Wednesday 15 September 2010

The World Spins Madly On

I haven't even landed in New York yet and already it's messing with my head in some of the ways I feared. (I took the job. I start Nov. 1. More on that later.)

Tonight I spied a 60 percent off deal for a week's diet delivery meals and spent a very long time considering it. At 10 pounds above my average weight last year, I feel heavy. I feel too big to walk into that Conde Nast building. I want a buffer for all the eating I'll probably be doing over the next several weeks, and the uncertainty of my schedule in New York.

But the service only delivers Wednesdays and Thursdays and it's too late for this week and then at the end of next week I'm off to France and then the US. And then I'm back in London for only a couple of weeks, and I expect I'll be out a lot.

And I bet a lot of their meals have bell peppers in them, to which I'm allergic.

And their plans are 1200 calories, or about 60 percent of what I currently eat in a day.

I left the windows about the deal open on my computer, which is my way of saying, "I'll make a decision later."

And then I thought: No, no, NO. I know (mostly) what works for myself, and a week of reduced calories is a recipe for disaster. It will send my head spinning – plotting, scheming, thinking about whether and how much I should add – like no one's business. I really might start bingeing and never stop. And I don't need to find out.

To be fair, this reconsideration of diets started a few months ago, though New York has kicked it up a gear. I say reconsideration because years of dieting and bingeing – plus a job that involves writing about health and fitness – has left me with an unhealthy fascination with reading about diets. For me the boxes telling me what to eat for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks are like the promise of gospel: 21 meals plus snacks where I can get it exactly right; where someone is telling me exactly what to eat and how much and I don't have to think about it.

Mostly I know better than to follow those diets. Most of them are based on less than I currently eat or things I don't like to eat or outlaw completely things I love – or some combination of the three -- and I fear even a day or two on them could set off a binge cycle I am unable to stop.

Except lately, when – like foods I used to be able to ignore – they tempt me. They glitter with promise, the sparkly red shoes on the yellow brick road to the Emerald City of Fabulousness: You could just do this for a week or two and you'd feel less anxious about how tight your clothes have become, they seem to say. I try to work out whether I can afford a diet delivery for a few days (can it really be more expensive than bingeing, I wonder? Answer: Yes. Well, at least until that deal came along.)

Then I think about how narrow my life was last year, when I weighed between 140 and 145 pounds (and at one point even dipped briefly into the 130s). I was dating BN2, struggling to get work, had no money and felt isolated and depressed. The only thing I felt I could control was my food and my exercise, and for the most part, I did an excellent job at it.

Life had to be ugly and grim for me to get that slim, and yet I'm having a hard time accepting I may never be that size again – and perhaps that I shouldn't even want to be.

Last week I did something that terrified me – something that years of dieting and bingeing cycles has conditioned me to think is beginning of the downward spiral (or really, upward spiral): I pulled out a pair of bigger size jeans. The world didn't come to an end. I didn't eat any more or less than I normally would.

I met a friend for lunch Sunday – one of the few with whom I will discuss food and weight (besides, um, the Internet). I'd binged the night before, then cried the whole way home – for the record, not because of the binge but because of something that may have contributed to the binge: Sadness about leaving London, and tidal waves of nostalgia. My route – one I haven't taken in years -- took me the way I used to go home from work on Tuesday night late nights, in the days when I loved my job and my boss and our offices in Covent Garden.

"I know you don't feel it, and it doesn't help for me to say it, but you don't look any different," my friend said gently. "You look great."

I'm trying to believe her.

4 comments:

  1. Wearing clothes that fit and feel nice helps me a lot. At my heaviest I seldom bought new clothes or put much effort into my appearance. The right clothes can be a great self-esteem builder, even if they are a size up. Plus your friend is right.

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  2. Forget those Conde Nasties! You're probably going to be the best looking and healthiest person in the building over there! Seriously, they look so sickly hunched over the cigarette bin outside.

    I too hate that feeling of clothes getting ever-so-slowly tighter, but it may be that you're better off where you are now opposed to where you were last year. You may have been a little lighter, but certainly not happier, from the sound of it. Come on over to NYC! It's gorgeous in the fall.

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  3. Wow! You took the job in NYC!

    When I stopped to ponder your reluctance to decide about your move/job, and now your longing to be told what to eat so you "won't have to think about it", this thought popped into my head: It sounds like you don't trust yourself sometimes.

    I could be way off, but just a thought...(FYI: I once had my jaws wired shut for a number of weeks and LOVED not having to think about food. I was confined to drinking meal replacement shakes day-in, day-out. It was an odd sort of relief to not think about it or have to make choices.)

    London will always be there for you, should you decide to go back!

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  4. I don't know why, but I'm always surprised when a blogger that I read regularly hits the nail on the head so hard, that my head spins. I toy with the idea of those pre-packaged diets all.the.time. Luckily, I can't afford them, but I sometimes toy with the idea of putting it all on a credit card. After all, when I'm slim and beautiful, money will fall in my lap. HA!

    I'm glad you made a decision on New York. I don't at all think you'll be like everyone else, btw, because you are fabulous, girl. Not everyone can say that. You're brilliant and pretty and an amazing writer...who will write plenty, despite the job, because it's what you love.

    Big hugs from Southern California. "See" you state-side! :)

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