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I’m
Not on a Bloody Diet
Ah
family. You’ve seen those lovely ads for cholesterol-reducing
drugs that say something to the effect of “two things that
can give you high cholesterol: a steak, and your Aunt Edna.”
Well, two weeks ago (yes, note that that’s one week before
Thanksgiving) my proverbial Aunt Edna, in the form of my venerable
crossed-the-ocean-before-the-revolution Foster family genes,
reared their ugly little lipids. Despite a lifestyle that
ought be no cause for concern, my cholesterol is “one point
away from severe,” my doctor said, and suggested drugs. I
told him to give me six months and see what I could do without
them.
Though I’ve got a head full of it all, I’m not going to bore
you with the debates on the safety of Lipitor, the efficacy
of red yeast rice, the most digestible forms of flaxseed,
or how well applesauce replaces butter in baking. If you need
to know, I’m sure you’ll figure it out, and both your body
and your brain might have different ideas about it all than
I would.
Nor is it my intention to wax poetic about the effect of being
given what feels like a middle-age, meat-and-potatoes-eater
diagnosis at my tender and fresh-vegetable-loving age. It
sucks, but at least I know how to make healthy food taste
good. I’ll be fine.
But here’s the thing that got me in the gut as I plunged headfirst
into trying to be “heart healthy” (i.e. lowfat): The realization
that everyone’s going to think I’m trying to lose weight.
Now I shouldn’t care what other people think, but as I wandered
my way through new experiences of saying no to a second cookie,
leaving the butter off my bread, and skipping the cheese in
my lentil soup, I found myself readying the same defensive
reaction I used to have when I was vegetarian and the only
vegetarian entrée on a diner menu was under “light fare.”
This isn’t what you think! I’m not on a frigging diet! I’ve
got a good reason for this! (Or, as a fellow member of the
food co-op where I ate in college used to say, “I’m a vegetarian,
not a rabbit!!”)
Not that being on a diet is necessarily bad. But I
fought long and hard for my good body image. I did my time
in middle and high school comforting tearful frantic friends
who believed they were fat, holding their hands while they
bought jeans and bathing suits, and celebrating the first
time they were able to make such purchases without a breakdown.
In college, my first-year resident advisor took time off after
fall semester to fight an eating disorder. I cheered my roommate
on as she took another friend to dump her scale in the lake.
This stuff is real, and has every bit as much negative effect
as the glass ceiling. (Leaving aside the psychological effects—
which I once heard compared to the same expectations as the
era of the corset, but imposed without external help—binge
dieting causes heart failure nearly as quickly as being slightly
overweight, just for starters.)
I did my own biggest battle with body-image when a few months
on steroids after a serious asthma attack suddenly bloated
me up. I remember clearly a turning point when I was standing
behind a very skinny woman in a dance class (where many of
my own weight insecurities had often surfaced in high school)
and thought to myself “I wouldn’t fit in that
body.”
I feel like I emerged from those battles, which practically
no woman (and increasingly no one at all) in Western society
can avoid in some form or another, in pretty good shape. I’m
generally happy with myself, neither rigidly judgmental nor
rigidly politically correct about other people’s body sizes.
I think I ended up with a decent relationship with food as
well. My philosophy was of the “fresh-veggie-and-tofu stir-fry
for dinner because it tastes good and if there’s something
appealing available for dessert have as doesn’t make me feel
gross” variety. Up with the good stuff and don’t sweat the
bad stuff. It would have been perfectly sustainable if it
weren’t for heredity.
But along the way it became a pretty central part of my identity
that I was not a dieter, not a label-reader, not a
skim-milk and PAM cooking-spray person. I ridiculed lowfat
baked goods (they just replace the fat with sugar, which is
addictive and then you eat more anyway) and people who managed
to feel guilty every time they ate dessert. I shook my head
at people who would destroy the integrity of a pie crust by
trying to make it without butter, or willingly imbibe cancer-
causing artificial sweeteners to avoid a few calories. I cringed
when people said “You’ve lost weight” as a compliment.
And now here I am, basically, whether I like to say it or
not, on a (sane, moderate) lowfat, lower-calorie diet. And
sticking to it in the presence of anyone else (and I do a
lot of social eating) honestly feels akin to coming out. It’s
got a similar awkwardness in how much to explain, and when.
(Hey, I’m skipping the smoked cheddar because I’ve got a health
problem that has challenged my feminist sensibilities! Want
some more gravy?) Slightly more dramatic, even, since I never
had anything particularly invested in being straight.
I imagine that as with coming out, I’ll get used to explaining
or not explaining this as well. I just have one request: If
I do end up losing weight as a side effect of trying to not
die of a heart attack, don’t congratulate me. And don’t offer
me a doughnut either.
—Miriam
Axel-Lute
maxel-lute@metroland.net
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