It's Complicated

The Mamas and the Papas, The Carpenters.....a couple of the most beautiful vocal groups in pop music were lost due to a lead singer's complicated relationship with food. Karen Carpenter died from anorexia at the age of thirty two, her heart stressed from chronic starvation. Cass Elliot also died at thirty two, obesity being the major contributor to the heart attack that killed her. Finding the healthy sweet spot between the two extremes is a challenge. My challenge is on the right side of that bell curve, not the left.

I'm sitting here eating pretzels with cheese. Probably a million calories. Before that I enjoyed a bowl of raspberries and strawberries with a drizzle of cream on top. I really like food. I try to say, "Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels," but I can't say it with conviction. It's been a long time since I have felt skinny. Actually, in Chile, people do ask if I've always been 'flaco', word which sounds fat, but really means thin; and so many things taste really good--probably better than skinny feels. Like those chocolate truffles with bitter cocoa dusted on the outside from Costco, or french fries, or a second helping of whatever is on the table. So I'm really not fat, but I could be, and that's what's complicated.

In Chile, people describe one another as 'the fat one,' (el gordo, la gorda) even to their faces, and it's just a description, not an insult. There seems to be a healthier body acceptance here. I've thought about animals walking around naked perfectly content with their specific body peculiarities. I guess it's another first-world problem---having enough food to allow us to get fat in the first place, and then having the leisure time to even think about what we look like. And of course being human we don't go around naked seeing how everyone else actually looks under their camouflage. Thankfully. (A side story here. This week we took cookies to the comedores--two big buildings where the workers eat their lunches. Jay baked 230 chocolate chip, raisin, oatmeal cookies to distribute fresh from the oven. Ingrid, one of the women who works out in the heat planting and pruning trees day after day for 9 hours, was talking about having babies and weight and cookies and spontaneously pulled up her shirt to sort-of knead her bread-dough stomach. It was surprisingly bulky despite her lean appearance. Benjamin, a young worker looked at her, then put his hands over his eyes. We all laughed and she did it again. Benjamin covered his face and said, "I need new eyes." It was a sight that will stay with you. I laugh thinking about it.)

There's no doubt that too much extra weight is a risk factor for many illnesses. And fat isn't fit. Fit is good. Hiking Grand Canyon ten pounds lighter is noticeable. Putting on skinny jeans without ten pounds is noticeable. Better. But endless thinking about gaining or losing weight can't be healthy. It's crazy how much brain clutter this obsession creates. I'm well within the range of normal body fat ratio, whatever that's called, and I can do everything that the average sixty-eight year old can do, probably more. However I don't run marathons as my sister and daughter do, nor boogie board and bicycle as my other sisters do. I've always been the one they hand clothes that are too big "up" to. Am I just comparing myself to the ultra-thin?

So why obsess over a little extra? Because I know if I'm not fighting that same ten pounds, it'll be fifteen pounds before long. Here's my plan:

• Three more months of drinking the all-sugar bubbly drinks and juice that we are almost always given at our teaching appointments and saying thank you.
• Three more months of eating the pastries and goodies they make especially for us and serve whenever we show up. And saying "thank you, it's the best thing I've ever eaten."
• Three more months of enjoying all the corny, avocadoey, breaddy foods that make Chilean cuisine so fabulous.

Then going cold turkey.