On Life As A Picky Foodie

Dear Friends;

Weight.

It’s not a four-letter word but it may as well be.

I know many a beautiful person who will take a dozen prescribed pills (and suffer the consequences) or ignore many health problems, who will suddenly change even their most deep-rooted habits because the number on the scale has gone up.  Somehow once weight becomes the focus, people suddenly spring into action.

When one of my best friends got married a few years ago, I stopped off to visit some people in Ireland on my way to the wedding.  And though it was only a week, apparently banoffee pie sticks to the ribs in a way that nothing else does – not even Jewish, Ashkenazi food!

By the time the wedding rolled around (or should I say, I rolled into the wedding), I had gained ten pounds!  When I saw the photographs, I was shocked at my appearance.  I had felt so wonderful -- and I was, in fact, glowing with happiness – but I also looked bloated and the extra weight was quite unbecoming.

Cut to a few years later.  I was living in Los Angeles and weighed 35 pounds less than I did after the famous banoffee-fuelled week.  And yet, no matter how much people told me I was too skinny, when I looked in the mirror, all I saw were the imperfections of my body, the bits that fell over my jeans that, at that time, were a full four sizes smaller than I had fit in for most of my adult life.

Though my hip-bones jutted out, I complained about my belly.  I felt guilty about every bite I put into my body, and then worked out for hours on end to make up for it.  Somehow, it seemed, the more weight I lost, the more insecure I became.

Had the banoffee pie clouded my judgment, or was it the fun and joy of watching my good friend get married that had made the number on the scale irrelevant?

Personally I have found that joy is the best antidote to unwanted pounds.  Not necessarily because they “melt away” – although that too has been known to happen on occasion – but because life is about so much more.  Why let that little number between our feet dictate whether it will be a good day or a bad one, whether we will enjoy food or not, and how we will feel about the other parts of our lives?

I would like to know: what would we obsess about if we weren’t obsessing about weight?  What about obsessing about how happy we want to be, how fulfilling our jobs could be, how loving our entourage is instead?

After all, Life can weigh as heavily as any bloody steak in our bellies. 

With love,
Gabriela