How to Abort Your Diet.

*Disclaimer: I'm not a nutritionist. I have a body and a historically messy view of food. This is by no means the only way to be healthy. But hopefully it's the wittiest. 

A Step by Step Guide to hopping off the diet treadmill without it throwing you into a wall, thus humiliating you in front of all those ambitious 6am gym people.

Step 1: Admitting you have a problem. In the past 2 weeks have you:

• Weighed yourself more than 28 times
• Googled the caloric content of communion wafers, human sexual fluids, or chapstick
• Considered Diet Coke to be the healthiest beverage choice
• Ate only carrots during the day because you were going drinking with your friends that night
• Punched someone because they tried to share your carefully portioned mid-day nut meal 
• Woke up, ate breakfast, realized you have to run a marathon to break even in terms of calories
• Become paranoid that there was a labeling error and you are actually purchasing 2% milk
• Defeated your natural hunger response and live in a constant state of "is this an ulcer, or should I be eating?" 
• Defeated your Deity-given metabolism and managed to gain weight despite eating under 1000 calories per day
• Defeated your gag reflex and, well, ya know. 

If you answered "yes" to enough of the above questions to make you feel a little crazy, a lot hungry, and mostly terrified that your body will just spiral out of control if you don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of the nutritional value of your foods, take a few deep breaths, and continue to step 2. 

Step 2: Look yourself in the eye (using a mirror probably) and say, "It will be worth it in the long term to stop dieting now. Bodies are malleable and if you gain or lose weight, it can be changed in a healthy manner" 

This might take convincing. Here are some fun activities you can look forward to after you quit dieting: 

• Going out to eat and ordering something other than the lowest calorie item 
• Going out to eat. Period. 
• Eating when your hungry 
• Thinking about more effective ways to built a lean-to rather than what your next meal will be
• In an unexpected turn of events, feel like you have control over your body, not your diet
• Not having the metabolic rate of a 200 year old sloth 

Step 3: Get rid of all that shit they gave you at the start up meeting

Don't fool yourself. Never again will you need that specialized calculator that converts carbs, protein, fiber, and fats into point values. Just chuck it now. Besides, you know you've got all that memorized anyway. Hide your scale, measuring tape, whatever crazy fat calibrators you have. Put them somewhere incredibly difficult to reach. Like duct taped to the inside of your chimney or under your territorial cat's favorite pillow. 

Step 4: Put your skinny jeans in the way back of your closet

Dieting freaks out your metabolism. When you stop, your metabolism will re-calibrate and you might gain or lose some weight. Get ready, it's gonna be okay. This is 500 times harder when you're shaming yourself because your clothes are fitting differently. Accept these changes (as all weight fluctuations are) as temporary. 

Step 4 and 1/2 (the most important step, despite not getting its own number): Accept that the size you want to be and the size you are most healthy at, might not be the same. If you've been dieting hard, you might have pushed your body below where it should go. If you stop dieting and eat healthy, your body will probably go back to it's baseline. That might be a few pounds more or less than you would prefer. You have to accept that you won't look the same as you did at the peak of your diet. 

I repeat: You have to accept that you won't look the same as you did at the peak of your diet. 

One more time: You have to accept that you won't look the same as you did at the peak of your diet. 

Time hop is a thing? Uninstall that shit: You have to accept that you won't look the same as you did at the peak of your diet. 

Got it? Good. Moving on.

Step 5: Figure out how you want to eat now

Personal anecdote time (she says nearing the end of an obviously personal blog): I couldn't sustain 20 hours of dance a week, 16 miles of biking a day, and full time food service on my feet under 1200 calories. But I also couldn't do it eating exclusively carbs and fats. It helped me to keep it simple initially. Eat when you're hungry, stop when your full. Resurrect that food pyramid and try to eat from all the major food groups every day. Some structure is okay. It's hard to go from tracking everything to tracking nothing, so don't worry if you flounder a bit. 

This takes time. Sometimes you eat a whole bunch and get really sick. Sometimes you don't eat enough and get really sick. Sometimes your digestive tract takes a while to adjust to eating normally and you feel like garbage for a few weeks. Sometimes you get stressed out an calculate everything you've eaten over the past week in a matter of minutes. Don't let this getcha down. It's okay to not be perfect. 

The End. Good luck. God Speed. Happy Wednesday. 

A Long Overdue Blog About Eating

Remember that time I had that blog that I kept up with?

I feel like I've been putting off this blog just so I don't jinx it. But we are in the midst of a unit in my Women in Lit class and developmental psych class about eating disorders so I was feeling inspired to write this now. I set this goal for myself around Easter last year to take some time to undo some weird habits I have with food. For a full rundown of neurotic tendencies click the link labeled "health" on the sidebar and it'll take you to my previous (and apparently only) food blog. Summary: I felt like my mindset was on a treadmill and I was getting sick of the organization, but I didn't know how far I would fly if I just stopped running. How'd ya like that metaphor?

Here's the quick and dirty version of the goal list:

1. Stop weighing yourself every day.
2. Be accepting of how your body looks, and make any changes to it in a non-drastic, calm manner.
3. Stop counting calories
           A) Also, weight watchers points, rough guesses, categories of foods, and strict time rules are out as well. Same thing. Just don't.
4. Eat when you're hungry, don't eat when you're not hungry.

I'm sure this applies to more than just me because I've had a lot of discussions with my friends and family about exercise and nutrition. If you've been in the same boat I hope you get something out of this. If not feel free to scoff at my moderately self-congratulatory blog. I won't take offence.

Not weighing myself was easier than I thought it would be. For the first week or so I was a little freaked out because I had no way of monitoring any changes in weight (really? wow! is that how that works?). I measured my waist size every couple days just so I felt like I had something, but after a few months of that, I stopped after I had this realization about how body composition.

I'm basically a child and if I don't get to run around every couple days, I literally lose my shit (there's more swearing in this blog, just a heads up). So in the summer I run, and since I am in a loving relationship with my bike, I ride it everywhere. I lose muscle mass and slim out. During the school year my butt is confined to a desk most of the day, but I do get to take ballet class for nearly 5 hours a week. Apparently I have the muscle composition of a male gymnast (not upset about it) and bulk up immediately once I switch from cardio to strength training. This used to really wig me out because not only did I gain weight, but my ass got bigger and my clothes fit differently. I'm a small person. I'm not complaining. But anyone who gets neurotic about food knows that this matters.

Without having a concrete number, I changed my focus from how my body looked to what my body could do. And let me tell you, it made the whole pink tights black leotard ordeal easier to swallow. I can honestly say that I don't give a shit if I have a nice cushion of fluff over my abs. Because my abs can haul my legs all over the place, and since I eat before class I have SO MUCH ENERGY. It's literally the greatest I have ever felt.

Another thing, I actually started feeling "full" and "hungry" again. I don't know if this is anyone else's experience, but when I start dieting, I so carefully plan when and what I can eat that I don't really get hungry. Mostly I made myself eat at a certain point because I knew that I wasn't going to eat for the rest of the day or the next few hours or whatever. Eventually my body gave up on trying to cue me and just went along for the ride. This works well enough, but it's so much more satisfying to just eat what you want when you want to. I mean, sometimes I have to tell myself that eating half a bag (and I'm taking the giant ones) of M&Ms at midnight is not a good idea, but that's only because I know I'll feel like death after. Not because it's like 2000 calories.

This ^ pretty much negated the need to count calories. First grade taught me what healthy foods are. And I realized that when I eat a variety of foods (as opposed to all fruit all day and then pizza and chocolate at night...oh Weight Watchers...you know what I'm saying.) I feel so much better. I'm not bogged down by the digestive hell storm that is your lower intestines after a day of eating solely coffee and apples.

Secondary realization, I actually like working out. I've always loved dance, and didn't always explicitly look at it as a means to burn calories, but occasionally that's all it was. Again, by taking the focus off my perception of my thighs in a high cut leotard, I enjoyed the expression in the movement much more. Similar thing happened to running. Running releases endorphins. It's about as close to joyous childhood frolicking as I get in my day to day. It's so much easier to motivate a run when it's not just about the number of calories you're gonna burn.

Thirdly: Again, I don't want to speak for everyone, but when I'm trying to lose weight I compare myself to literally everyone. About half the time I'm confident that I'm the fattest person in the room always and forever, and the other half of the time, I'm scrutinizing the Victoria's Secret models for rolls. And like, what is that?! I mean, I'm typing it and it's ridiculous. I was so ashamed of this because it plays directly into our culture's unattainable standards of beauty. I knew rationally that bodies aren't supposed to look like the photos in magazines, but I couldn't apply it to actual humans. Fortunately, after I let myself off the hook, my external gaze shifted too. I am apprehensive to include this paragraph because I don't want my friends thinking that I was or still am or ever will look judgmentally on their figures. Because personally, I can never tell when people change weight. Like, you have to gain or lose an entire person before I'll notice.  But the above perception is real. It came up in all of the books I've been reading about body image in my women in lit class, so I'm taking that as my cue that I am not alone in this. When unhealthily rail thin is your ideal, it's easy to see how few actual bodies achieve it. And that is not a healthy way to look at yourself or other people. For obvious reasons. Yeah. Please let me know if you need clarification here. Because it's a controversial and uncomfortable point and I want to be sure I explained it clearly.

MMmmm we've already taken a turn from the light and fluffy, so might as well throw in the mis-steps here. About midway through first semester I was really stressed out and fell riiiight back into eating tons of food and then immediately trying to panic run it off, but that feels like death on wheels: End result - Very upset. Luckily I have a teacher who is very transparent about this stuff and she was incredibly helpful. Talking to her was the most honest I had ever been, and hearing that this is a legitimate issue that lots of people deal with made me feel oddly more comfortable with the whole thing. There were a couple rough weeks, but I eventually calmed down and refocused.

I'm not claiming this to be the final solution. If I've learned anything this year, it's that I personally cannot find some simple solution and be totally confident and healthy all the time. Even currently, I'm a weird eater. I still really like to measure things. On holidays that are centered around food I feel less anxious if I run in the morning. As some of it is that I like how I feel when I can eat a big meal after running, but I know that some of the motivation is coming from knowing how much I'll be eating later that day. And for now, I'm ok with that. This is progress, and I feel better thinking about an achieved goal of the process rather an a permanent victory.

So yeah. Thanks for reading my extensive self reflection. If you feel so inclined, post stuff in the comments. Or ambush me in real life, because I am pretty aware that like 99.8% of you are from facebook and I'm always down to chat about food and stuff.

Hm. Enjoy the warm weather for the foreseeable future. I mean, I wouldn't put it past Chicago to drop to a 32 degrees mid June, but as far as weather.com can alert me, we are in the clear.

Kait

Diet Blooper Reel.

Hi Compadres.

It's been 2 months. Oops.

After mulling over some conversations I've had with friends recently, I found that we don't talk about "things ya just don't talk about" often enough. Cause a lot of people are in the same boat on touchy subjects. So I think I'm just gonna share my metaphorical boat with the interwebs. And here it is.

Today's topic of discussion: Food.

I've been around the dieting block quite a few times. I would consider myself pretty well versed in "how to not lose weight while intentionally changing your consumption patterns." So I've decided to provide, if nothing else, a brief, comical summary titled:

"WHY GOD WHY?! A brief, chronological, lighthearted look at Kaitlyn Dessoffy's diet plan(s)"

Plan 1: The Dance Diet

Summary: Dance 7 hours a week. Eat whatever you want.

Pros: Mon-Friday, lose 6 pounds.
Cons: Saturday-Sunday, find them. Self hatred ensues.


Plan 2: The "After Six" Diet

Summary: Rather than stopping eating at six pm, start eating around 6 pm. Usually resulting from a lack of planning, packing, and lunch hour. Struggle buss it through the day on a Nutrigrain bar and a handful of chex mix.

Pros: You save so much time not eating. Now you have time to sleep, funny how you're so exhausted all the time.
Cons: It doesn't work. Also you have zero energy. Don't do this.

Plan 3: The Soy Milk Diet

Summary: Circa 9th grade I discovered I was allergic to Soy Milk. Having a hard time stopping yourself from eating? You can't eat when you're working on keeping lunch down.

Pros: None. 'cept that this one was super short lived.
Cons: On top of the swollen throat and digestive tract fire storm, you're pretty disappointed in yourself. Also, this is a pretty ineffective way to get energy from food. Or lose any weight from a lack thereof.

Plan 4: Weight Watchers!

Summary: Sound familiar?! The WW diet gives you 29 "points" per day, with 42 extra points to use throughout the week. Fruits and Veggies are free. As are diet, non-calorie foods. Points are calculated using Carbs, Protein, Fiber, and Fat content values. Ex: Bread: 3 points. Chicken: 5 points. Cheese: 6 points. Yogurt: 7 points.

Pros: It works! And you're not starving yourself! And you have to eat fruits and vegetables!
Cons: Point Values are so fucking annoying to calculate. You thought calorie counting was hard? This is not even a value on the box. And it makes you look at food in a quantitative form. You can eat this diet on apples, lettuce, chocolate, and crackers. Eventually you find the right way to combine your allotted 29 points so you are still dieting, but you are also gaining weight. Also, your body adjusts to this within a few months. So you have to gradually eat less and less points to maintain your body weight. At 25 points a day, No bonus for working out, and no points plus, you start to panic a little. How much less can you eat?! This is your cue to take yourself off the diet. 

Plan 5: The CATS diet

Summary: See "Dancer diet" but add to that the looming threat of dancing 4 shows a week in a spandex leotard.

Pros: I was in the best shape of my life
Cons: The run only lasted 3 weeks. The diet lasted 3 months. No good. No good.

Plan 6: The Love Your Body Diet.

Summary: Accept the 6 pounds you gained last summer. You're not overweight.

Pros: You're in great shape mentally! And physically too come to think of it.
Cons: Who are we kidding here? That acceptance lasted 2 days. Literally 2 days. Then it took a journey that went a little something like, annoyance --> critical mirror looking --> scales and tape --> panic --> TREADMILL! And sadness. 

Plan 7: The back to basics

Summary: An honest attempt to eat well. Stipulations: 1. Mostly Vegetables 2. Get all the food groups in there 3. Eat only when you're hungry 4. Don't weigh yourself more than once a week 5. Don't freak out about how you look.

Pros: Days 1-3 you do a bang up job.
Cons: Day 4: You weigh yourself. No progress. --> Anger and self loathing. Convince yourself that you are too uptight for this silly "mindful eating" thing. Scour the internet for crash diets. Yeah, cause if you didn't have the will power to make THIS one work, eating only soup for a week is definitely a better option.


Plan 8: Calorie Counting

Summary: myfitnespal.com. 1270 per day. Ya get some extra if you work out.

This is pretty much what I'm up to now in terms of food. So far so good. It's definitely a little obsessive, but I'm pretty type A, so this is run of the mill. Counting calories is definitely a restrictive measure, but I find that any stress caused from counting calories is not nearly as bad as stress I feel when I'm not comfortable in my body. It's a work in progress.


Welp, that just about covers it. I hope you enjoyed my metaphorical boat. I'm thinking a lot of people have shared this metaphorical boat. So how about we make food discussions a little more open, yeah? Don't be embarrassed. I just regurgitated (sorry, couldn't pass it up) my questionable dieting methods from the past 7 years to a public forum. Ya can't do much worse than that.

Meh, that's all I got. 

Kait