Cutting Out the Fat

After years of dietary fat being demonized, most people now know that some amount of fat in our diet is actually necessary. Unfortunately, we don’t seem to have had the same realization about body fat.

Consider this quote from Lori Gottlieb’s book Stick Figure: A Diary of My Former Self, which describes her experience with anorexia as an eleven-year-old, including being hospitalized and considering whether she might let herself die.

“I wanted to cut all the fat off my body so people like Leslie wouldn’t say I looked fat at my funeral.” (p. 191)

The tragedy of this is almost unbearable to me. Here’s a young girl, who’s interested in math and astronomy and so many other things, but believes that she needs to be super-skinny, without an ounce of fat on her body. Otherwise, why bother going on?

Nor is she alone in feeling this way. I’ve read about other women who fantasize about cutting their fat away, and many others lament about any fat on their stomach or thighs.

And why wouldn’t people feel that way? We’re always told about BMI charts and percentages of acceptable body fat. What I don’t remember is being told that a certain amount of body fat is necessary – until I had already started to suffer some of the problems associated with having too little.

For women, the biggest hit from having too little body fat is the impact to our hormones. Our bodies seem to decide that they don’t have enough to support carrying a child, so our menstrual cycle simply shuts down. (Most women would want around 20-24% body fat, although not everyone agrees.) This impacts bone density as well as fertility, resulting in the possibility of young women having osteopenia or osteoporosis.

But we don’t talk about this as a society. We focus on always cutting back, cutting the fat out, without recognizing that we need some of it. Even without those other issues, if you have almost no body fat, you get cold all the time, and have a hard time being comfortable sitting or lying down (you have no cushion, after all).

In my case, it wasn’t even just a matter of having less body fat than the “ideal” but also putting my body into a sort of trauma by having lost half of my weight. It meant that I became one of those who don’t have a normal cycle, which resulted in issues with bone density. I still don’t know what the long-term implications of that will mean.

So when people talk about having a certain amount of fat, remember that it applies to our physical selves, not just what we eat, and that as with all things, it seems to be more a matter of moderation, rather than cutting it out altogether.

Lighting a Candle

Do you ever feel like you want to slow down, become more mindful, but you don’t know how?

That’s how I felt a couple of weeks ago. In June I’d gotten a project at work with a very tight deadline, tight enough that I had to work evenings and some on the weekend. Self-care and mindfulness became casualties of the workload. I had even started getting used to it – and then it stopped.

But I didn’t.

Even though I had met the deadline, the new habits asserted themselves strongly. Who had time to sit down and enjoy a meal without multi-tasking? Why spend time stretching when you have so many other things to do?

When I found myself feeling almost panicky at the thought of free time, and racing through meals without actually tasting them, I knew something needed to change. But what? I didn’t feel like I had time or energy to commit to something big. What small change could I make that might help?

I decided to light a candle before my meal.

Before I could do that, I needed a space on the table free of books and cats and laptops to put the candle, so I cleaned it up. Then I realized I should sit at the table to enjoy it.

Striking the match, holding it to the wick, watching the flame catch – these all helped me pause, take a moment to breathe.

The gentle illumination felt soft, relaxing, inviting. It cast my meal in a warm glow, reminding me that my food was something to savor, not hurry through, as if I were in a race.

And by eating slowly, unhurriedly, I found myself able to go more slowly in the rest of my life, take time to pat the cats, go for a walk, enjoy the sunshine. My life fell back into balance.

Lighting a candle. Such a small change, but sometimes that’s all we need. What small step could you take?

How Much To Eat On a Date?

I’ve ruined dates because I haven’t eaten enough to satisfy my hunger.

I realize this may sound a bit strange, so let me explain.

Imagine a short woman (five feet tall, zero inches) who is on her third date with a nice, cute, gainfully employed young man who is taller than her and quite slender. They go for a long walk in a park, during which the woman finally tells her date that she used to weigh a lot more, in fact, 130 pounds more, than she does now. (She has been holding off for fear of how he’ll react.) He is impressed rather than terrified, and they go back to his place for dinner.

This is when the problems start. The woman is quite hungry, both from the walk and because it’s later than she normally eats. When she gets this way, she often has a hard time focusing on anything but food (including her date).

At the same time, she feels like she shouldn’t eat more than him. After all, society tells us that women eat less than men (perhaps because, as noted in last week’s post, so many women focus on dieting that it’s practically expected).

But more than that, since she has now shared her weight loss story, it feels wrong, somehow, to eat huge amounts of food in front of him. (It doesn’t occur to her that this isn’t all that different from her earlier shame about eating in front of people when she was heavy.)

And so she takes the same portion size that he does. In fact, she doesn’t have much choice, because he doesn’t have a lot of food available. It means that after dinner, she’s still quite hungry, and when he seems like he might kiss her, she thinks that if he does, then she’ll have to stay longer and who knows when she’ll get to eat? (Admittedly she also wonders what he expects beyond a kiss, this being a third date, but the food is uppermost in her mind.)

So instead of saying that she’s still a little hungry (okay, a lot hungry), she just ducks out and leaves, then eats her fill at home. Then she’s disappointed when things don’t work out with the young man, although in retrospect she can’t blame him.

This was me shortly after losing weight, when I was still figuring out how much I needed to eat in order to maintain, and clearly making some misjudgments. But even once I had a better handle on those amounts, I struggled with thinking that I shouldn’t out-eat my dates. I still feared being judged for what and how much went in my mouth, that I would need to apologize for it or explain that I hadn’t eaten much earlier in the day, etc.

I haven’t made this mistake for a while, although that’s at least partly because I haven’t been dating for a while. But in thinking about this again, I would say to anyone (myself included) that when on a date, or anytime, eat however much or little you need, without worrying about what others think or comparing yourself to them.

Easier said than done, I know, but well worth it. After all, as Virginia Woolf noted: “One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.” As I found out the hard way, she was right.

Does Being a Woman Mean Being On a Diet?

Note: This is one of a couple of posts with reflections on two memoirs I recently read by those who struggled with eating disorders:

• “Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia” by Marya Hornbacher
• “Stick Figure: A Diary of My Former Self” by Lori Gottlieb (diary entries from when she was eleven)

Do you think that being a woman means, by default, being on a diet?

I don’t remember ever thinking this way when I was growing up, but then, my mom didn’t diet. I never thought that perhaps this puts me in the minority until recently reading two memoirs by those who had anorexia. Both authors equated womanhood with dieting, and after reading their stories, I could understand why.

Take Lori Gottlieb, who became anorexic at age eleven. Her mother rarely finished her own food, instead giving most of it to her husband and son. She instead “tasted” everyone else’s food, and Lori sometimes found her sneaking sweets in the middle of the night.

Lori also had a friend whose mother had countless diet books, and it seemed that everywhere she went, diets came up as a hot topic of conversation among women. “Everyone’s mom loves talking about their diets and how full you can get from eating lots of salad.” (p. 34)

In fact, it was so much the norm that she believed that this was “just how you have to eat when you grow up.” (p. 59) That’s why she found it so hypocritical when those women who barely touched their food (especially her mother) chastised her for not eating enough.

As Lori lamented: “I wish I was a woman already so I could diet and people would think it’s normal.” (p. 89)

Marya Hornbacher had a similar experience. Her mother hardly ate anything, taking just a few bites before declaring herself full, and usually sticking to salads. As Marya hit puberty and began developing, she started following her mother’s patterns, nor was she alone.

She noted: “Puberty is a perverse rite of passage in contemporary culture…. Girls, Becoming Women, begin to emulate the older women in their lives: they diet…. They pinch their bellies, announcing, ‘I’m not eating lunch today, oh, no, I really shouldn’t.’” (p. 52)

Marya took it to the extreme with bulimia and anorexia, and she eventually received treatment for her eating disorders. Once treatment stopped, though, she discovered that: “There are precious few women who eat normally. You get out of the hospital, look around at what other people are eating, and realize the nice little meal plan you’re on – though you need it to stay healthy – is not the norm. You start cutting back. And back.” (p. 217) She cut back to the point of needing more treatment and hospitalization, and nearly died.

Given their role models and influence of society, I began to understand why these girls went to such extreme lengths to shrink themselves. It made me reconsider my own upbringing and to realize that I have cause to be grateful to my mom by providing a different example.

Don’t get me wrong. She certainly paid attention to what she ate and was careful not to gain weight. But that stemmed from health concerns (diabetes runs in the family), and it’s a far cry from actively trying to lose weight.

Additionally, if my mom wanted something sweet, she didn’t sneak it in the middle of the night (that was more my style). She’d just have a little chocolate, or eat one of my dad’s baked goodies, or suggest that we go out for ice cream.

She could also go to town eating fruits and vegetables, but it wasn’t because those were “good” or “allowed” foods. She simply loved them so much that sometimes she ate a lot of them. Green beans, corn, fiddleheads, blueberries, raspberries, and the list goes on.

Only now, in retrospect, do I realize how lucky this makes me, to have grown up seeing a woman eating healthily and truly enjoying her food. And I have to think that for people like Lori and Marya, having such an example would make a positive difference, and help them realize that being a woman does not mean that you have to be on a diet.

How Far Will You Go?

Note: This is the first of a couple of posts that touch on anorexia.

“I was worried that you’d become anorexic.”

A family friend surprised me with this comment a number of years after I finished losing weight. It hadn’t occurred to me that people would be concerned about me dropping pounds as well as putting them on.

She quickly added, “But then I realized you were too practical for that.”

I had to laugh, although she had a point. Practically runs very deep in me, as does a love of food. I can only give up eating so much. And yet – part of me can understand the appeal of losing past a healthy weight, because I learned something quite interesting on my journey.

Losing weight can be addictive.

After all, what’s not to like? In a society where we’re taught to be constantly focused on weight, what’s better than seeing the numbers on the scale drop, and drop, and drop some more?

It’s positively delightful to shed the old clothes that are now too big and go for something new, in more daring styles, giving you the chance to reinvent your wardrobe – and yourself – with every twenty pounds or so lost. (This is assuming that you have a lot of weight to lose, which I realize is not always the case.)

You become the center of attention in an entirely new way. Instead of people commenting on how dangerous your weight is or that you shouldn’t be eating a certain way, they gather around in respect. They want to know what you’re doing, looking at you with wide, admiring eyes, hanging on your every word.

And the compliments! They’re the most seductive and addictive. If you pass a certain point and lose a lot of weight – say, fifty pounds or more – you may suddenly be an inspiration to others. You might find praise coming from all directions, even those you barely know. (See my earlier post about how hard it is when those compliments stop.)

If you come from a background of feeling only shame about your body, it’s so delightful, warm and fuzzy to experience all this, to feel good about getting on the scale for a change. Why stop?

While I never truly thought about just going on until I couldn’t lose any more, I did revise my goals. For instance, when I first started losing, my ideal weight was 140. Then it was 130. Then it dropped to 120-125. I felt driven by the numbers and perfectionism, wanting to do the best I could.

I did stop in the end because I finally started noticing that my body had had enough. It had been telling me that for a while, but I had simply not noticed or ignored my loose skin, the fact that my menstrual cycle had stopped, and that I simply felt tired of only eating 1000 calories a day.

What saddens and terrifies me is realizing that I might not have stopped, that I might have kept going and become anorexic as my friend feared. I am grateful that I did not, but the thought is always at the back of my mind, especially as I see continued emphasis on being thin.

Because no matter what popular culture may claim, you can go too far, and the ultimate loss is not weight, but health and life.

Tune in next week for some thoughts about a couple of memoirs that deal with anorexia: "Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia" by Marya Hornbacher, and "Stick Figure: A Diary of My Former Self" by Lori Gottlieb.

The Danger of Too Much Control

I will never forget the day that I got an e-mail from a dear friend saying she hadn’t enjoyed my recent visit because I seemed to be too much in control. She thought I had been far too focused not only on my food choices but on all areas of my life, that I seemed incapable of relaxing and having fun.

Her words stabbed through me. I began sobbing, literally sliding to the floor in despair as I second-guessed myself. Suddenly my loss of 130 pounds no longer seemed like a proud accomplishment. How could it be a good thing if this was how people saw me as a result, and if it meant losing a friend?

I’ve had many years now to think back on that time, to wonder why she had that impression of me, if I could have done something differently. I can’t ever know for sure, but one thing I have realized.

Trying to be in control doesn’t work.

Like some others, my first real attempts at control came through food, when I started on diets at age twelve. Like many, I found that I could control and restrict my food for only so long before part of me rebelled. I eventually went for all the forbidden foods, negating any benefits of the diet.

Yet even as I gave in to my cravings, I hated the fact that doing so gave credence to the social prejudice I felt, that my weight automatically meant that I had no self-control. Wanting to prove that assumption wrong, I did become somewhat particular and rigid – yes, controlling – in other areas of my life.

Only when I gave up diets and started eating mindfully did I begin to let go of that control with food. I slowly learned to trust my body, and to be more flexible not only with food but other areas of my life. It helped that other circumstances reminded me how illusory my sense of control was anyway.

My friend’s words hurt so much because they had an element of truth to them, but more, they made me feel like I hadn’t made any progress. Except then other people, including a mutual friend, said that I did seem more relaxed about food, more willing to go with the flow. Only then did I wonder if she had issues of her own that she projected onto me.

While I will never know the answer, I can say this. No matter how much truth her words had, they did – and continue to – provide a good reminder to let go of control more often, to flexible.

So these days I try instead to be in charge, making my own decisions but being adaptable to change, and finding time to simply kick back and enjoy myself. I only wish I still had my friend to share that with.

Note: For more information about being in charge vs. being in control, and mindful eating in general, visit www.AmIHungry.com or my website.