I'm not the kind of person who routinely takes pictures of their own figure in order to post them on the internet, so bear with me. I was watching the season premiere of The Biggest Loser the other night (oh Hulu, how I love you) and was shocked by some of the statistics they shared in the show's opening. I don't know why I was surprised--it seems like every time I hear about the obesity epidemic, it's gotten worse.
It's funny, whenever I meet new people, and they find out what I do, the question inevitably follows: "How do you stay thin?" I used to think of this as a lighthearted little compliment, and I do believe that's how it's generally meant to go over. But I'm starting to think I owe people a more in-depth answer than just, "Hard work, honey, that's how." Because that's not really very accurate.
To be fair, I've never had a weight problem of any real severity. I've been mildly overweight at times, and I'm only 5'3" so a small weight gain is very noticeable on my frame--but the times when I've gained weight in the past were always times of intense stress of one kind or another. I've never been fat and don't know what it takes to lose a large amount of weight and keep it off over time--I understand that it's tremendously difficult, and certainly what I do to stay a size 4 would not work for someone with a much higher "set point" than mine. I'm also not a nutrition or fitness or medical professional of any kind, and so you should take my advice for what it's worth to you but please don't consider me an expert on any of this.
While I'm not an expert, or a marathon runner, or a supermodel, what I am is a real woman with a totally normal frame and metabolism and all that, who leads a busy life, doesn't live at the gym, and has a BMI of 22. Most important of all, I love food as much as anyone. If you know me or have ever visited here before, you already know my professional life is a hymn to sugar, heavy cream, butter, and chocolate. I'm surrounded by these things all day, and yes I really do eat them as well as work with them. Then when I get out of class, I eat what the culinary students have been making, which is freqently classical French cuisine with lots of butter. And yet I'm thin. I know for a fact that I don't have any more willpower than the overweight students I see around me at school. But I obviously do some things differently from them and from the 2/3 of Americans who are overweight. Of course I don't have all the answers or a magic bullet, but I have more or less figured out what works for me, which I will attempt to share for anyone who might find this information useful:
1.) I eat breakfast every day. I mean every day. Whether I'm hungry or not. Even if I feel like I need that 20 extra minutes of sleep, I get up and eat breakfast. I know that I can take a nap later in the day, but if I don't eat breakfast, I will feel sluggish and cranky all morning, and I hate starting my day like that. So I get up, throw my whites on, stumble up the hill to Roth Hall, and eat breakfast. Even when it's so early that the breakfast kitchens aren't open yet! I have been known to find myself alone in the dining hall, bleary-eyed at 4:30 a.m., dutifully eating my Kashi. The nutritionists say that eating breakfast is pretty much crucial for a healthy metabolism, and I believe them. But that's not the main reason I do it--I just know that when I don't do it, I feel awful until lunchtime.
2.) On a related note, if I'm going to consume a huge pile of junk food, it's probably going to be early in the day. My big splurge meals tend to be weekend brunches, or the occasional self-indulgent weekday breakfast. I mean, sometimes K-16 will take unsold pecan danish from Apple Pie and French toast them. I can't say no to that, could you? But yes, breakfast is my favorite meal of the day, and I will happily forgo unhealthy food later in the day if I got to start off with a small mountain of cholesterol. I hear that this is actually the best way to overeat, because at least your metabolism will spend the whole day chugging away up that mountain, like the little engine that could, rather than just going to sleep as it does following a really heavy dinner.
3.) When I do eat a ton at breakfast, I often have just a salad for dinner. It felt a little weird the first few times I did it, but it really is all you need if you had a huge meal earlier in the day. And it's oddly refreshing to fall asleep without feeling very full.
4.) I drink a lot of water. Anyone who knows me well knows that I also have to go to the bathroom a lot, but I consider it to be worth it, except on long car rides. I started this habit back in high school, when I joined the cross country team. I remember one day at lunch seeing the captain of our team--who was a really good runner and one of the coolest people I'd ever met and I definitely wanted to be just like her--struggling to carry three glasses of water from the drink machines back to her table. It had never occurred to me to drink more than one glass of something at a meal. But I realized she was making sure she would be well hydrated by the time practice rolled around in a few hours. I started drinking as much water as I could too, and found that I felt better while running because of it. After high school I gave up distance running but kept drinking water all day long because I had gotten so used to the feeling of being well hydrated. Now I'm so accustomed to it that I'm very attuned to when I need water and almost never allow myself to reach the point of actually being thirsty.
5). I don't drink soda. Or eat fast food. I know, I know, I've basically cut out America's two favorite food groups! But if you have even the faintest shadow of an interest in nutrition, you already know that these are not really "food" so much as "addictive crap that, while it can be ingested and does contain calories, nevertheless does nothing whatsoever to promote your well-being other than provide a momentary high." I see these two categories of "food" as being a little bit better for you than cocaine. Worse than cigarettes. That's right, I said that. Cigarettes are just bad for you, while these are bad for you and make you fat. In an emergency I have been known to eat at Arby's or Subway, but the burger places really are dead to me. It's not just about health; for me there are ethical considerations too that I won't get into here. Simply put, I don't agree with the way fast food companies do business, and the knowledge I have of how their products are made and marketed ruins any enjoyment I might get from sinking my teeth into one of their burgers. And that's that. As for soda, I will occasionally sip a rum and Coke, but we're talking like two or three times per year.
6.) I don't go out and drink 6 beers and eat a plate of nachos every Friday night. I drank plenty in college and haven't been much of a partier in several years, and fortunately my boyfriend and close friends are not big drinkers either. When I do drink, I have one or two drinks of something really good. No pitchers of PBR here, but I will take a Tanqueray martini, thanks.
7.) I spend a lot of time in motion. I didn't say exercising, because being in class and walking around my campus aren't workouts. But they sure do burn more calories than sitting at a computer. On weekdays, I am on my feet a bare minimum of six hours a day. On weekends I do a fair bit of walking. This is not to say that you should quit your desk job and discover the joys of manual labor. Let me tell you, it's not always joyful--during my externship I would sometimes put in twelve hours or more on my feet, and I definitely wasn't happy about it. But there is a certain satisfaction to having sore muscles and a physical feeling of exhaustion at the end of the day. You know you got something tangible done. Now that I'm used to that feeling, even if I did have a desk job I think I would cultivate a physically demanding hobby, like gardening. Chris' dad is a very accomplished gardener, and I've seen him come home from the office and put in another four or five hours of work outside, coming in only after the sun's gone down. Not surprisingly, he's thin.
8.) I don't keep junk food in my room. I say "my room" because that's how much space I have here, but you get the idea--I wouldn't keep junk food in my kitchen if I had one. Sometimes I have a bar of really good chocolate around, which I'll nibble at over several days. I always have tea on hand. And I keep a box of oatmeal and a bottle of honey on my dresser if I need a snack. But that's the only food that lives in my room--if I kept more snacks around, I'd just eat them because they were there.
9.) I know what I can live without. And I live without it. My vices are sugar and coffee (and breakfast food, as aforementioned), and the rest is not that important to me. I can't remember the last time I had fried chicken. I had some French fries a few days ago, but before that it had been months since I'd had any. Potato chips...snooze. Pizza...meh. I enjoy all of these things but I don't suffer without them. I suffer without coffee and all of its variations--the elation I feel at Starbucks now that the pumpkin spice latte has returned is really out of control, but there it is. I'm also powerless when it comes to the types of things I work with here at school: dark chocolate, cake, ice cream, cookies. I'm sure a nutritionist would be appalled by how much sugar I consume--but I never claimed to have a perfect diet. Still, I can distinguish between what I really crave and what I merely want, and choose accordingly. I mean, when it's pie day in Baking Techniques, and the coconut cream pie shows up in the dining hall...game over. I surrender. Also too, when K-16 serves the pasta with broccoli, mozzarella, and cipollini onions in a roasted red pepper cream sauce...that's the best pasta dish this side of spaghetti carbonara.
10.) I am pretty close to being a vegetarian. I eat meat once or twice a week and fish once or twice a week. I probably make up for whatever saturated fat I would have gotten from the meat by getting more than enough butter and heavy cream in my diet, but I still think it helps that I don't center my meals on protein. It leaves more room in my diet for things the Standard American Diet is noticeably skimpy on: veggies, fruits, whole grains, legumes. More than half of the time, I order the vegetarian entrees from kitchens here. I don't do this in a health-conscious way (meat has always been one of the things I know I could live without) but because I like most of these other types of foods more than I like meat. I don't love fish but I force myself to eat it regularly for the omega-3's.
Aside from these specific patterns I've noticed in what I do routinely, I think it's worth noting that I have a lot of respect for food as well as love for it. I take food seriously, not as a momentary source of pleasure, like a one-night stand. For me it is more like a long-term relationship, and I pay attention to how I treat food just as I pay attention to how I treat my boyfriend. If I didn't pay close attention, either one of them could wind up making me miserable. Instead, I want them both to bring out the best in me, and they won't do that if I abuse them by demanding that they solve all of my emotional woes. I know what they can do for me and what they can't, and I try not to expect more from them than what they can offer.
