An Ode To Food

You know that piece of grammatical roadkill that goes: Nothing tastes as good as being thin feels?

Well, never mind that being thin doesn't, by nature, taste like anything. Even if I were willing to get with the subtext of this ridiculous saying, let me assure you: EVERYTHING tastes better than being thin feels.

Take it from me. And other sane people.

Admittedly, I have a higher degree in the Bacchanalian love of food. I'm that girl who will come to your dinner party and love your roasted red pepper soup appetizer so much that I'll eat three-bowls of tomorrow left-overs after dessert. Which I will also have eaten. Two servings of. (And then, every couple of years, you'll make it for me at future dinner parties, just for the amusement of seeing me ingest as much as I can.)

Confession: I can't keep ice cream in my house without, almost immediately, eating every last spoonful like a person who's just been liberated from a desert island. Sometimes I have to avoid Little Italy because there are just too many gelato cafes.

All the things made of dairy and sugar and flour and alcohol taste awesome. Mix them together, throw in a token protein, add some good music and a few friends and you have a recipe for life happiness.

The thing is (or so goes current thinking) that "feeling good, being thin" has relatively little to do with the the good tasting things that you do or do not eat. Current nutritional texts posit that people are generally so for a variety of nuanced reasons (as are fat people): genetics (ding, ding, ding), metabolic rate, hormonal interactions, modern lifestyle. I suspect that the amount one eats has less to do with one's weight than practically any other factor, which is why lots of fat people eat very balanced diets and lots of thin people eat massive quantities of chips and the fat people still can't taste the goodness of being thin. And the thin people have zits.

This is why I am shocked (and frankly dismayed) to find that 2 months on a restricted diet has yielded some interesting results.

Disclaimer: All food restriction has been due to a fleeting illness. Lord knows I wouldn't choose it. However, ingestion challenges aside, I have likely never eaten more healthfully than in the last 3 months if for no other reason that I had to delete the following Kristin-certified food groups:

• Booze (sob)
• Sugar (except for honey in water and frozen wild blueberries)
• Flour (who knew that gluten can make your throat close up?? Oh yeah, the peeps with Celiac disease...)
• Dairy (nature's perfect food. Seriously, I never knew that dairy had the starring role in my diet till now.)

First I'll say that it's hard to find the meaning in life when you can't eat what you want. I know, I know, it's melodramatic. I don't care. I'm not backing down on this. A large part of the depression I've felt during this illness is correlated with my inability to eat. And then the inability to eat things that are actually enjoyable. I felt this same, hideous ennui throughout the 9-months of my pregnancy. Sure, I am a particular - one might say, excessive - breed of gourmand but I can't even bring myself to wish, on those going through short or long spates of food-limiting illness, a diminished desire to eat.

In my opinion, the loss of drive to eat, the loss of food-joy, is terrible. Why would I wish that on anyone, ever? I'd much prefer to spend my energy wishing those same people health.

For my own part, I have most certainly not wasted away but I have changed more than the modern nutritional science texts would have had me believe was likely. Again, I have no idea how my current shape correlates with weight cuz I don't weigh myself. I've already said that I've lost about an inch of circumference from all of my measurements. That's hardly extreme. It's not like I walk down the hallways and people gasp over my transformation. But, as my acupuncturist said the other day: You look smaller. Everything about you is less "there".

Egad. Why on earth would I want to be less physically, energetically (or otherwise) there? It is my express goal to be as there as possible until it is no longer possible! (Sure, I'd prefer to be there in as toned and symmetrical a way as possible while I'm at it, but you get my drift.)

People often think I am much taller than I am. Why? Well, partly it's being bien dans sa peau, partly it's confidence. I sure do work an enthusiastic mien. I am not a shrinking violet - not unless it involves wearing that shade from head to toe. So, I'm not quite down with being "less there" seeming.

Add to that my own personal perspective that getting thin as a result of the inability (or unwillingness) to eat is totally sad and it starts to seem that being thin isn't all it's cracked up to be, like, according to the ungrammatical sayings.

Please do not misunderstand. If you are naturally thin and you eat as you desire to live happily and healthfully in the world, it's a mitzvah. Likewise, if you are naturally fat, and you eat as you desire to live happily and healthfully in the world, you are blessed. This post isn't for the peeps who are thinking about how to shed some mass - and, surely, this is sometimes an appropriate course of action. There are many other posts on that topic...

But I will say this, as I have had much time to contemplate my current shape over the past 3 months: Although I am extremely mindful of potentially dissatisfying bodily changes on the horizon (vis a vis the perimenopausal decade I find myself in), I would MUCH rather have to shore up massive amounts of self-discipline (and maybe even regularly fail to achieve it) and eat and drink to my heart's content, than to ever lose even one iota of my gourmandise.