This Post Is Not About Sewing

Let’s switch gears, shall we?

Lately I’ve been all about sewing, not so much about the body I’m sewing for. I have to say, I’ve observed the physical impact of sewing on me, and I don’t love it. (I know, I said this post wouldn’t be about sewing, but I have a small issue with obsessiveness. Please try to look past this little inconsistency. I promise it's going somewhere.)

Um, I just counted the number of times I said “sewing” in the last paragraph – ostensibly to tell you that this post would be on another topic – and it’s pretty scary.

Here’s the deal: While I may walk my ass off every day, I am certainly not putting in the time on fitness in any other way. My yoga practice, such as it isn’t, is inadequate to take the edge off my sewing-soreness, much less to keep me flexible and strong. There are poses I used to do with my eyes closed that I really have to psych myself up for at this point. I mean, when I can bother getting psyched.

I’m starting to think that the sewga room is not an optimal space. Every time I go to practice yoga, I end up doing a little something with the serger, or reading a bit in some book, or reviewing a pattern. Time was, I was this non-stop about the yoga. And let me tell you, then I looked utterly fine.

I’m a couple of weeks into a lifestyle tweak designed to increase tone and fitness level, and to rebalance my eating habits. That’s code for I’ve cut back on red wine to 5 oz / day, and I only have one, small treat each evening.

(OK, re-reading this I have to laugh. It’s not exactly the most restrictive eating overhaul in the world. I mean, Jennifer Aniston would probably throw up from fullness if she ate as much as I resist every day.)

But y’all know I love food. And with Christmas coming, I’ve got to make sure I leave the getting fat to the geese.

One of my well-ingrained lifestyle overhauls from years past is to eat real food. For example: Good chocolate vs. crap candy bar. If I cannot decipher the ingredients (or if there are more than 5), I just say no. That’s actually a fairly painless thing to do. Because there’s lots of good, real food of all varieties. I also do not drink anything with sugar (unless you count red wine, and I choose not to). Happily, I loathe pop and juice doesn’t do anything for me. I also like my hot drinks to be bitter. That’s a pretty good way to weed out empty calories.

(Proviso: I do have a half-sweet, non-fat, extra-extra-hot, no-whipped small hot chocolate as an afternoon treat when I cannot stand the idea of being without a post-lunch dessert. I urge you to try this - I’ve converted many people to this drink. It’s so much less gross than a full-sweet hot chocolate, which can throw you into diabetic shock with alacrity, never mind the hideous metallic under note of fake whipped cream. Of course, most of the converts force me to order it because they’re too embarrassed to do it for themselves.

Whatevs, it’s my 4 bucks.

I’m a woman of a certain age. Really, I love to say this, to be this. But a woman of a certain age – she who embarks on the train to peri-menopauseville – generally has to pay attention to the changes in her metabolism if she wants to continue to look a certain way.

There’s a female archetype I resonate with: the woman of the Forties, or Fifties or Sixties, who drank her wine and ate her cream sauce but did so with admirable moderation. Of course, that woman would never dream of tarnishing her queenly image by discussing this in a (gasp) public forum. That’s where we diverge, I guess.

This woman would not have eaten junk food – what a waste of a waist (I imagine she would say). She probably didn’t have much access to it back in the old days, before HFCS. She cooked red meat on a regular basis. It wasn’t loaded with hormones and antibiotics, even if she bought it at the grocery store. She enjoyed unpasteurized cheese and crackers with neat aperitif. She wouldn’t eat half a President’s Choice frozen tiramisu (and I’m not confessing to be the kind of modern woman who would do this sort of thing).

I’ve written about moderation – not one of my fortes – many times as it pertains to food consumption. It’s a lifestyle choice I am committed to because the alternative is unappealing to me, on me. I choose not to go "extreme" when I change my diet. It’s food. I have to live on it. I don’t want to shock my system – body or mind – and I shock easily. I also recognize that every day I live in this body is a day I am exceedingly lucky – and a day that differs from each one that preceded it and each one that will follow. How I look today is neither better nor worse than how I will look a week from now. It’s a moment in time, a dot on the continuum.

At any rate, diatribe over and out (but look at how few sewing references we encountered, in the scheme of things!). I’d love to know how you feel about self-maintenance, about your diet and lifestyle, about how sewing might impact them for better or worse. Or parenting, or looking after loved ones who may not be well. Or working long hours. Do tell.