Thoughts on…Food
No lie, when I was eleven years old, I signed myself up for a “healthy body” (aka weight loss) weekly program. By no means was I severely overweight. But I had a tummy. And I was a pre-teen. And I was nervous. My mom had been on and off of weight loss programs for my entire life, and I think it was just ingrained into me that one day that would be me.
I never abused my body. No eating disorders or severe exercise programs. But it always bothered me. I swam from ages 11-18 mostly in hopes that it would keep my weight in check. And I’ve been on some kind of 5 day/week exercise program since then. I weigh myself daily and log it in my journal. I go easy on myself on days when my weight is where I’d like it to be, and I eat differently on other days.
Please don’t get me wrong; I am not overweight. My BMI is just fine. I’m just trying to maintain my weight. But I’ve noticed over the last few years how very, very easy it is for me to gain weight these days. Conversely, it is very, very hard for me to lose even a pound. I’ve always blamed that on the fact that I’m so active, it’s hard to get even MORE active. I mean… unless I’m injured, I exercise in some way seven days per week.
I recently finished a book called “Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It“. And it got me thinking about food. Again.
I drank the “high protein-low carb” diet plan Kool-Aid long ago. And this book re-emphasized it. I already knew the main idea of the book. I did not, however, know the biology because fat storage and hormones; as a biology major, I could sort of follow along. My favorite part of the book was all the history of weight gain in the last few hundred years. You know, the years that white flour and white sugar became the cheapest and most mobile food source of all?
So… I’m back on board and trying again. My lunch today was lettuce, rotisserie chicken, pepper jack cheese, and jalapeno slices. It was actually quite delicious.
What do I worry about? I worry about my kids. The childhood obesity levels are out of control. And my kids are the king and queen of carbs. They spend most of their allowance of hard candies. They sneak something extremely sweet from somewhere daily. But, I don’t want to be a nag. I don’t want them to worry about their weight. I don’t want my daughter to weigh herself everyday like her mother. I don’t want them exposed to negative body talk that they hear from many women around me. Darn. This is hard!
Looking for a freebie about food to use with PreK or Kindergarten students? Click on the picture below! 🙂
It is hard. It’s so hard I hardly know what to do. I have sons. One 23 year old and a HFA 9 year old. I add the HFA in there because it makes it harder to deal with diet. He likes what he likes and he’ll drive me to a wine bottle begging for it. He is a carb vacuum cleaner, as was my 23 year old at his age. I can only hope he’ll do what his older brother did and that’s grow to 6’4 by the time he’s 14 and slim down, because I’m losing this war and right now he is overweight. Football season will take care of some of it, but it’s an ongoing battle. It’s hard to know what to say. I try to keep him active, but he’d need to be outside 3 hours a day to keep the weight off. We’re just built that way. This was a good post. At least I know I’m not alone. It must be much harder with a daughter. FYI, I’m 49. Trust me, soon you won’t even have to eat anything to gain weight. The food porn on Pinterest will add pounds.
I already feel like I don’t need to eat to gain weight. I can’t even look at pictures of delicious food without feeling heavier!