"I Want to Be A Farmer Because": A Documentation of Anecdotes and Desires

I Want to Be a Farmer Because...

1. Everything I learn about what my body, mind, and soul need to cooperate and be sustained makes me realize that I need to nurture, grow, and love all that I eat.  This is a process that I can feel my body yearning towards and it's much harder to do that when you just pick up something packaged and MSG-filled in the store!

I want to place seeds in the soil and labor over their growth. I want to live with the flow of the seasons, each food in its time.  I want to hold each ingredient in my hand as I wash it, prepare it, and place it with intention among other ingredients that together will create something delicious.  Something my body can understand as it travels through my senses.  I wish to have this for myself some day.

Hello, by the way.  I know it has been a while since I wrote.  So much has been going on in my life (what with graduating, planning a wedding and preparing to move to NYC) that I have taken very little time to enhance my body love lately. Except for the swimming class I was in this semester! That has been great.  But aquatic exercise aside, I am just now feeling the shame (that I try so hard to avoid!) of ignoring my body's wants and needs for the past few months.

Well for some reason, tonight I was motivated to watch Hungry for Change, a documentary on the tricks the food industry is using to keep us addicted to highly processed food.  While I already was aware of most of the points the documentary made (plus I had to stop halfway through because it stopped helping and started depressing), it was a good reminder of what I have to look forward to now that I'm back in the game.

I'll admit, though, this is always the hardest step.  I am full of shame and frustration at myself for, once again, failing to discover the natural and healthy lifestyle that my body so desires and excited, but also dreading another go round.  Nevertheless, I pick myself up, recite some love mantras, and take another step. Will this time be different? Will I find my body love for life? Maybe. It will certainly be part of the journey.

I Also Want to Be a Farmer Because...

2. I want to rid my life of as much capitalism as I possibly can.  I hate the feeling of having to go through prescribed steps in my growth as a human being just to get a money-making job, so I can give the money away for food and shelter, and so that I can save more of the money to give it away for food and shelter for my some-day progeny.  I would much rather do none of that and just make my own food (and shelter?).  I also wish I could live in a village that trades goods for other goods for a living.  But that's a whole other issue.

This goes back to all of the life transitions going on in my life right now.  Yes, I am engaged and obsessively thinking about my soon-to-be married life with excitement, nervousness, and everything in between.  But I am also going through job interviews because, well, I need to grow up and support myself! And soon my hubby! And eventually some children (with his help, of course)!  And while I am applying for positions I can see myself doing for at least the few months before the wedding...I just...don't believe in the system.  At all.

This is me in my head right now.

I don't know enough about the economy to actually make any substantive arguments here.  I simply cannot sit comfortably in my corner of this capitalist world.  I don't want to make money just to turn right back around and spend it on housing, food, clothing that is all subject to the market's whims and not set up to help me through life at all!  I would rather just make all of it myself. Self-sufficiency can be very gratifying. Granted, making housing and clothing might be a bit more complicated and socially risky, so I will let those go for now.

But as soon as I can I am buying a ranch and farming my land! That is my new life ambition and I ain't budging!

I acknowledge that this entire second reason to become a farmer seems to have absolutely nothing to do with body love.  But it is all so inextricably connected.  How can I settle into my own skin when I can't settle into the world around me? When the societal demands placed on my life course take away any reserve energy and mind space I might have for my connection to myself?

This may seem like a bleak outlook.  But someday this frustration will motivate me to make a change (like becoming a farmer) that will set me on a course to fulfillment and satisfaction.  Right? Right.

Thank you for humoring the rant that just happened as a result of not writing for too long.  But don't laugh too hard because if it happens one day (the farming, I mean), I will come back and laugh, "I told you so!"

With nervousness, hope, and fertilizer,

Gabriella

p.s. There is a chance I might, might appreciate a job in which I were working to fix an injustice or giving voices to those who feel they can't speak.  If this happens, I shall swallow my words happily and we shall all rejoice!

The DOs and DON'Ts

Once again, it has been too long since I have written here!  I'm noticing a habit of mine that when I am in flux with my body image I am reluctant to share my muddled thoughts because I worry that they will not be worth your time.  But too much worry can lead to guilt which can easily lead to shame - an emotion that I try to stay far far away from.  So here I go!


I have gone through a lot of body uncertainty in the last few weeks because of conversations with a few people who, despite having good intentions, have invalidated my convictions about body image, unintentionally making me question myself, my legitimacy, and my worth.  Instead of going into the details of these interactions, I thought I might set out some guidelines for an appropriate and compassionate approach to fellow human beings with different body shapes and sizes than your own.

The DOs and DON'Ts of a Body Image Discussion

DON'T assume that someone who believes in positive body image is making excuses for themselves.
DO give the benefit of the doubt to each human being and assume that they are taking care of their body and their health (unless they prove you wrong by their ACTIONS, not by their APPEARANCE).

DON'T assume that people need to change because they do not fit an ideal.
DO keep an open mind about what healthy might look like.

DON'T claim someone else's body for your own by trying to impress your own body habits onto it.
DO allow people in your life to experience their own struggles and reach their own conclusions that are DIFFERENT than your own.

DON'T strike up a conversation just to shoot someone down and disagree with their core beliefs that may or may not be enabling them to function on a day to day basis.
DO listen to other people's opinions.  Let their words reach you and affect you. 

DON'T try to lead someone else to your own conclusion. This invalidates their opinion and means you are focusing on how to make your argument instead of hearing what they are saying.
DO show that you care and trust that no one can understand an individual body better than its owner.

I could go on, but I want you to actually hear what I wrote, so I will refrain from ranting.

Except for this - this is my visual version of a rant.

The other thing I would like to start doing is sharing links to articles and blogs that I come across that I find inspiring.  I often post these on Facebook, as well, but I think it would be nice to gather a few for each post. So for this round...

Isabel Foxen Duke is an emotional eating consultant and writes about not equating our body shapes and sizes with our worth: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/isabel-foxen-duke/why-love-your-body-campaigns-arent-working_b_3605184.html

Beauty Redefined hits home again in quoting Nate Pyle in "The Guy's Guide to Seeing Women, Not Objects."  Reading this made me hope for a better future where men and women cooperate to make women feel like human beings and not commodities.  There is a truth in his words that I hadn't realized before, even in all of my feminist-leaning philosophies: http://www.beautyredefined.net/guys-guide-to-seeing-women-not-objects/.

They also wrote a blog post about how to bounce back from feelings like the ones I've had these last few weeks - and for their impeccable timing, I am truly grateful.  I suggest this short read about resilience and self-compassion for anyone who ever has looked at a picture of themselves and has immediately thought, "yuck!" Their words made me feel understood, encouraged me to keep believing what is true to me, and reminded me that I am not alone: http://www.beautyredefined.net/not-picture-perfect-bounce-back-from-a-body-image-blow/

I'll leave it at that for tonight!

I do want to thank all of those family, friends, and friends of friends who have gone out of their way to tell me that they are following this blog.  Your encouragement is inspirational and I hope you'll keep reading and telling me your thoughts!

With a sudden calm, a yawn, and hope for tomorrow,

Gabriella

Many Changes in a Lifetime

Hello there, dear readers,

This is scary/funny/true.

I apologize for this three-week gap between posts.  I was working through something relevant to this body love thing and I felt I needed to have a grip on what I was experiencing before I tried to write about it.  This is not a constraint I usually possess (ask my fiancé), so I am grateful that I gave myself this time to ruminate on my own.

As I mentioned in my last post, I have been struggling with reconciling my desire to lose weight and my unshaken belief in loving my body.  Not to mention that I've now broadcasted this belief to all Facebook friends, Twitter followers (all 5), and friends-of-my-parents (all 150).  It seems like there's a conflict of interest here and I have been determined to justify my feelings and actions in a way that stays true to all of those beliefs.  Now that I have begun to succeed in that endeavor, I can share what I've discovered!

Step one.  Why I want to lose weight and why that doesn't interfere with positive body image.

I will say over and over again (to you and to myself) that my top priority is health, not "beauty".  Yes, thoughts of achieving some unattainable ideal figure will inevitably pop into my head, but my motivation is mental and physical health. For myself (but not necessarily for everyone else, of course), gaining weight has added a strain on some joints, muscles, and bones that has not been there before. Feet, back, hips all can feel the change in my body, and though they are surviving, my physical joy of moving has significantly decreased.  If I can get back that joy and put a spring back into my step (literally), then I will jump at the opportunity.

From Beauty Redefined

Step two.  How I have tried going about doing that and why it hasn't worked (I think).

Because I am determined to keep my relationship to food and to my body emotionally healthy I have avoided making any sort of rules for myself when it comes to eating.  No "No food after 8pm!" "No carbs!" "Only 3.75 desserts a week!" Instead, I have worked on listening to my body, giving it what it needs, and stopping when it is satisfied.  The pitfalls in this system are twofold. 1) I can listen to my body all I want, but I can't always understand what it's saying.  I try very hard, but sometimes it is just speaking an entirely different language than I am.  2) I am very good at tricking my brain.  (Most of us are good at self-justifying.) So I may be able to tell myself that my body really does need a Venti Frappuccino to get through the day, but my body may be actually just needing a big serving of Vitamin A-filled veggies.  Together with not always understanding my body, this tactic is much easier said than done.

A beautiful photo of some vegetarian proteins!

Unwilling to give up on this mindful eating strategy (and I never will be!), I moved on to focusing on eating protein, realizing that my other food group proportions fell more neatly into place if I made sure I was getting protein at every meal and snack.  Nutritionally, this helped a lot! But proportion-wise, I ran into trouble needing to satisfy my body's hunger but knowing that if I continued to fill myself completely, I would remain at the weight I am now.





Step three.  The newest experiment.

I went to the doctor for an annual check up and we scheduled a follow up appointment for a nutrition consultation a week later (this is why it has taken me so long to write).  At that appointment, I briefly summarized my journey with my body and explained that I was looking to slowly lose weight, but was at a loss as to how to do that without losing any of my positive emotional relationship to food and my body.

The doctor assured me that that healthy relationship was of the utmost importance.  Then, she began to lay out the facts.  She told me how many calories I needed to eat in a day to lose weight and told me how that should be broken down throughout the day.  She also told me which types of foods (ie. carbs, fats, proteins, veggies) would be helpful to eat at which points during the day.

While she was calm and encouraging, I automatically had a bit of a nervous breakdown.  How was I going to do this while holding on to everything that's important to me??  The answer: I was just going to have to try it.

And guess what? It has been going well.  I told myself that I would take one week to actually count/measure food just so that I would have an accurate idea of how much was how much.  Putting a one-week limit on that part of the lifestyle change helped calm my nerves, because I knew that this wouldn't turn into a full-on calorie-counting diet.

And the most surprising part is - having the minimal amount of other guidelines has actually been INCREDIBLY LIBERATING! Who knew? But once I started, I realized that this holds true in all parts of my life; I do well with a little bit of structure. It actually makes me feel more secure and stable and healthy.

I want to emphasize here that I am sharing this as my own personal experience of this experiment and the feelings I have been having along the way.  The reason this is part of my body love journey is because it is helping me love my body, emotionally and physically.  BUT - it may not be part of yours. If there is one tenet I believe about body love, it is that we are all unique.  That is what the mainstream media tries to take away from us by selling us one ideal beauty and the fad diets and tricks to make us look just so.  That is not the love our bodies needs.  Our bodies need individual attention and a willingness on our part to adapt.  My body needs something entirely different from yours.  And then, within that one body, changes in lifestyle may be necessary.  Even the most stable of bodies change throughout their life cycles and need us, as their loving owners, to switch it up in order to take care of them.

This breakdown can't possibly be right for every human body.
You know?

So, when I say that this new way of eating has been liberating to me, I do not mean in any way to sell that to you.  I am just sharing the joy with the hope that you can read this and say to yourself, Hm...that might work for me! Or Nope...that would definitely not work for me.  Or Wow...I really don't care at all whether or not that would work for me, I have much more important things on my mind.

One really interesting thing is that I am also finding more energy to move my body. Which to me is a surefire sign that I am giving it what it needs.  Of course there are always days where I am just too wiped - but I will take advantage of the days when I am feeling feisty!

My body really is feeling good right now.  I look forward to keeping all of you updated on the roller coaster as I continue to try new things to figure out what works for my body.  Like I said, one body changes many times in a lifetime.  I don't expect mine be the outlier to this rule; I expect it to need something different later on.  If I'm lucky, it will give me a few years to function in a way of life before suggesting I change.  But should it demand something new tomorrow, I like to think I'd be willing to give that something new a try.


With strength, love, and protein,

Gabriella

Possible-izing the Impossible

Sometimes it feels like body image struggles, both physical and emotional, are impossible to overcome. I dedicate this post to everyone who keeps coming back to find their body love, even when it feels hopeless.

It may seem like one step forward, two steps back, but I have to believe - and I hope you will, too - that the reverse is True. So let's take those two steps forward, whatever they may entail for each one of us, and no matter how many times we have to take a baby step back again.

I say this to show my pride in all of you for whatever you do to increase your body love, but also as a form of self-encouragement! Since the beginning of this blog, two months ago, I have made major improvements on listening to my body and eating nutritionally.  I have not, however, been "moving" as often as I had wanted to, nor have I been slowly and healthily losing weight to relieve my joints and muscles. (See my first post for a more detailed account of my goals.)

I cannot express over typing how frustrating this is for me.  Here, I feel like I am doing everything right that I can possibly manage, and yet my body is not rewarding my efforts.  What is up with that?!

The answer is - it could be lots of things. For all of my body awareness, I cannot pretend to know everything that is going on in my body.  So I cannot despair, and I will continue to do what feels good, that is, to eat nutritionally and as my body needs it.

BUT, to satisfy my frustrated mind, I can postulate about mental blocks that may be in my way, preventing me from achieving the other hopes I have laid out for myself.  Talking with my besty from my home town this past 4th of July weekend, I discovered some of these personal mental and emotional blocks. I will go through them in reverse order:

3. My desire to feel ultra-relaxed during my downtime.  Logically, this cannot include movement.  Therefore, when I get home from work I am determined to be as sedentary (ie. restful) as possible.  We deconstructed this.

2. I feel hypocritical trying to lose weight, even healthily, because I know that a part of me still insists that I will look more beautiful if I am thinner. Even if that is not the ultimate reason that I desire a lighter physique, I feel guilty hearing it chatter away in the back of my head. We deconstructed this.

1. My sparring match with severe restrictive dieting has instilled in me an instinctual fear of hunger.  Any amount of hunger is automatic reason to find food, and if my stomach is growling, I must be restricting myself and something. is. wrong.  The problem with that is, in order to lose weight, I need to decrease my net calorie intake (ideally through exercise primarily), which, at the weight I am now, will not be quite enough to satiate me. So as far as I can tell, I will be a little hungry until my body adjusts.*  And I just cannot tolerate this. This did not need deconstructing because, as you can tell, I already knew where this one came from.

We talked these out for a long time and I won't bore you with the details.  What I will share are the solutions that we agreed may help.

Solutions (at least for now):
1. It is okay to be a little uncomfortable.  Try it and see. (I am currently experimenting with this.  It is going well, but I am still questioning when hunger is healthy and when it is not.  One technique I may try is eating small meals 5-6 times a day instead of 3 medium meals a day so that I do not feel as if I am operating on small amount of food all day.)

2. When I find myself focusing on ideal beauty, tag on a line about health (ie. "I will look so much better if I lose some weight...AND I will feel so healthy!")**

3. Relaxation does not have to be sedentary. I will attempt to do some moving as many days as possible before I relax all the way into my couch and can't get up.

A wonderful Beauty Redefined post-it note message
that I try to remind myself of when problem #2 surfaces.

Those are the experiments I am working on right now.   As I wrote this, I couldn't help but wonder if the experiments will ever end.  But why is that bad? If body health and body love will always be important to me, then, yes, I will always be asking my body what it needs.  Since it can't speak English back to me, I will have to continue to experiment to allow it to answer my questions. Maybe instead of calling it an experiment, I will call it a conversation.  Hm. Yes, I like that.  And I sure hope my conversation with my body will never end. (That would be bad.)

Well, that's it for now.  I'm off to move my body by wringing out hand-washed laundry (trust me, it is a workout).

With hope, clarity, and Dustin Hoffmanº,

Gabriella



*Since I have a doctor's check-up this week, I will follow up about this matter and let you know if that is, in fact, true.

**Ideally, I would love to cut myself off and say, "I will look so much better- NO! IT'S NOT ABOUT LOOKS! YOU WILL BE HEALTHY!" But I don't believe self-denial will do me much good.  I am subject to the unrealistic ideals of beauty as much as any other media-bashing, self-aware, body-image enthusiast out there.  The only way I can fight that body hate head on is to remove it further and further from my focus by redirecting my focus somewhere else (not by denying the thought in the first place).

ºHere's a little body love treat:

A Sprinkle of Body Thoughts

Hello dear friends!

Since my last post I have had a smattering (smattering?) of little body-related thoughts that do not nearly come together into a cohesive post.  But, heck! Who needs cohesiveness?

The first thing I want to say is that I was honored and comforted by the support I received from all corners of my friendships for my last post about obesity becoming a disease. I received praise for articulating my opinion, constructive thoughts, further research, and honest questions.  So thank you for that.

I had a clarification to make after receiving some great feedback, which is about my opinion of an individual's responsibility to be healthy.  I wanted to paraphrase a Facebook chat I had with a good friend of mine about this issue:

Her: What you wrote was really interesting...but I did actually like what the doctor said on ABC about not focusing on calling it a disease/epidemic but focusing on healthy habits. 

Me: That's funny! I didn't catch that on the video at all. Maybe I was too angry to hear it. I'm going to watch it again right now... 

...I see what you mean. Well that's a relief to listen to a second time with a calmer mindset. But I still have a problem with the focus on everyone's habits being wrong (kids are eating wrong, kids aren't moving enough, people are bad parents) instead of on the industries that lead to all of these food cravings and lethargy and yo-yo dieting (food industry, technology convenience, and beauty industry respectively). 

Her: I agree, but I have a hard time understanding how else this is supposed to be addressed. Do we just have to focus on the whole of the industry rather than the individual?

Me: That's an interesting way of framing it. It reminds me of a thought I was having about my personal interaction with the technology industry. Which is: Am I doing something wrong by checking my phone all the time?

Her: Well you know how I feel about smart phones. 

Me: Well, it's definitely not a good habit, but I've also been advertised to all day long about all of the apps I need to make my life better. So it is not a good thing that I am checking my social apps every few minutes...but I don't feel I am entirely to blame for this compulsion. 

Her: No, you're definitely not to blame. 

Me: So similarly, eating the wrong foods and not moving is not a good thing, but it's not the people who are to blame. Most mass marketed food is manufactured to addict. With saltiness and sweetness, leading to crashes in blood sugar and a never ending cycle of sugar addiction. And the beauty industry insists that we much achieve an unattainable ideal body, leading us to spend money on beauty products instead of healthy food, slowing our metabolisms with starvation diets, and entering a cycle of disappointing weight loss and weight gain. 

Her: True. And not everyone has access to education about this. And the industries are totally preying on that. 

So, I hope that clears up a little about my personal opinion, but I also want to point out the end of the conversation, which was an ENTIRELY NEW THOUGHT that I had NEVER CONSIDERED: the effects of race and class on the issue of food, health, and body image.  I have not given this facet of body image enough thought to write about yet, but Wow.  That is why I write these posts.  Because through starting this dialogue, we are introduced to completely new issues to contemplate. New support, new insight, new perspective on the world and our place in it.  It's deep, huh?

New ideas are awesome!

To say one final thing about that dichotomy (individual vs. whole): I do believe that individuals can have the power to overcome the uphill battle against these industries (am I starting to sound like a conspiracy theorist? I'm not, I promise) and to find their ways to healthy, body loving lifestyles. And, of course, I hope and pray for each person to do so for themselves. But the amount of blame, judgment, and guilt placed on each individual who is struggling in some way with these issues is completely dismissive of the level of challenge we are all facing. I believe that the most I can give everyone is a break.  A break from that guilt, that blame, that heavy burden.  Without compassion and love, finding peace and health is that much harder.  That is why I refuse to judge individuals for their capacity to maintain healthy weight, eat healthy food, or love their bodies.  The only body I can fully understand is my own, so all I can do is find my own body love and send love and compassion to others searching for the same.

ººº   ººº   ººº

The other thoughts I wanted to share are from outside sources that I love.

On the side of the webpage, you'll see one of my Resources is Beauty Redefined.  They are awesome.  Their blogposts, Facebook posts, and emails have been a gift to me in my body love journey. They speak to me very deeply and I hope some of what they have to say will speak to you, too.

This is a heart-wrenching post about the impact women can have on their children's body image. The difficulty of struggling with your own physicality while imbuing your children with self-respect and love is one I have not yet faced, though I have been on the other side of the interaction.  What strikes me about this post is how honest it is - so much so that it brings out my own, internal confessions as I read.  Perhaps it will bring up some truth for you, too (if you choose to read it): http://www.beautyredefined.net/to-the-mom-who-taught-me-everything-a-body-image-breakthrough/.

I will highlight one part of the post: at one moment the author puts aside resentment of her mother, realizing that they are part of the same cycle of shame and that neither of them are to blame (rhyme unintentional, but appropriately poetic).

Lastly, I was Skyping with a friend tonight and we were complaining about the pressure of being in our early twenties: everything feels so immediate, like every decision we make and every ambition we choose to follow will set the destiny for our entire lives. We fail now, we fail forever; we succeed, and we are set for life.

I brought up a tool that I use to increase my positive body image - recognizing Cognitive Distortions.  Cognitive Distortions, or Distorted Thinking are the patterns that we humans tend to fall into that move our thoughts away from logic and into emotional danger. Apparently, according to wikipedia, "exaggerated or irrational thought patterns that are believed to perpetuate the effects of psychopathological states, especially depression and anxiety."

I believe these are thoughts that we all have.  Examples include (adapted from the Wikipedia article):

All-or-nothing thinking: seeing things in black or white as opposed to shades of gray; usually using terms like "always", "every" or "never" when this is not true. Example: A dieter sees eating a bite of ice cream as a total failure that ruined his or her entire diet. 

Overgeneralization: Making hasty generalizations from insufficient experiences and evidence. Example: A person is lonely and often spends most of her time at home. Her friends sometimes ask her to come out for dinner and meet new people. She feels it is useless to try to meet people. No one really could like her. 

Disqualifying the positive: Positive events are discounted, leaving feelings of inadequacy. Example: Even when a person does a good job, they deny their success and say it wasn't that good or impressive. 

Magnification and minimization: Giving proportionally greater weight to a perceived failure, weakness or threat, or lesser weight to a perceived success, strength or opportunity, (so that the weight falls toward the side of failure instead of success). 

Emotional reasoning: Presuming that negative feelings expose the true nature of things, and experiencing reality as a reflection of emotionally linked thoughts.  Example: "I feel/think that I am boring, therefore I must be." Or, feeling that fear of flying in planes means planes are a very dangerous way to travel. Or, concluding that it's hopeless to clean one's house due to being overwhelmed by the prospect of cleaning. 

Should statements: Patterns of moral reasoning based on what a person morally should or ought to do. Example: After a performance, a pianist feels he or she should not have made so many mistakes. Or, while waiting for an appointment, thinking that the service provider should be on time, and feeling bitter and resentful as a result. 

Labeling and mislabeling: A more severe type of overgeneralization; attaching an irrational label, turning a person into nothing more than their actions. Example: Instead of believing that you made a mistake, you believe that you are a loser. Or, someone who made a bad first impression is a "jerk". 

And, trust me, there are plenty more.  I don't point these out to tell you how paranoid you are; we all fall prey to these cognitive distortions, they are nearly impossible to avoid.  I tell you because the first step to overcoming is awareness.  And every time I revisit the types of cognitive distortions, I find myself catching my own distorted thoughts and, slowly but surely, returning to more reasonable interpretations of the situation before me.

Whether it be eating healthily, starting a career, or making new friends, cognitive distortions are bound to pop up.  And catching them becomes a (surprisingly fun!) exercise that only leads to healthier, happier thinking.

Wow, I sound like a self-help book.  I promise I am not advertising any cure-alls or must-dos; take it or leave it, I will not be insulted!

But, as always, if you find a nugget of inspiration from any of these links - let me know! Let's dialogue.

With love, compassion, and a crick in my neck,

Gabriella

They Say I Have a Disease

The first thing you should know: I am currently listening to the "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together"(Taylor Swift) pandora station because the angry music feels right.

The second thing you should know: I let the water pot boil over and the bean patties burn in the oven.

The third thing you should know: The reason for this upset is that the American Medical Association has declared obesity an official, diagnosable disease.

What comes up for "Angry Face" on google.
Also the only joke I will likely make in this post.

Now, I am more forcefully opinionated on this issue than I usually care to be, but I have decided to let it out on here in the hope that some constructive conversation will come of it. (Though if you entirely disagree with everything I say, maybe give me a couple of days to cool off before letting me know.)  Also, I may resort to dark and twisty colors for the highlights in this post to go with my mood.

I started my exploration of this breaking news on ABCnews, and while I'm sure other stations have things to say, too, I don't need to look any further.  Here is one news video and article for you: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/american-medical-association-classifies-obesity-disease/story?id=19439304.

Obesity has been considered an epidemic for a couple of decades now.  Only since yesterday has it been classified as a disease.  To be honest, I'm incredibly nervous to try and explain why this is a major problem, because I've developed a vocabulary over these issues over the course of four years and I am afraid I won't do the explanations justice.

Nevertheless...here we go. I will try to do this in some sort of logical sequence:

An easy calculator that you can find online -
no consultation needed.

Obesity is determined by BMI - a measurement calculated using just a person's height and weight, with absolutely no consideration to body build, gender, ethnicity, fat versus muscle content, or any other factors for that matter.  See Beauty Redefined's article on BMI to read about how it originated as a way to increase life insurance for overweight people and how (drumroll) "On June 16, 1998, the “average” woman was 5 feet, 4 inches tall and weighed 155 pounds. On June 17, a woman of that same height and weight became “overweight.” The requirement for “average” dropped 10 pounds to 145, and a person of the same height who weighed 175 pounds was considered “obese.”

The word obesity has incredibly negative associations with it even though it is calculated by this ridiculously imprecise formula.  And now obesity will mean "diseased," too.

The main issues that I take with this are: 1. the negative body image implications, and 2. the ignorance around the real issues: our food industry, dieting industry, beauty industry, and all of the modern causes of sedentariness and stress (which is material for an entirely separate blogpost, I think)!

Let's start with issue 2.  Obesity - rather, I'll use the term unhealthy weight gain, since that is what obesity is supposed to mean -  does not exist in a void.  First of all, "obesity" can be a natural part of someone's body composition (and yes, there are many "obese" people who have no health issues); but unhealthy weight gain is the result of so. many. different. things that are part of our USA environment.  And most of it works together, unfortunately.  One example of the cycle is the following: The beauty industry tells us we need to lose weight to be liked, we go on low calorie diets that permanently slow our metabolisms down, we can't maintain the low calories because we are nutritionally deprived, and then when we start eating normally again, our slower metabolism makes our body store fat more easily, making us gain more weight back every time we take the beauty industry's advice to cut out breakfast or drink smoothies for lunch.  Rinse and repeat.

As for issue #1, let me lay out the following calculation: A person (note, either male or female) who is 5'6" needs to weigh between 115 and 155 to be a "healthy weight," while a person my height has to weigh (5'2") between 105 at 135.  That's a mere 30 lb flexibility, and cannot possibly be true for all people.  And yet anyone who is an outlier to these numbers will either be considered unhealthily skinny or unhealthily bulky.  How can we be expected to treat our bodies with love and have the compassion to get and keep them healthy if we are constantly told that they are inadequate in one way or another?

Atlanta's Body Shaming Obesity Campaign

I want to bring this defense of the classifying of obesity:

“The AMA’s decision essentially makes diagnosis and treatment of obesity a physician’s professional obligation. As such, it should encourage primary care physicians to get over their discomfort about raising weight concerns with obese patients. Studies have found that more than half of obese patients have never been told by a medical professional they need to lose weight — a result not only of some doctors’ reluctance to offend but of their unwillingness to open a lengthy consultation for which they might not be reimbursed.” (LA Times)

I propose that no overweight person in this country needs a doctor to tell them to lose weight, when it is all we hear, all of the time, all around us.  And does this statement take into account those "obese" people who haven't been told to lose weight because they are healthy?

Lastly, I want to mention a grave side effect (pun intended) of this new classification of obesity as disease.  Last July (2012), the FDA approved Qsymia, a weight loss drug that was found to help obese people lose 10% of their weight. That is one tenth of themselves.  Through a drug. Serious side effects include birth defects, increased heart rate, suicidal thoughts, loss of vision.  Common side effects include numbness or tingling in the hands, arms, feet, or face (paraesthesia); dizziness; changes in the way foods taste or loss of taste (dysgeusia); trouble sleeping (insomnia); constipation; and dry mouth. It is not known if Qsymia changes your risk of heart problems or stroke or of death due to heart problems or stroke, if Qsymia is safe and effective when taken with other prescription, over-the-counter, or herbal weight loss products and if Qsymia is safe and effective in children under 18 years old.

Through my class this past semester on mental health and illness, I have become all too enlightened on the role of pharmaceutical companies on what we consider illness and disease.  Drug companies need diseases to cure in order to sell their products.  How many physicians are going to be compelled to prescribe Qsymia and the dozens of new products that are bound to come out for their patients without holistically viewing all of the influences on that individual's lifestyle and weight gain?  Will someone try to prescribe it to me because I am technically obese?

I would keep talking, I really would.  But I want to maintain the chances of you actually reading to the bottom of this post.  I hope I explained some of these issues adequately.  As always, feel free to comment with questions or ideas.

With angst, frustration, and a sigh of release,

Gabriella

My New York Bodylife

Hello dear readers,

I was too busy making sense of this ridiculous map
to think about trivial issues like my body.

It has been a whirlwind of a week.  It has been exciting and exhausting and definitely not a walk in the park (though I have done that, too).

My biggest struggle right now is finding time for everything that is vital to me.  That would be work, Louis, friend time, thesis research, body image research/nutrition, and taking care of my body, mind, and soul.  I'm also a big fan of doing absolutely nothing whenever time allows.

All week I've been worried that I haven't been doing enough new exploration of my body and health and that I haven't been prioritizing enough.  But now that I've sat down to write this, I am realizing that that is entirely untrue.


Here is what I've been up to health wise:


I have been walking to and from the subway every day to get to work.
I have been walking to and from lunches and dinners out.
I have been prioritizing protein, fruit, and vegetables and almost subconsciously avoiding over-produced foods.
I have been slowly adjusting my sleep schedule and having caffeinated tea only as necessary.
I have stocked my kitchen with foods that will make me feel good and energized.

Okay my lox doesn't look this good, but it works.
Maybe next I'll do a mindful food-beautifying project!

I am also definitely in a trial period with different proteins and how they make my body feel.  I'm trying out smoked salmon and lox, grape nuts cereal, hummus and veggies, greek yogurt, eggs, tuna, cottage cheese and others.  When I have some more data to report back, perhaps I'll post about the different energies these different foods give me.  I also found a vendor who sells fruit outside of my workplace and I have taken to buying different fruits from him to munch on while I intern my butt off (he sold me the MOST delicious cherries ever the other day).





So I've been doing my due-health-diligence, have I not? Just because I haven't been PREOCCUPIED with my body doesn't mean that I haven't been taking care of it.  In fact, maybe I am headed towards a place where my body image and body health won't have to overtake my life in order for me to overcome it.  If it did overtake my life, that wouldn't be much of a victory, would it?

I don't have much more of an update for today (you'd think that after a week of not writing I'd have a whole megillah for you).  But I will tell you about one experiment I just conducted:

DANCING NAKED!

I have my own apartment now.  I can dance with no clothes on.  So as soon as it got dark out tonight I put on some mood lighting in our living room/kitchen/bike storage area, plugged in Louis' new subwoofer/speaker set, stripped down and started shakin' it to my plethora of Pandora stations (tonight's favorites were Classic Rock Power WorkOut station, Halo by Beyonce station, and Dance Cardio Radio).

Tell me that doesn't look liberating.

I thought it would be nice (and experimental) to move my body with a joy and acceptance of all parts of it without any part being hidden or restricted.  And...it was great! I thought I would feel too exposed or clumsy, but instead I felt incredibly alive and sexy.  My body moves in wondrous ways and it was thrilling to let it do its thing without inhibition of any kind.  I highly recommend it.  And turn up the beats so your internal rhythm finds its way out onto the "dance floor" of your kitchen or bedroom or whatever it may be.


That's all I have for now! Check in later this week for more New York Body-Life updates.


With love, lox, and an appreciation for air conditioning,

Gabriella

I Thought Wrong

Well, I didn't think wrong, but I am thinking differently now.  Since returning from Kripalu, I've had some discoveries that conflict with my previous conclusions.  This reinforces that the self-discovery journey is really never ending, as much as one wants to reach the end. I imagine when I am 73 I will still be learning things from grandchildren that will spin my ideals on their heads!



After self-diagnosing my amino acid deficiencies using the guide in The Diet Cure, I went to Village Vitality in West Hartford Center to get some wholesome supplements that might help balance my digestive and hormonal systems as well as give me a more steady stream of energy on a regular basis.  I met with a very helpful consultant who informed me after a lengthy discussion that if I took the supplemental doses of amino acids on top of a healthy diet containing sufficient protein that I would be peeing almost all of the supplements out.  This was a disappointment.  Mostly because it seemed like a large oversight for The Diet Cure not to mention.  Granted, I have yet to read the book cover to cover, so I may have easily missed something.  Either way, I settled for a whole foods, vegetarian multi-vitamin and a resolution to focus on getting enough protein and vegetables.

This was me after the store.

Before I explain the mechanics of the protein and vegetable necessity, I want to share how ridiculously emotional I got after this trip to the vitamin store.  I felt like this glimmer of excitement and hope that I was learning from my readings on amino acids had misled me into almost spending crazy amounts of money.  After taking a nice, calming bath,  I realized the real reason I was upset: I was looking for a cure.  Sure, I went on in my last blog post about how I was just playing! Just experimenting! And part of me was.  But part of me was hoping to take a couple of pills and never have cravings ever again. I was going to be perfect - a goal I have to constantly be reining in.  So I did just that, and I recognized that I have still gained a lot of inspiration over the past week, and things are changing!!

One of these changes is that I am tuning into the blood sugar cycles of my body and the affects of food on those cycles.  Here is solid information I can pass on from my readings:

1. Our body's energy comes from glucose ie. blood sugar that is processed from sugars we ingest.
2. However, when we eat refined sugar (from sweet drinks, juices, candy, and highly processed carbs, etc.), the sugar turns to glucose immediately, IN OUR MOUTHS!  And it's too much for our bodies.  So our insulin rushes in to absorb the sugar ASAP and turn it into fat.
3. When that happens, the glucose is swept away and we're left with LOW blood sugar (hence the sugar rush and sugar low). (Additionally, if this happens too often, we exhaust our insulin system and that's when diabetes develops.)
4. When we have low blood sugar, our adrenaline rushes in to save us from crashing into a low-blood-sugar coma and keeping us running.  When this happens too often, our adrenal glands are exhausted and we can't cope with day-to-day stress as well anymore.

So, that's the sad version.

The happy version is when you eat unrefined sugar that is found in vegetables and fruit! These turn into glucose slowly and steadily in our body and keep us running without crashing and exhausting our insulin or adrenaline.

On top of this, I mentioned last time that protein is our only source of amino acids which allow for all of the good neurotransmitting of those happy chemicals in our brains!

Really good stuff, huh?  Anyway, I'm not preaching that you should only eat proteins and vegetables, in fact, I am nowhere near to doing that.  BUT I am suddenly aware of those ups and downs in my energy caused by refined sugar and I am finding myself attracted more and more to proteins.  Speaking of which, I'm looking for simple proteins to prepare easily on a regular basis.  Got any ideas? So far, I'm going to invest in cottage cheese, greek yogurt, cream cheese, and lox for breakfast and salmon and other fish, hummus, and rice+beans for lunch and dinner.  Louis and I will be keeping a dairy kitchen this summer, so meat will have to be had at restaurants, whenever possible.

Now that I've shared these new developments, I wanted to update my How I am Going to Do This from my first post based on my new knowledge.

How I am Going to Do This (draft 2!):

~Repeat my mantra when I wake up and go to sleep (and whenever else I need).  "I forgive myself for being human." In other words, no judging!

~Move every day for 15 minutes and 3 of those times for 30 minutes.

~Continue physical therapy to heal my lower back and strengthen my core.

~Take note of energy levels and ingest food that suits those needs.
~Eat as much fresh, unprocessed food as possible.
~Allow for little rebellions in other places! Save my willpower! Play!
~Play with the ups and downs of life.  Repeat: Pain is inevitable, but suffering is a choice.

As usual, please leave comments and thoughts - it's been so meaningful to me to have such support.  Speaking of which, we have over 800 views today!  I feel absolutely blessed.  If you want email notifications when I post, don't forget to subscribe!

I am moving to New York on Sunday, but I still plan on posting when I can!

With love and steady blood sugar,

Gabriella

p.s. If anyone ever has thoughts (or even better, relevant pictures) that they want to me to post or things you want my opinion on, comment and I'll get right on it!

Divine Play and Amino Acids

Hello from Kripalu Yoga Retreat Center!  My, just three days here and I have been on an entire self-actualizing journey.  I must catch you up!

I'll begin by sharing my one take-away from this time at Kripalu.  And that is the Divine Play that is life.  I was taught this yesterday during a workshop on the original Hindu concept, called Lila.  Here is a Wikipedia explanation similar to what was told to me (translate Brahman as God):

Brahman is full of all perfections. And to say that Brahman has some purpose in creating the world will mean that it wants to attain through the process of creation something which it has not. And that is impossible. Hence, there can be no purpose of Brahman in creating the world. The world is a mere spontaneous creation of Brahman. It is a Lila, or sport, of Brahman. It is created out of Bliss, by Bliss and for Bliss.
—Ram Shanker Misra, The Integral Advaitism of Sri Aurobindo

An appropriately playful doodle.

Was that gibberish? I hope not. What it means is that God is perfect and therefore would only create the world for the sake of play, otherwise that would mean that God needed something from the world, which God could not if God is perfect. Names of god and interpretations of god aside, let me explain the message I, personally, am taking away from this concept of using the world for Bliss.  The world is the world is the world.  And life is life is life.  We are who we are and we will experience what we experience.  This does not mean we should be passive, without any hope of improving the world, our lives, or our spirit.  BUT why not experience all of these ups and downs as the Play of Life? Play, not necessarily meaning joyful, or even playful in the usual use of the word.  But play as in experience, as in optimism, as in fluidity, flexibility, and connection to the earth and to self.  Going through the waves of life with ease instead of resistance.  And I recognize, suddenly, that most of my "issues" are results of my resistance to life and all it has to offer.  Why not play, instead?


There is no end of the journey to personal happiness and enlightenment, so instead of waiting for it to end, enjoy the ride! Explore! Play! (It's okay if the word play is starting to sound funny in your head.) Even body image and food issues can be play if I just take myself a little less seriously.  This has been hard since, until I had this thought, I had been searching for THE answer during my time at Kripalu.  The cure-all that would help me figure out what step to take next.

But a cure-all doesn't exist and never will.  And if I can let go of that idea, then I will have more room for play in these sometimes tense moments.  Funny enough, as is the way of these things, the second I stopped looking for a panacea, I found inspiration!

It is....drumroll....another book!  The Diet Cure is it's name and amino acids are its game.  By that I mean, it focuses on the essential amino acids we need for chemical balance (of serotonin, endorphins, adrenaline, melatonin and all those good things) and helps one self-diagnose which amino acids one might be deficient in. And now that I'm googling this stuff, it looks that it's widely accepted knowledge! We are always told about our chemical deficiencies that cause depression, anxiety, etc. but we are never taught about how our INTAKE (ie. food) provides the proteins/amino acids that make the bindings of those chemicals possible (or impossible, as the case may be)! Such food for thought.

Apparently, amino acids are also a quite popular soy sauce substitute.
Guess what yoga retreat center has some on every table?

Now, I am not looking for a "cure" like the book offers; I kicked diets years ago and, like I said, I don't believe there is a complete lifetime solution for me, and possibly not for anyone. It does not surprise me that this how-to book is packaged to sell, like most are.  I also find the language of the book incongruent with some of my positive body-image beliefs, such as not focusing on one's weight.  But I am taken by the scientific research done by Julia Ross, the clinician who wrote the book and the (overly emphasized) success stories she has on file.  So I'm going to try out this amino acid supplement thing and I'll keep you updated about whether or not I feel any different (though it takes a couple of weeks of supplement planning, so don't expect news too soon)! If it is a cure-all, I will shout Halleluyah and dance in the streets, but for now, I'm just tryin' to play and see what comes of it!

Another little piece of inspiration came from a Lovingkindness Meditation that Louis and I attended on our first night here.  In this meditation, you give blessings to benefactors, loved ones, friends, neutral acquaintances and even people you can't stand, ending with blessings for all human beings.  During the beginning lecture session, the instructor, Bhavani, explained one purpose of meditation and that is to let go of suffering.  "Pain is inevitable, but suffering is a choice." I thought that was just the most empowering statement I had ever heard.  And I connect that intimately to the concept of living life as Divine Play.

And now I have a question for you, as I explore the possibilities of play in my own life.  Are there ways for all of the pictures below to be a part of play? (The first few may go without saying for some people.) Does it change the way you look at the pictures to imagine that there a might be a joy in going through all of the facets of life? Even the seemingly mundane, difficult, or even impossible parts?

The facets of Divine Play:

  

What do you think?

With Zen and Yoga Dances,

Gabriella