Health as a religion, skinny as a health synonym

In about a week, I will have officially lost 1/10 of my weight – my doctor is going to shit a fucking rainbow when she sees me, even if for the whole world, I’m still just the obese woman who probably goes to McDonald’s every day (god, I hate people). I have also, after 18 long years as a smoker, gave up smoking… er… 9th of September last year, that was my first smoke-free day (I’m not even into that vaping shit, don’t get me started on those…) It’s my second go, so I’m feeling confident, because I know from last time that when my head goes “but you could be an occasional smoker, so many people do it…” IT’S A TRAP!!!

And one fine Saturday, I was trying the new pair of jeans I had ordered by catalog, my usual size but finally a beautiful bootcut that is so hard to get by in my size, and they wouldn’t fit, and I shouted out loud to myself alone “FUCKED IF I’M DOING THIS SHIT AGAIN! NO!!! My change in food habits and lifestyle starts TODAY!” and it did. And the jeans almost fit now – (I don’t have to squeeze in, but they only officially fit when they don’t make a camel toe)

Anyway, I did neither of these things for health or beauty. I quit smoking because my cough was getting on my nerves and smoke-breaks were allways a sore subject at work (even if they were never the problem, they were just the scapegoat for the bosses)

If you could take a sneak peak at what I’d like to do with many pounds less, you’d see me running up the stairs so I won’t miss the train (I can only fast-pace up the stairs, that bugs me!) and you’ll see a lot of me sitting cross-legged on the grass or on top of a bench. You might see me with my leg crossed over the knee, realizing that I shouldn’t do it anyway because of my bad circulation and uncrossing it again. I’m doing it for freedom of movement and comfort.

And a few days ago, I forbade my sister of saying the word “healthy”. I can’t even explain her how to make a tasty sauce out of broth, wine and herbs to pour over a chicken breast and she tells me it’s not healthy, because it has like… 1 teaspoon of butter in it and butter is unhealthy. Oh, and any cured cheese is also unhealthy and loaded with bad fats. And and and. And please never ask me to eat anything you cook, ok?

A girl at work is quite slender, she just has hips (like oh, say, women?) and a bit of fat over her muscular thighs. She has a thin waist and the trained belly and arms you’d normally see on a fitness-magazine cover, but she has loudly informed us she’s on a weightwatchers diet. She’s also eating the wrong kind of bread (the kind that makes you slowly absorb the carbs and will have your glicemia peak rather than stabilize and make you feel satisfied is what she eats). She eats the wrong kind of bread because the right kind is too dry without butter. When I suggested replacing the butter with fresh cheese (my kind of thing), she promptly explained to me that fresh cheese is just way too fat. And she won’t eat fat. At all. THAT’s healthy…. *dramatic eye roll* She’s aiming for 8% bodyfat. I told her she was overreacting and she promply described her 100-calories-a-day eating, 90 pounds heavy, 5′ 9” sister as overreacting. Uhhh… sweetie, that’s a fucking eating disorder, not an overreaction!

Another co-worker who is almost grotesquely skinny usually gives me a ride after-work and one day I asked about what she ate at home, because she is a vegetarian and I thought, maybe she knows some good recipes. Huh… she explained she only eats one or two cookies at work (if we happened to make those teeny-tiny 1,5” cookies that day…) and leaf salad with some olive oil when she gets home. And in the summer she does 30 miles on her bike daily on an empty stomach. And today, to further my shock, she said “if I ate too much one day, I just won’t eat anything for a couple of days” and I don’t think she’s joking. She also doesn’t like to go on vacation, she prefers to cash in the vacation she didn’t apply for, so who the f*** knows on what drugs that otherwise sweet girl is running.

Incidentally, none of these 3 women likes fashion or has ever looked at a runway model longer that 5 seconds. They don’t read Cosmo (or any other silly-ass women’s magazines), they don’t hunt the internet for dieting tips and they never follow the trendy diets. They never even advise each other on how to lose weight, each one convinced they have found the path to happiness.

I’m not going to give you the “I’m fat but healthy!” shit, because seriously, I’m tired of that self-delusional bullcrap too (it’s f***ing amazing you’re doing yoga! Keep it up! But your internal organs still don’t give a f***!). But “I’m healthy because I’m skinny” is nullcrap too, and oh, by the way: at least one of these skinny women has been diagnosed with a fat liver. Yeah.

Overall, screw it all! I just want to find my middle term and not worry about health. If I only have one cold a year and don’t suffer major trauma, I just neet to feel content and comfy. And that is seriously hard for me, so… STFU people. Sheesh…. :|