Posted this, took it down, and received a beautiful comment from Ken, who couldn't find the post, so it's back... and then added a bathroom-mirror self-portrait, which I'm sure I'll feel silly about after I've gone out dancing, & want to come home & take it down, but which somehow seems part of a post on diet.~
I like some weight on a man. They're always so self conscious about it too. It's quite funny. Perhaps I don't find that lean and mean in a man who's heavier? They're not happy with their bodies and want you to see pics of them when they were 'in shape,' but just as they like eating, they like sex. A man with a girth is more sensual, there's no doubt about it. In my experience anyhow. And maybe softer inside too, which I really adore.
How I would apply all that to myself I don't know. I've lost about 10 lbs since moving, but it's mostly due to lack of work, income, settledness, even kitchen supplies. I love food, tastes, textures, colours. But dislike being overly full. And wheat gives me heartburn, so I stay away from breads. Well, most carbs. They're just too heavy for me, give me indigestion. So lots of vegetables, dairy, meat, chocolate, and a slice or so of 12 grain bread a day. Like a yogi, I rarely eat after 6pm at night. I dunno. In my early 20s I was severely bulimic. It was quite a journey out of it. But I did it, on my own, it was my 'secret,' and found after I stopped binging and throwing up that my weight remained the same. I didn't put on any weight at all. Part of the journey out of bulimia was discovering that I don't need 3 meals a day, 2 is enough, and that wheat really makes me feel quite sick, and was often the reason I threw up I guess. Mind you, I still love a fresh white flour poppy seed bagel slathered in butter, but I know I'll pay for it with acid reflux some hours afterwards. My treats, then, aren't pastries, sigh, but chocolate things, coconut is ok too. All of which keeps my weight down. Since breads, starchy foods are real weight putter oners. Diet has been a long process for me. And I see my 15 year old daughter going through it now- and is trying to limit foods like pancakes, donuts, bread since she does see a direct correlation to her weight. I mean, we find that pigging out on a half a dozen buttertarts doesn't put weight on the way half a dozen donuts do. It's so interesting the way the body metabolizes, or doesn't metabolize, foods. Some foods just get converted into and stored as fat cells, I guess. Or that's how it seems. There's no reason why indulging in a large bar of imported chocolate shouldn't put on weight like a box of Krispy Kreme donuts, but it doesn't. I've always wondered if it's got something to do with evolution, and that we're optimally healthy on a 'pre-farming' diet... that wheat, corn, rice, all the cultivated crops, while feeding us in multitude, aren't really suited to our digestive systems. Evolution takes a lot longer to catch up, perhaps. I seem to do very well on what I would consider to be a modern version of the hunting-&-gathering diet. Don't laugh, and please laugh. When I talk like this people usually studiously ignore me as a crackpot.
Your re-posting has drawn me onsite to comment, and I find a whole new look here. I love the "light" you add with the white background, and now I'm thinking ....hmmm ... When would I have time to redecorate "Body Electric"?
ReplyDeleteOn topic: I love the work you do here, Brenda, and I can't imagine thinking you a crackpot for this kind of talk. I second your thoughts about men with girth, men of size, and men of substance in all the many ways the word can be taken. And I find,too, as you do, that men struggle (maybe more) with their bodies/body image than do women. This may be one place where the tables turn: the public forum anticipates a woman's pre-occupation with her looks but presumes a man's otherly turned focus. That leaves a need without a ready platform for satisfaction. ...an interesting dilema.
Good post - provocative. Glad it's back. -mg
Thank you Mary, I love it when you drop by, and Ken, it's so good to hear your voice here too. You've both given me lots to think about and I will come back later to respond.
ReplyDeleteBut I wanted to pop Ken's emailed comment in here, if I may:
"Your post closed with - I seem to do very well on what I would consider to be a modern version of the hunting-&-gathering diet. Don't laugh, and please laugh. When I talk like this people usually studiously ignore me as a crackpot.
I just wanted to say far, far, far from crackpot. In my five years living in Vermont, I always thought of myself as a hunter-gatherer. It's a mindest I find most appealing in ways that are difficult to describe. I miss that country life with a huge garden, where, for me, dinner was often happily spent wandering through a bursting array of fruits and veggies just grazing on whatever I plucked from the vine."
Oh, for a Vermont garden like that! It sounds, well, idyllic and delicious.
Thanks xo
Mary, what you say is so true: "the public forum anticipates a woman's pre-occupation with her looks but presumes a man's otherly turned focus. That leaves a need without a ready platform for satisfaction. ...an interesting dilema." Men, too, are caught in the gaze of a media-created image, a construction of what the alluring is, and suffer as much as women do if they feel they do not fit "the model." I'm attracted to brilliant and sensual men; it doesn't matter what their size- though I do like squishy and huggy. It's the way a person carries their body, isn't it...
ReplyDeleteKen, "fat old man"? that's a label! How about a man of abundance? Though, yes, verbalizing how one feels about one's body can be more difficult for a man. There isn't a social dialogue of weight and diets and self image to tap into the way there is for women. If it limits you, though, that's something else and needs to be considered. Lots of studies have shown that our sense of our body image tends to be distorted, and often we aren't as big as we think we are. It's interesting how those body images come to be. But, then, surely, there is a way to undistort them, too. Appeal and attractiveness aren't really based on size, at least not in my experience. There's the way you hold your body, the way you walk, the aura of welcome you give to others. And confidence, that counts for a huge amount. Nah, we shouldn't be so hard on ourselves...
Oh, I'm glad you put this back! I completely agree about the 'hunter-gatherer' diet - not crazy at all. Isn't there a book called 'The Stone-Age Diet'? Wheat gives me reflux too, and yet I still fall back into eating it, although it leaves me awake all night with nausea and burning - why would I do that? Wheat and sugar are powerfully, nastily addictive, I think.
ReplyDeleteAnd then too, although I want myself to eat lighter and be lighter, I've always been partial to the flesh of others; always found it attractive in friends and lover - the opposite, I guess, of a slim, un-cuddly mother. Puzzling.
I think books like The Carbohydrate Addict's Diet and Diet For a Small Planet address the same points. Not crackpot at all. Despite social and technological development, biologically we're still hunter-gatherers. The vegetables especially help the body process carbs etc. into energy rather than fat.
ReplyDeleteI was also bulimic in my late teens/early 20s, mainly as a stress reaction. I'm very thankful to have broken that cycle and thankful you have as well. It was a dangerous place to be.
Jean, ah, why is it that we enjoy what gives us difficulty later? I really can't eat wheat anything in the evening or else I have nights like you describe. But there are treats that are fine: coconut macaroons, yum, the chocolate ones especially; or raisons, which are incredibly rich all round; or milk chocolate with hazlenuts or almonds... the list goes on. For me, sugar isn't an issue (not yet anyway!), and I read it's actually a stress-reliever. In moderation, of course -:)
ReplyDeletee_journeys, thank you! Perhaps it's that I don't refer to books, authority, when I talk about this. People who are pasta eaters, or consume a lot of bread, rice or corn get quite ticked with me, I guess. My system just can't handle those foods except in very small proportions once or twice a week.
And how many of us have been bulimic? When I had it it didn't even have a name. When I tried to get help, no-one knew what I was talking about. I was bulimic for 6 or 7 years, a long time. The healing journey out of it taught me a lot, and has been a model for many other healing journies throughout my life. Thanks for sharing...
Doesn't sound terribly crackpot to me, really. I would like to eat more like that for a variety of reasons. Because I was raised on pasta, though, I've always had difficulty envisioning menus — any suggestions on that?
ReplyDeletemb, following in the footsteps of Freud's 'pleasure principle' (that's a joke), I've gone in the direction of eating what doesn't cause heartburn or nausea. No real diet, but closest to what a pre-farming diet might be in modern terms. It seems to work: I usually have enough energy, don't feel heavy either. Dinners are usually everything but without the starches (oh, except yams, which we love). If pasta doesn't cause any problems, what's wrong with it? It could very well be that there are different tolerances to different foods, depending on lots of things, dietary adaption being one. Or I can't really think tonight! So what might work for me wouldn't work for you. I think it's most important to eat what makes you feel best.
ReplyDeleteEat what makes you feel best... yes... oh, you mean now or later? See, that's what trips me up. Remembering the later. And one reason I need to get away from pasta. "Step awaaay from the pasta..." Uh, it's a struggle. For me the consequence is not as clearcut and immediate as acid, maybe unfortunately. So I'm looking for a little inspiration, a little motivation to help me look beyond the enticements of the current moment. Living in the present has it's good points, BUT!
ReplyDeleteKen, rice... hmnn, it's much better than wheat, though it can be very filling. I do like brown rice, and wild rice (which isn't rice proper), just don't eat it very often. Isn't vermicelli a pasta? Or do you mean the Thai rice vermicelli? When I have Chinese food I usually have chow mein instead of rice, actually. I feel full after, but it lifts after awhile :)
ReplyDeletemb, I think I mean now and later... I've never been in the model of deprivation for dieting. I've always believed in eating what you want. Really enjoying what you eat. But, you know, sensibly. And at least once or twice a week treating yourself to something that you really enjoy- pasta. Chocolate cake. Richly honeyed baklava. Or, oh, a Portuguese or Italian custard pastry, yum. Anything, really. A big roast beef dinner with gravy, veg's, roast potatoes. Or a couple of sinful donuts. Now I am getting myself hungry! And it's bedtime... sigh. :grins:
(oh, what about whole wheat pasta- I haven't tried it, but it might be good?)
The pre-farming diet makes a lot of sense to me. It would just be so horrendously difficult to try to practice.
ReplyDeleteWord verification: "ohlfaed" -- Old English for a purgative feast?
Aw, couldn't we run around like Neanderthals? Seriously, Richard, yes, and especially since the farming revolution changed everything for us as a species, it would be difficult politically and questionable ethically. But as a person whose body doesn't much like wheat & whatnot, and who seems fine with a diet mostly free of that (except for treats and 12 grain bread, which I wish I could buy as a flour), something approaching a pre-farming diet seems easier to digest. Could one do it in a developed country rampant with processed foods and inebriated with flour? Hardly. And flour is luscious, I'm not saying that. It just causes flux. Its after effects, discomfort. Perhaps for some of us, it's too modern. :)
ReplyDelete