Tuesday, December 16, 2003
Although it doesn’t happen much anymore, one of the most frequent topics of “you know what you should do?” conversation was the one on which I solicited the least advice: dieting. I never knew whether it was because I was, once upon a time, an easy and obvious candidate for weight loss, being much more of a muchacha than I am now, or whether diet regimes are so embedded in the landscape that it has become expected of all of us. I will never forget the look on Lloyd’s face when I told him that a friend and co-worker, a stunning 23-year-old Taiwanese woman, already a hardcore gym rat, decided to go on Atkins. At least in New York, or at least in the circles in which I work, there is an idea that it is somewhat immoral not to be on something. If you are not in need of dimunition, then maybe you need to do something about your triglycerides, or your HDL/LDL ratios, or your insulin resistance, or maybe all of these are fine but you want to know how to make them better.
In my case, though, no one would have looked twice at me if I announced that I was going on Atkins, because once upon a time there was much more to this bakerina than meets the eye. (There also used to be less than meets the eye, but that is for once and future times.) What garnered looks was my polite thanks for the advice, but no thanks, I’ll figure it out for myself. I could see the unspoken assumption in their eyes: but wasn’t it figuring it out for yourself that got you fat in the first place, dear? Depending on the receptiveness of the friend in question, I would explain that I had spent years taking similar advice from people who knew the trick, who had the key, and all I needed to do was follow their path. I spent years on Pritikin and Atkins and Stillman and a particularly wiggy diet by a particularly wiggy female bariatrician who was famous in the late 70’s/early 80’s, a woman who regularly wrote diets for Teen magazine and counseled us that there was no reason for a fat teenager to eat more than 850 calories a day. I tried Weight Watchers, safest of the bunch, which gave me an excuse to obsess over every blessed thing that went into my mouth. I even tried a regime of, shall we say, disordered eating, the kind favored by ancient sybarites and frightened college girls. I was rewarded for my efforts by losing 5 pounds, then gaining a minimum of 10, yearly, for 10 years. You can do the math.
In the end I decided that I couldn’t do any worse for myself than I had allowed the experts to do for me, so I started making sneaky little changes, the kind where every time you find yourself with a craving for stale candy from a vending machine, you force yourself to have a cup of tea instead. (The stale candy habit is gone, but now I have a wicked tea habit.) Last February, when I suspected that I was pregnant, I started eating a lot of broccoli and craving foods with a lot of sesame in them, like hummus and halvah. The pregnancy turned out to be a false alarm, but the broc habit stayed, and I remain staggered by how much halvah I can put away. Most importantly, though, I decided that I was not going to cut anything out. More vegetables? Why, yes, thank you. Lean meats? Mais oui, bien sur. But I am not going to panic if I go to Zarela for dinner and the gallon of mole sauce her chef made that afternoon contains a teaspoon of lard in it. I will give up the stale vending-machine chocolate, but if someone offers me a brown-butter-flavored ganache from La Maison du Chocolat, I am going to thank that person profusely, and possibly plant an open-mouth kiss on him/her. And I am not, not, not going to give up starches.
Yes, I know that you lost 50 pounds. I know that you have more energy. I know that our ancestors were hunter/gatherers, more suited to hunting mastodons than cultivating grain. I have heard it all, and I’m glad that it works for you, but if you tell me one more time that our wee baby little intestinal tracts were not designed to eat that big bad bowl of oatmeal, I am taking that oatmeal, and the little pitcher of heavy cream and the brown sugar and the wee dram of Macallan 18 that accompanies every proper bowl of oatmeal in my house, and I am going home. And before you make some well-meaning comment about how much faster I would get thinner if I just gave up all of that oatmeal and millet and amaranth and barley and polenta on which I warm up during the winter, let me remind you that there was 37 pounds more of me to tell this to when I did it your way. Pardon me while I add one more dram of Macallan 18 to my oatmeal.
If you are not a fan of oats but you still like the idea of a hot breakfast to power you through a cold morning, any good cookbook on grains can give you instructions on how to cook them and what to serve on/in/with them. One of the best is Mollie Katzen’s Sunlight Cafe. It is an all-purpose breakfast cookbook, filled with recipes for eggs and potatoes and breakfast puddings and pancakes and waffles and muffins, but for me the crowning glory is the comprehensive grains chapter, filled with clear, friendly instructions on how to cook and serve them. One of my new breakfast staples is amaranth wafers, made by patting cooked amaranth into silver dollars and pan-frying them at a high temperature in high-oleic safflower oil. Because the oil can be heated to high temperatures without smoking, the wafers stay crisp even at room temperature. Lloyd likes his as a sweet, with maple syrup. I prefer mine savory, with tiny dabs of sour cream and a little Maldon salt. There are recipes for oatmeal cooked in sweetened milk with chai spices, couscous with dried fruit and yogurt, barley cooked in apple juice, and my very favorite, Orange-Pecan Skillet Millet, made by cooking millet risotto-style in vanilla-spiked orange juice. I love it like mad, and Lloyd does too, even though every time I make it, he crows “who’s a pretty boy?” in a spookily-accurate parrot voice.
If you are a fan of oats, you may want to try to procure a copy of this. It is out of print, but copies pop up here and there. I got mine from my home away from home, Kitchen Arts & Letters (212-876-5550). If you buy it, be prepared: People will look at you oddly, wondering at you as you chuckle over this little book of whimsy. Let them look. You and I know good stuff when we see it.
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Bakerina at 10:40 PM in
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I am a lover of oats. Since childhood. Irish oatmeal is best. Maybe because I am Irish? I could eat oatmeal nearly every day. In the winter, it is a no-brainer.
my weight obsessions are my own, thank you, i’m damn well entitled to them, even if it’s only my very skinny paternal-side relatives who greet me as they did this summer: michael! you’re fat!
when i was young, wearing next to nothing (hi naked jen) going round and round the track, the lard-ass weightmen used to shout, what concentration camp did you come from, or i don’t know, things more yellable but of that gist. when i was in racing shape i was skin & bones & like a blueprint (pinkprint?) for muscles. i loved being light. a kindhearted (nincompoop) shrink put me on dexedrine and i scripted myself a whole lot more, falling in love with that clean clean burn, the weightless clarity wh precedes mortal exhaustion. and yep, i used to advise those of the extra pound, just get out and run yourself to death, once you feel that burn you run will forever to taste it again.
as an extremely aimless teen, i used to go on streaks of 80 or more miles/week. since i was on the road so much, there was hardly enough time left in the day for eating. i used to eat spaghetti, raw, chewing a serving for four at a time, one box after another. blend: orange juice concentrate, ice cream, milk, an egg or two, granola, a whole lemon, two tabs 8-hr aspirin (cuts the sweetness nicely): suck it down. anybody who ever slept with me swore i was a furnace; i liked to think of myself that way.
light as a ghost, lifting myself up like a child. had a whole lot more energy then. cardio, i’d easily be above 200; now it’s near-death to get to 130. that’s the lithium, keeping me level, like a whole lot of ballast in a river barge.
i do active stuff, sort of… been swinging a sledgehammer, lifting big rocks and small children… i’ve got shoulders now. still, i remember talking to this guy, a pure nut, one of the few runners i knew i’d never beat… his times had recently dropped, he was getting paid-invites, and i was asking him what had happened, why was he suddenly so good… his face dreamed over in bliss and he moved his hands as if in stride, saying, i just love going fast…
Please note that I’m reluctant to comment and out myself as zaftig, but there you have it...it’s just that folks make so many assumptions about anyone who struggles with weight, particularly if one is female.
I’m definitely going to start putting scotch in my oatmeal.
*smile* I’ll be brave. I weigh about 200 lbs, more or less, depending on the time of the month, my recent diet, etc. I’m 5’ 9 1/2” more or less.
When I was in high school, I ran cross-country. Unlike our friend orion, I hated it - but I ran and I had not an ounce of extra fat on me. Curiously enough, I felt huge. I wore a size six, and you could count my ribs. I could visualize fat where I had none. I weighed 146 lbs, and I dreamed of being thinner. I refused to wear tops that showed my tummy, or a bikini, because I felt so fat.
Now, yes, I’m plump. I’m just plump enough that I have a tiny little roll about my middle. My cheekbones no longer have hollows under them, and my thighs brush together when I walk. I still have an hourglass figure, though. You know what?
I’m much, much happier with my plumpness. I feel womanly. I wear a 36D, and I’m proud of my beautiful breasts. I have a bit of a tummy, and I don’t care. I like eating what I want (within reason), when I want it. I like being me, being soft, and warm, and something for a man to hold on to in the middle of the night.
Courtney, you are a goddess. 
Brave on many levels, too.
One thing I forgot to mention in all of this dieting foofaraw is that I’ve always been able to take a decent amount of exercise. I walk everywhere, I climb a lot of stairs, I do a lot of heavy lifting. The fact that I’ve always had a lot of physical activity just points out to me how insane my eating patterns became. There wasn’t an exercise regime anywhere that could make up for the kind of damage I was doing.
I was also a distance runner in high school (I do believe we’ve spotted a trend here). I could run far, but I couldn’t run fast, and I always felt inadequate and humiliated as a result. Now, of course, when I can run neither fast nor all that far, I wish I had treated myself with more kindness.
The irony is that when I was a runner, I also tried lifting weights, but I was unnecessarily petrified of bulking up, so I never lifted enough to produce any real difference in strength. As a result, I was really, really weak. I would try to use the chest press machine at the Y, where the smallest amount you can lift is 40 pounds, and my triceps and pecs would shake uncontrollably. Now I am much less of a runner, I’m pretty much thankful that I can run at all, but I got over my fear of weights and now I surprise myself with how much I can lift. I no longer fret about never achieving that lighter-than-airness that our orionoir described so well, because now I know that some of us are built for speed, and some of us are built for power. I will never feel the ecstasy of fast movement, but I do know the sensation of pushing 80 pounds away from me, my shoulders and chest and arms filled witht the lactic acid burn, wondering if I’m going to drop the bar and crack my sternum, hearing my trainer say, move it down slow, push it up fast, don’t hold your breath, don’t grimace, don’t grunt, just exhale. The rush of breath that came from me as I pushed that weight up over my chest one last time, I have never felt anything like that before, or since, but I shoot for it every time, with every muscle I have, and it makes me feel like a brand-new machine.
My 18 year old daughter is built much the way all three of us (sorry, orionoir, you’re now being left out of the girl talk) appear to be by all indications. She’s not a runner, but I’ve never seen a woman with so much strength, particularly upper body strength. She’s lean, large, and can either bench or squat her own weight, and it impresses the hell out of me. Built for power, that one. Definitely. Particularly of the political kind, even more than physically. This kid is brilliant and plans to major in international relations, eventually to go on to international law. She struggles with self-esteem issues, since she isn’t the size six many of her friends are. I keep telling her it doesn’t matter, that it’s good to be larger than life.
Snowball, we all know that orionoir lives for the girl talk, despite his blustery disavowals. 
Seriously, your daughter sounds like a brilliant, beautiful and impressive woman. It pains me to think of her feeling self-esteem issues at such a young age, because I had them, too, convinced that those 10 pounds were the difference between beautiful and ugly, and if I’d just left myself alone and taken care of myself, I wouldn’t have had the issues of the intervening years. Now that I am within horizon distance of that shape (albeit in much better physical condition than I was at 18), I tell myself, if you get to that within-7-pounds number, just leave it there, leave it where Jesus flang it, as the church ladies say.
She is going to have a great time in Ireland, and I know she’s tough enough for international law. But if the self-esteem issues are a sticking point for her, tell her to consider this (admittedly reductive, I know): Julia Roberts is a size six. Barbara Stanwyck was larger than life. Who would you rather be?
Scotch in Irish oatmeal? Hell, yeah! Although if you wanted to purify the blood, as it were, you could substitute an Irish whiskey, or you could forgo the Irish steel-cut oats for whole oat groats, the way my forebears ate them in Scotland, where the men were men and so were the women, or something like that.
*takes a bow* Thank you, Ms. Bakerina.
Speaking of self-esteem issues, you know what always gets me? The fact that women think that men want bone-thin women, when in fact, they do not. Look at porn stars. One mediocre one has more T & A than the top 10 highest-paid actresses put together! And pornography is what men think of as sexy, right?
*sigh* I know that there is the odd male who demands a thin female. My father is one - he likes a 2 X 6 in bed, and never fails to remind my mother that she isn’t one.
And, I know that most men like women to be smaller than they are, blah, blah, blah. But, I tell you what, you only need to find a man secure enough with himself that he wants a woman he can warm his hands on. One thing I’ll give J is that bone-thin as he is (can’t help it, poor thing, metabolism higher than a kite), he’s never told me that I’m ‘too big’ for him. Quite the opposite - he loves every inch of my curves.
Snowball, I hope your daughter finds a man to love her curves!
wow. there’s so much i could say here. body issues are one of the reasons i AM nakedjen. the media has wreaked havoc with our brains, men and women alike. Snowball’s daughter has self-esteem issues based upon a number that no one but she can even see! that number isn’t on the outside of her pants. it’s on the inside. by all accounts she’s a strong, beautiful, gutsy, amazing woman. and she feels inadequate. ICK!
i say this all the time, but i’m going to say it once again. every single one of us (including you orionoir) has a beautiful and amazing and unique body that should be celebrated and cherished. why? because it’s yours and no one elses. there is no one else walking this planet who is exactly like you. who has the same cheekbones and lovely eyes and funny toes and even thighs that might perhaps rub together. human bodies are amazing and delightful. each and every single one.
in my own life, i found that weight-loss actually came when i started to love my body instead of being critical of it. i’ve always been nakedjen, but when i became nakedjen who stood in front of the full-length mirror and told herself how beautiful her breasts were and how lovely her ass was, well, then i became healthy nakedjen who was toning up and losing weight. no diets. no magic bullet pills. no “extra” exercise. just love for what and who i am. that was all it really took.
go love yourselves. take a few minutes, look into the mirror, and tell yourself just how amazing and beautiful you are.
back in the oatmeal & body-image girls support group, and as the representative of all men in the history of history, i have to weigh in on *what* *men* *really* *want*: to sleep with mom. failing that, babysitter with a strawberry liquorice whip will suffice. as for porn, courtney, the genre has fragmented into a zillion pieces, thank you internet. i seem to have gravitated to a site purporting tb ‘home of the girl next door’, which you would think would be a picture of the house immediately adjacent to one’s own, but no. of course, since fakery abounds, these aren’t *really* the girls next door, nor even the ones across the street. for that, please see naked jen… but, nj, you’d be surprised… among the typically tawdry titillations, there are a few women who aren’t so far from your ideal, which in my mind is the unblinking honesty of t&a verite. or, as the spanish would say, camino rea’l, n’est pas? as for real life (lipo rea’l) i am truly a man of the world, baby, les femmes, je suis fondue. fat ones, skinny ones, babes who climb on rocks, nice girls, evil girls, even ones with chicken pox… gosh, where did that tune come from (adjusting self)?
can i go on just a bit longer? there’s a wonderful story by susan minot “lust” re her time at a ct prep school, a mini-memoir of a painfully observant slut. for me it reads like truth. one of her lines is about penises… “they’re like faces, they’re all different.” (she follows with a wrenchingly funny summary of penises she has known, including one resembling a cluster of walnuts.) i’ve found that pussies too are all different, as is the totality of each woman’s body. our bodies are faces writ large. sex, like smiling, is an expression.
["lust" --> “ rel="nofollow"]http://students.juniata.edu/blazell1/lit%20pdfs/lust.pdf]
orionoir, that Susan Minot story is one of my favorite short stories ever. I read it in college and it has stuck with me, on an almost daily basis, ever since. The last two lines, for me, constitute one of the best ways to end a story, rivalled only by the last three lines of White Jazz by James Ellroy, which, of course, is a completely different milieu, but I think the feelings of vulnerability and longing are the same.
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I am a lover of oats. Since childhood. Irish oatmeal is best. Maybe because I am Irish? I could eat oatmeal nearly every day. In the winter, it is a no-brainer.