after Jonas decided this was really over was simply because I had put so much of myself into him. When the relationship was taken away from me I not only lost the man who had been my best friend for 8 years, I lost my self-worth and hopes for my future. I have a lot of work to do, and I am pushing every day to change my view on my life. I hope that the changes I’m making when it comes to food, love, and fitness will not only bring weight loss, but will bring me true happiness. Weight loss in itself is not the answer, just like “getting out of this town” or “getting a boyfriend” wasn’t.

Today I made the choice to stop sabotaging my efforts. I have nothing to be afraid of.

Introductions

All relationships start out with introductions, and if I want this blog to be a success, better start from the beginning. So here goes nothing...

My name is Julie. I'm 22 years old and living in Boston, trying every day to find ways to slow down my looming college graduation this May. I love all things food, health, and fitness (well, not ALL things fitness), and fancy myself as quite the little experimenter when it comes to cooking, heading out to restaurants, and trying new exercises. I'm starting this blog for a few reasons, and being the organizer I am I feel it only fits to split it up by the 3 headlining words. Let's start with the most important...

Food: I've had a love-hate relationship with food all my life...heavy on the love. Since I can remember, I liked food just a little bit more than my peers. Did I say a little bit? I mean a lot. I distinctly remember being in 3rd grade and paying a friend 25 cents to sneak into the lunch room and steal me extra pickles on hamburger day. Since I was young I've had a calculated way of eating to ensure that I was always getting the best bite possible - whether it's eating my sandwich in a circular pattern in order to save the bites with the most fillings for last, or eating french fries in size order to ensure that the largest (clearly the best fry, right?) was saved until the end. But what if I was full and couldn't finish those last delectable bites you ask? No way. I finished everything on my plate. Coming from an Italian family in New York, leaving food on the plate was never an option. My average nightly dinners started off with huge pieces of garlic bread, followed by pasta and meatballs served family style (aka all you can eat), and finished off with some sort of cream filled Italian pastry. I can go on and on about how my childhood has shaped my struggle with weight loss, but I'll keep it short for now. Starting at the mere age of 11, I realized that despite being an incredibly athletic child I was still on the chubby side, so I began dabbling in every diet program under the sun. The weight came off and on for years, and by freshman year of college I was stuck at an unhealthy weight. The past four years have been filled with weight loss experimentation, and it is only recently (about the past year) that I have my health under control. I've been slowly losing weight and every day learn something new about living a healthy lifestyle. I've become obsessed with cooking and love trying new foods and recipes. My relationship with food has become a love affair, and luckily a healthy one.

Love: Speaking of healthy relationships...on to the next word of choice. This one is a little harder to talk about. I've been in relationships all of my short life, at least since I started to recognize the opposite sex. Let's head back to the fourth grade: my first boyfriend. I fell in love with the smartest kid in school and got my first kiss on the cheek soon after. This first boyfriend is now my best friend and today we have a lot of fun discussing the guys we both think are hot. Yep, you read correctly. My first boyfriend ever is gay! Ha! Moving on...the middle school relationships came and went with their share of kisses, rumors and tears. Sophomore year of high school was my first "love", let's call him Bozo, as in Bozo the clown. Bozo was one of those ideal high school boyfriends: tall, attractive, on the football team, overly sensitive and hormonal, funny in an obnoxious sort of way. Bozo started crushing on me when I was dating some older guy from the other side of town. Luckily I came to my senses and decided to give my long time friend a shot. It was your typical first high school love. We were obsessed with each other. I pushed away my friends, I stopped going to parties because he didn't like it, I lost my v-card in a way only a dramatic teenager could, and I started wearing sweatpants every day because he thought I was beautiful no matter what (or was it because I was eating too many "I baked these because i luuurve you" chocolate chip cookies...). Bozo ended up hitting his mid-life crisis on the early side....ahem 17-years-old, and started dabbling in the likes of drugs and musical theater. He broke up with me, quit the football team and joined a band. I was a destroyed little girl and thought I'd never fall in love again. Luckily, just a few months later I started noticing that my favorite middle school friend had grown up while I had been off in my relationships. In the summer before my senior year we had our first kiss, which was followed immediately by some craziness from Bozo, who suddenly wished he didn't dump me! Looking back on this time, there is a lot I wish I had done differently. What I do know is that it was the first time (and unfortunately not the last) that I would let a man treat me horribly. Bozo hurt me in some incredible ways, yet for some reason I felt it was important to keep our friendship going. This had some pretty negative effects on my new budding relationship with...let's call him Jonas. I managed to successfully ward Bozo off just in time to enjoy the start of a new love affair and my last year of high school. I'm not going to go too far into the relationship that lasted five challenging years with Jonas, but I'm sure some follow up posts will have some sad and juicy details. Overall, the five years were filled with jealousy, loneliness, fights, and distance, and sprinkled with the occasional good and happy time. Why did I stay in this relationship for so long? Why have I let the two men that I loved in my life treat me so poorly? That's what I'm trying to figure out, and I hope this blog will help me do it.

Fitness: We all react differently in our breakups. Some people stop eating, some eat everything. Some throw themselves into work, some throw themselves into the arms of the first man they see. For me, I threw myself into fitness. When I moved back to Boston after the final fight in my relationship, I was a broken girl. I couldn't get out of bed. I didn't want to go out. I dreaded the idea of coming to work. I'd take regular breaks to go cry in the bathroom, and I thank my friends wholeheartedly for putting up with my constant babbling about how Jonas could hurt me so badly. One of the many positives in moving back to Boston was that I live about one minute away from my University's beautiful gym. Since I now needed a way to fill up my endless amounts of free time, I decided to start taking advantage. Now I had always used the gym - in fact, I even worked there! This was all part of the past four years of experimenting with diet and exercise. But this was the first time that I started to LOVE my gym. I began to love working out, and it was the only thing that could make me feel even slightly better for just a moment. I decided in the angst of my breakup that I wanted to be a runner, and I didn't care how long it took me to get there. In high school I was always an athlete; I played Varsity soccer for 5 years, and ran Varsity track in the spring and winter for four years. But I was a sprinter, I could never run more than a mile or two. This June the first time I got on a treadmill I could run half a mile, and I didn't care. I worked up to running my first 5k ever without stopping, to running a 10k without stopping in September, and am signing up to run a half marathon in March. For the first time in a long time I feel like an athlete again, and I am loving the exploration of fitness through running, zumba!, and personal training.

I want this blog to serve as a way for me to dive deeper into my feelings on the three above subjects. All three are equally important in my journey to a healthy lifestyle filled with self appreciation and acceptance. It's unfortunate (but more often the case than not) that sometimes we have to feel our lowest in order to realize that something within us needs to change. Maybe it's being at your heaviest weight, maybe it's dealing with the effects of a horrible breakup, or maybe it's the realization that you can no longer walk up the stairs without feeling winded. In my case, it was all three. I won't daresay I hit rock bottom, but a few months ago I was feeling pretty low - some friends even felt like they didn't recognize me. I'm pushing through on becoming the woman I want to be, and I'd love to share the journey. Happy reading.