eating – hellomelissa.net

Sometimes I feel like my body is just something that carries my mind around for me. My mind-body connection is tenuous.

I’ve decided that this is the year I’m going to get more active. I have a sedentary lifestyle – my work and my hobbies are very computer- and technology-based. Except for reading, which exercises my mind. So my mind is reasonably sharp, but my body is…less than sharp.

I’m fat. Most of the time I’m okay with it. Well, maybe ‘okay’ isn’t the right word. I don’t beat myself up about it too much. Not openly anyway. I believe in buying clothes that fit me as I am, not buying clothes I’ll shrink into someday. I believe in small improvements, not complete short-term overhauls I cannot possibly maintain.

But sometimes, I wish I didn’t have to eat to stay alive. That makes me so angry. The act of eating is – and should be – a pleasurable one. A life-sustaining act shouldn’t be filled with such guilt and shame and neurosis.

I know I need to move more. I’ve spent the last few weeks (months? years?) figuring out what I’d like to do to be able to introduce more activity into my life. Everything I want to do seems to have barriers: too expensive, not enough time, worry that I will look stupid in front of people who I wouldn’t give a shit about if I wasn’t feeling so vulnerable in front of them.

I can’t sit at my desk and listen to my ass grow bigger without trying to do something about it. I need this body for a long time.

So for now, I’ve decided to go with streaming fitness videos at home. I don’t want to buy a pile of DVDs, do them a few times and never use them again. I also figure I can start exercising in my bare feet at home – I haven’t had a good pair of running shoes in years. I’ve found a few sites online that I can join to access full-length workout videos in a number of genres. I’m also considering a Fitbit – I’ve heard good things about them, and seeing the stats of how much I move (or don’t move) in a day may encourage me to move a little more. That can’t be a bad thing.

Flora recently discovered my yoga mat and she likes to “ex-ter-cise” on it. (I love how she says exercise, and I never correct it.) She got it out to do some yoga (her latest issue of Chirp magazine came in and it featured simple yoga poses). She’s pretty good. I asked her if she’d do exercises with me, and she said she would. We’ll see if that happens or if it turns into me exercising and her doing colour commentary on my technique.

If you’re a fitness video junkie, which ones do you like? I like yoga and am intrigued by Pilates, but I know I need to do more traditional cardio stuff too.

Any advice is welcome. This stuff is so new to me, and maybe just a bit intimidating.

Everyone has a a weird food thing. A strange combination that makes the best snack. Eating candies in order of colour. An insistence that food items cannot touch on your plate. A food they cannot bear to eat.

Eggs look nice, but I cannot eat them. — Photo courtesy of Jaycee Barratt, burningwell.org

Here’s mine: I cannot eat eggs.

I’m not allergic, but I can’t even fathom the thought of eating an egg. I can’t remember ever eating a breakfast-style egg. I must have had a really bad experience when I was a baby before my memory kicked in. My parents never pushed eggs on me, so maybe they remember the experience I don’t. (Remind me to ask my mom sometime.) I have no problem eating eggs in baked treats (cookies, cakes etc.) or in pad Thai, but when I went to try Sean’s omelet at home one night, I took a miniscule piece that fit on my baby fingernail – and couldn’t bear to put it in my mouth.

Don’t offer to pay for my breakfast buffet at a restaurant – that money is generally wasted on me as I avoid all of the dishes involving eggs.. I love a good Sausage-only McMuffin though.

When I tell this story to people I know, the part that really shocks them is when I tell them I had to read my Better Homes and Gardens cookbook (the cookbook that covers the basics in my house) to figure out how to make omelets. And maybe scrambled eggs. Sean had a hankering for some eggs and neither one of us had cooked them ourselves. Me due to the yuck-factor and Sean because his mom always cooked for him growing up.

I realize I’m probably missing out. I know eggs are a nutritional powerhouse and that they are more than a breakfast food. I like the idea of eggs – their convenience and versatility appeal to a slacker cook such as myself. It’s just that the thought of actually eating an egg that is not folded into a baked treat grosses me the fuck out. I’ve cooked eggs here and there over the years for Sean (and Flora – don’t want to pass down my neuroses!) but I don’t ever sample the dish and I just hope I’ve cooked them right.

I’m not sure if this is something I’ll get over during my lifetime. Here’s hoping that Sean gets the hang of cooking the breakfast eggs on the weekends. It seems unwholesome to have someone cook food that they would never eat themselves.

Photo courtesy of Jaycee Barratt, burningwell.org

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