Post: 1
Day: 11
In the grand tradition that all Americans undertake when the New Year comes -bringing all our imperfections, short-comings, and dissatisfactions into light- I steadfastly devoted myself to the resolution that this year, unlike all the ones that went before, will be the year in which I get my weight under control and my life back in healthy reigns.
Too long have I allowed that wily, tricky, sneaking chub that is the result of so many gorgeous slices of pizza, so many perfect hamburgers, so many splendid late-night tacos…too long have I let my love of food take precedence over love of myself.
When my grandmother passed away last October from complications from an untreated tumor on her liver, the very principles of health and happiness were called into question for all that were touched by her passing. My grandmother didn’t tell anyone -until it was too late- that certain things about her just weren’t quite right. Out of convenience, or maybe selflessness, she kept to herself, didn’t complain, and waited on all others until she just got to the point where her body wouldn’t let her do so anymore.
At 23-years-old (soon to be 24!), I’ve decided that health and happiness are two things that absolutely must go hand-in-hand for me. Coming along for the ride is my Nicholas who, like me, has fallen victim to his own culinary vices. We’re not fat, per se, but for two people in their early twenties with veritably no health problems, we’re just a little more cushiony than we ought to be. But like I told him a few days ago, we may not be able to take full credit for that. “We’re taking advantage of the fact that we’re still young,” I said in our kitchen, musing over the circumstances surrounding our current physical state. We’re not fat, but we’re not thin. And whatever relative thinness we do have may only be the by-product of our youth. In fifty years, will we still have that to fall back on? No. But hopefully, we’ll have good habits to balance us out.
I realize that a good portion of my current reality is my fault. I choose to eat things that I know are not good for me. I choose to come home, lie on the couch, and watch Nickelodeon. I’m the one who kept a secret stash of Oreos on my bookshelf (while Nick indulged in tubs of ice cream at night). But beyond all this, I blame one thing: my former job.
I spent one year of my life working as a blogger. Ideal, in the respect that I could work from home, basically set my own hours, and -if I worked fast enough- could have the whole of my day to myself. Ideal. Too bad that didn’t happen. Starting your day in your pajamas is a good way to finish your day in your pajamas. And working from your bedroom until 1 in the afternoon is a good way to blow off the rest of your day and just stay as you are. Sure, I didn’t take the initiative to do more, but it was like I was being tempted with laziness and convenience -and I indulged.
Slowly but surely, I started to snap out of it and become more aware of what that lifestyle left with me. When jeans that fit me perfectly two years ago barely fit me now, I worried. When I started filling in my bras a little more than I would have liked, I worried. When I had to stop wearing jeans altogether because none of the ones I owned fit me comfortably anymore, I woke up.
At 5’2″, I don’t have much space for excess weight. For most of high school and early college, my hovered steadily around 110 lbs. Today, well, I haven’t exactly had the courage to find out. However, as the happy little Mexican that I am, I’ve always found that I had a little extra curve than some of my other friends. My darling Filipino roommate from two years back, who shared my same shoe size and same immaculate taste in fashion, never managed to break beyond a size 2, and often complained of her lack of boobs and a butt (I had ample of both). Back in the dorms, when I borrowed my neighbor’s bikini for a spur-of-the-moment pool trip, I -and the unfortunate French girl who loaned it to me- bemoaned the fact that the top was just way too small to cover even 1/4 of me (although I think this caused more pain to her than it did to me). Several inches taller than me, this gangly girl just had her goods spread thinner. Mine were more concentrated and, until recently, I never had cause for complain.
Nick’s story was a little different. He was shocked back into reality after he had to continuously slid back, notch after notch, on his belt until finally, the once proud 30×30 faced the truth and became a 31×30. Coming from a vegetarian household (though he himself is an avid meat-eater), his weight gain was particularly astounding to his remarkably petite mother who, like my own, has always had natural thinness, good eating habits, and a penchant for exercise to keep looking fit.
Too many little things that we just brushed off. Too many of them ganged up on us and forced us to face our own shortcomings. So we fused our wills, and embarked on this effort together. So far, we’ve been doing the best we can. Here are our methods:
Being as modern as can be, we each equipped our iPhones with the Lose It! app, and have begun counting, regulating, and chronicling our daily caloric intake religiously. But that is only the beginning. We have cut out fast-food almost entirely (with the exception of a plate of penne pasta at the Ikea cafeteria) and have started cooking for ourselves (a habit we have already been enjoying, but have now embraced whole-heartedly) and we are trying our very hardest to operate under one rule: make it colorful.
Too long have we (and you?) been hearty bread-and-meat eaters. Fruits and veggies were shamelessly relegated to the realm of garnish, and we barely stopped to think twice about it. Now, we are trying to flip that mentality. But, as we are but poor, working students, and we don’t have the time or luxury to be stocking our fridge with the season’s best, we’ve had to bend the rules. Where time, money, or quality fail…there is V8. And you know what? It makes for a lovely arrabiata sauce when mixed with diced tomatoes, bell peppers, a little chicken stock, garlic, and onions.
Which leads me to another point. No more processed foods! If we can make it ourselves, we do. Orange chicken? (Which, by the way is very easy! Vegetable stock, teriyaki sauce, and orange marmalade =finger-licking magnificence) Done at home. Pizza? Done at home. If you control how you make something, you control what goes into your body. That means salt, fat, oil, etc.
I have been led astray. Let me state here and now that we are hardly paragons of healthy perfection. I fear that our love of saucy Italian, savory Chinese, and glorious Mexican will never fade. And to be quite honest, we don’t want it to. Food and eating are some of life’s greatest pleasures. To enjoy good food and good company is a thrill without compare. But what’s even better is to know that the food you love -the food that just tastes so good- can, at times, be good for you as well, so long as you make the effort to give certain things a second thought.
Do you need soda? Nah, juice will do. And there is always everyone’s calorie-free favorite: water. Do you need things deep-fried? Nah, grilling tastes just as marvelous, if not better. The little, unnoticed things that led us to our present unhealthy predicament are slowly being reversed and replaced by a whole new set of little things: little things that, with time, might just add up to a better life.
Nick is cutting sodas, cutting calories, and learning to love spinach. I’m reducing my love affair with take-out into a passionate marriage to home-cooked meals. And the morning guidance of Special K. Let me make one more fact clear: we’re not dieting. Dieting, to me, always sounded like a messy mix of sacrifice, misery, and low self-esteem. What we’re trying to do is change the way we look at food and eating. We don’t want to eat and feel guilty. We want to eat and feel good. We want food to be what enriches our lives, not what makes them worse.
We’re far from our goal, but we’re well on our way. Next up? Exercise! Stay tuned.
