time consuming = -calorie consumption?

(not a day goes by that a colleague doesn't mention this annoying triangle, but it's so frustratingly on target most of the time)

Heavy math. I have thought a million times about your post re. the eating and the learning and the struggling to do what should be one of the easiest things we do. After all, if eating is at the bottom of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, then it should be as basic a process as taking shelter for the night. I pay the rent, I have an apartment. I buy the food, I eat it. Except that basic isn't as easy as it looks. So sayeth P.

I have crowned myself Team Captain of my unit's (of the Valley Mental Health conglomerate) Holiday Weight Loss/Maintenance Team. I knew that if it was a competition, I'd get off my ass (literally and emotionally). For now, I'm okay with my weight being linked to my craving for an A+ -- for being the valedictorian of weight loss. Seems to me that you're more fully evolved in this area than I, and as I overachieve my way into a smaller booty, I hope to learn to eat.

Oh, and also, I got sucked into this. Someone found me and steered me to this wee struggling non-profit with the suggestion that I might help with grant writing. I can't do much, really, because I don't know tons about grants and also because I don't care to know much about them (despite once being paid a nice little salary for doing just that). I met with the "development team" (so named today) this afternoon and we already have a plan to offer a "healing movement" workshop for my inpatient clients. Hooray! I don't have much time for this project and so I'm being very selfish. In other words, I'm going to do only what I want to do and will squeeze everything out of this experience that might make me happy. And that's that.

I only wish you were here to play too. How happy it would be to have you inserted into my favorite parts of my days.

Love you,
p.

Miss my Pumpkin

Dearest P-is-for-Pumpkin,

Remembering Thanksgiving several years ago, me with pink hair and you with delicious cheese. Wish we could do it again this year.



All my love,

P

One answer.

Sustainable

My sweetest of Peas!

My heart is with you on this subject. Please don't take diet pills. Or get tucked or snipped or anything else. You are perfect and flawless as you are. I know this is an obnoxious mom-ish kind of thing to say, and I have also found it infuriating when my mom says it to me, but it is true.

Problem is, that doesn't solve the problem. My therapist and I were talking yesterday about this very issue. I talked about the good days: eating well and exercising and feeling great. I talked about the bad days: marathon eating from start to finish. Then, I talked about the worst days: starting out well with grapefruit and scrambled egg whites in the morning; moving to a healthy salad and soup for lunch; and then dissolving into desperation with a too-large greasy dinner and intermittent snacking right until bedtime. Her question was simple: "Do you know how to eat?" I was startled and a little offended. Yes, from the high chair and "here comes the airplane," I have indeed evolved into an adult human who can use her opposable thumbs to pick up a fork, thanks. Yes, I understand about food groups and three meals a day, as I am not a complete fucking imbecile. The more I thought about it, however, the more I realized that she is right; at a very basic level, I don't know how to put together a day's worth of meals, or to plan in advance to do this every day for an entire week, or to develop a practice that allows me to do this sanely for the rest of my life. She gave me the number for a nutritionist. I'm hoping she can provide me with a plan of attack. When I get up in the morning, what do I do? What do I prepare, and how much? What do I do after that? And after that?

I'll let you know how it goes. In the meantime, try snacking on raw sugar snap peas. I ate a whole bunch for lunch yesterday, and with every sweet bite I thought of you.

All my love,

P-


P.S. I added a new fave blog to our links; check it out. Pretty scary shit.

It's been a long time... (and diet drugs)

I miss the blog. Oh, and I miss you too, P. Even before I realized (with a roll of the stomach) that's it's NaBloPoMo, I thought that I should try to post one time every day. To sort it all out or to figure out if there's anything I can make with a keyboard that means anything other than "LOOK AT ME! I CAN'T SHUT UP ABOUT MYSELF!"

I had a dinner with friends on Saturday that, though mostly pleasant, was maybe 2 and a half hours too long. I was sitting with a beautiful plate of scallops and butternut squash ravioli in front of me and suddenly, I realized that I was sitting at a table that were it my dissertation would be titled "Eating Dysfunction: the Deconstruction of Diet Pills and Plastic Surgery." My pals exchanged stories about the diet pills and or prescribed uppers they're misusing for weight loss. Also, plastic surgery. Also, how can we push our food around our plates for an hour and appear to have eaten?

Not the way I'd like to enjoy a meal with friends. I felt so sad. I'm 33 and now, more than ever, I'm in the middle of a highly appealing eating disorder culture. I don't want it, I don't want to feel like I need it, but it's there. I got all kinds of tips about how to fake ADD or order Phen-fen from a company in India via a special club that sounds more than a little illegal.

Who are we? I made it through my teens and twenties and now, when everyone's supposed to be finally, happily settling into their own skin, I feel a little like a self-righteous idiot for not partaking of the short-cuts that are all around me.

I ordered diet pills yesterday.

xoxo
p