Today is the First Day of the Rest of My Diet
The ongoing quest to recover my waistline
It’s that time of year again, isn’t it? Summer: the longer days, the warm temperatures, the beach, the movies, the barbecues; I love it all! All of it except putting on my swimsuit. The vision of myself in my favorite one-piece this year is making me question all my life decisions. At the end of this spring, when I packed my winter sweaters into storage, I placed all my workout clothing in there too. I gave each piece the side-eye as I banished them from my wardrobe as if to say, “Thanks for nothing!” But I’m still looking at ice cream like, “Hey, boo, heyyyyy!”
I have what I would call a passive interest in fitness. I prefer to work out at home using DVDs. Over the years I’ve built a collection of cardio-kickboxing, HIITs, Buti Yoga, strength training, Zumba, and all the equipment that goes along with them. And yet, at some point in November, after an extended time of dedicated effort, I quit all of it when I came to the same bitter realization that Bridget Jones did in The Edge of Reason: I will always be just a little bit fat.
The last time I made an effort to lose weight after a long hiatus, I joined an outdoor boot camp Meetup in my neighborhood. The description said, “Join us from 7 am to 8 am for a 1-mile run/walk and core workout.” It was free and within walking distance of my apartment. As long as I could drag my ass out of bed by 6:45, (which wasn’t easy) I had little excuse not to go.
Our trainer, Chakir, was a Moroccan guy in his mid-twenties. I mention his nationality specifically to perpetuate the stereotype that Africans are motherfucking fast. He nearly made it to the Olympics as a long-distance runner and could speed toe-to-toe with a road biker. Chakir led our Meetup group in the park on Wednesday mornings after his morning run with the Philadelphia chapter of Back on Our Feet, a non-profit group that trains the formerly homeless to run marathons. Our fearless leader was tall, thin, and ridiculously perky for absolutely no gatdamn reason at all. An older black woman in our group affectionately nicknamed him “Chirpy.”
“Come on!” He belted as soon as we all arrived, “Let’s warm up by taking a run around the park!” Clearly, I had been duped. “Run?” I protested inaudibly. “I don’t run. What happened to the option to walk?(increasingly panicked) Isn’t anyone going to walk!?” The rest of the class, mostly young people who were visibly fit, took off unmoved at a sprightly pace. I trotted behind them for a few paces, became winded almost immediately, gave up and began walking. “You’re doing great!” Chakir hung back to assure me. “In few weeks, it will get a lot easier!”
After the “warm up” we took to our yoga mats and did a series of floor exercises. My legs, arms, and abs were burning. I could barely get through a complete set. Once Chakir had tortured us sufficiently with a final set of sprints, he asked us to take a picture for his Facebook page. I guess the morning would not have been complete without documenting what a big, fat, old, sweaty loser I was. What difference would it make? I sure as hell wasn’t coming back the next week anyway. I wasn’t even sure I’d be able to make it home.
As determined as I was to never return, I continued going to boot camp week after week. I’d limp home sweaty, sore and winded, but I’d go back the following Wednesday and hate myself for it all over again. I refused to run a single step outside of boot camp; instead I added two days high-intensity aerobics to my routine just to help me get through it. The day I was able to run a mile and a half without stopping, Chakir was so excited I thought he might spontaneously combust.
After two rounds of boot camp that ran for eight months out of the year, I could easily run around the block a few times without feeling like I was going to die, but I was never going to join the ranks of the running enthusiasts. Fitness simply isn’t my thing. I can dance at a night club for three hours straight, but I won’t do a 45-minute workout five days a week even if someone promised me a DJ and an open bar. I dread starting my workout, I hate myself while it’s happening, and I’ve never experienced the “high” I was supposed to feel once it was over. The worst part is dealing with all the judgment attached to the whole activity. I read a comment on Sarcastic Fitness Mama’s Facebook page that sums it up perfectly:
If you don’t prioritize fitness, that’s okay. It’s also okay to recognize that people can be too hyper-focused on fitness and exercise. I know a cross fit mom who is always in a strappy skin tight Athleta dress. Always. In January. In Indiana. Yes, we know you are ripped. Don’t care, and I don’t have any desire to spend the time it takes to get those shoulders in the gym. But she might think my hand knitted hats and bullet journals are stupid. Everyone has her thing. It’s just that people who are in the cult of fitness tend to want everyone else on board. I rarely see a post with a knitting project with a #noexcuses attached.
When I told Chakir that I hated running, I imagine he felt the same way I do when someone tells me Shakespeare is overrated, or Brad Pitt was never attractive, or that Mariah Carey can’t sing (well, at least before the nodes.) I don’t agree with these people, and I can’t say I trust them, but unlike some of the running-obsessed, I do understand that not everything is for everybody.
Ultimately, it was all the running that would deter me from returning to boot camp the following spring. Even after Chakir got married and had a baby, he tried to keep the Meetup going, but it was never quite the same. At the end of my two years of consistent hard work, I had lost (drumroll, please). . . a whopping five or six pounds! Mindy Kaling wasn’t joking when she said it takes a lot of effort to look like a normal, medium-sized woman.
Obviously, it wasn’t the lack of a fitness regimen that was “weighing me down,” so to speak. My greatest obstacle was changing my mindset to think of food as fuel instead of a primary source of my happiness. How insane is it that being a “foodie” is sometimes considered elitist, yet being overweight is practically a crime against humanity? Well, NEWSFLASH: Even food made with real ingredients prepared by top chefs can contain lots and lots of calories. I had no issues giving up fast-food, soda, or any highly-processed foods to drop a few pounds. Why would I eat that crap when there are so many more incredible options out in the world? I get legitimately angry when my food doesn’t taste superior — like, how-dare-you-affront-my-taste-buds-with-this-mediocrity angry. When push comes to shove my ass in a pair of jeans, I enjoy a delicious meal prepared with love just slightly more than I dislike being overweight. You can break my heart, take my money, or crush my hopes and dreams, but you’ll have to pry that slice of brick-oven pizza topped with goat cheese and arugula from my cold, dead, fragrantly-herbed hand.
Meal planning is inherently counter-intuitive to the cravings of my cultivated palate. If I cook enough to have leftovers for more than one or two meals, it will end up in the Siberia of my freezer where unwanted food goes to die. Just looking at all those Instagram photos of kale, grilled chicken, and quinoa packed away in identical packages makes me feel like I’m turning into a robot. I’m pretty sure it was some similar kind of monotony that drove that DC security robot to drown itself in the fountain.
I thought my portion control was pretty good until I ordered those tiny, little containers that came with the 21-Day Fix program. I watched a YouTube video demonstrating how to make a salad with them, and it seriously made me want to cry. Thankfully, they’re all small enough to be TSA compliant, so I filled with the orange one with Shea butter and put it in my travel bag. I know that I’m full of excuses, but honestly, sometimes it feels like fitness doesn’t want me to win. I’m not a morning person, my work schedule is never consistent, and I inherited genes from a father who was shaped like the Buddha. It’s unfortunate that none of those disadvantages ever stop me from wanting to look good in a swimsuit. Or at least as good as the first time I thought I was fat ten years ago.
I will even play the race card if I have to. A study conducted in 2013 at the University of Pittsburgh placed black women and white women on the same diet and exercise routine for six months. The white women lost an average of seven pounds more. They also found that black women had lower resting metabolic rates, and expended less daily energy. To lose the same amount of weight, they would need to work out more or eat less. Think about that the next time you hear someone call Beyoncé fat. Haters.
Plus, Beyoncé is 35 twelve years younger than I am, she can afford a trainer, and that bitch be dancing all day! According to those test results, to lose 20 lbs, eventually I’ll need to cut down to a single celery stalk for dinner and start doing crunches in my sleep. I mean, damn, can I live? I only want to wear a dress size in the single digits, not join a professional beach volleyball team.
Sorry if you read all this expecting to see photos of my amazing “before” and “after” transformation. I’m just here to offer you is some real talk about why it’s been difficult for me personally to make losing weight and getting fit a priority in my life. This shit is hard, and it’s hard af to get back on track once you quit. So, take my advice: if you’ve been failing at your fitness goals, do not go on a break the way I did. Give yourself a break instead. Work a little bit harder at loving your body “as is” while continuing your journey to a healthier, leaner version. You might find the kind of self-satisfaction that losing a few more vanity pounds won’t be able to offer you.
Dissatisfaction with your body image is truthfully a poor long-term motivator for getting in shape. I won’t deny, when I put on my swimsuit this summer, I realized my workouts were more effective than I thought. However, on top of looking more toned overall, I used to sleep better at night, have more energy during the day, and I could digest all that yummy food I eat without feeling bloated. It was also nice to climb a few flights of stairs without looking out for the nearest set of defibrillators.
Maybe I could start a fitness support group for middle-aged foodies who resent clean eating and strenuous exercise but try to do it anyway. The only thing worse than struggle-bussing through 45-minutes of a high-interval cardio-kickboxing workout while dreaming about going out for dim sum, is checking in on your fitness goals with people who run 5ks on the weekends and bring a salad in a mason jar for lunch. Maybe we could combine our love of food with our fitness goals. We could take a walking tour of Italy and stop for some pasta along the way. There’s nothing like the taste of freshly made pasta to keep your butt out of the Olive Garden for good. Get ready for my Instagram posts. They’ll all be tagged #fitnessfoodiesforlife #eatthepasta #noexcuses.
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