Due to the momentous stuff going on in the news today/this week regarding gay and civil rights, I was considering coming on here and writing about my thoughts but honestly, there's nothing else that I can say that wold be more poignant, effective, clear, humorous, accurate, and dynamic as some of the things other people have said. Every adult human has the right to marriage, end of story. That's my viewpoint.
In other news, have y'all started watching Bates Motel yet? Shit is getting more and more real! Again, I'm probably biased because it marries my former career choice (criminal psychology) with my current (marriage and family therapy) BUT you should watch anyway so my show doesn't get cancelled on me.
Moving along...
I had planned over a week ago that this week's post would be about food and my current culinary and health efforts. Serendipitously, this past weekend I had class with a lot of group presentations and one was about body image-- with a very heavy focus on eating disorders. One member of the group (who appeared to be the leader and main drive behind why the group chose the topic) proceeded to argue how disturbing it was how people will put an unhealthy focus on their body and how your body image is not just your perspective on your body but a culmination of things. Because body image is more than just your body, people should not be so hung up on looking a particular way. Further, the "fit-spiration" (i.e. the stuff all over the Internet people circulate to motivate themselves to be healthier) is as damaging as the "thin-spiration" used by those with eating disorders to starve and be thin.
I'm not sure where to even start with how much I did not like the presentation and the statements made because it honestly pisses me off the more I think about it. I mean, first, if body image is not just your perspective on your body (which, gee, really sounds like the exact same thing), why the hell did your presentation narrow in on only eating disorders?
Here, I need to add a note. The group consisted of 3 people and one person focused on body image in India and did not focus solely on weight but also on skin color and other physical appearances. I really liked her section but again, it mainly focused on the outward/external experience of BODY.
Second, even if you did not include the other aspects of self that add up to body image (whatever you think that they are), you can talk about more than the negative stuff. So I asked after their presentation how effective they thought the Dove campaign was. For those who do not know: the Dove campaign has made a conscious effort to show "real" women in their ads. These women have curves, minimal makeup and tend to be from a greater variety of backgrounds than what we typically see in the media. I, personally, think it's a good step in the right direction as the women still look beautiful and happy despite not fitting what we traditionally see. The girl presenting did not agree and felt that all "body positive" campaigns such as Dove were damaging as they still focused on the body instead of encouraging that you are worth more than just that.
Overall, I sat fuming as this person does fit the traditional desirable model of beauty-- White and thin. I couldn't help but think that it's pretty fucking easy to make judgments on how other people should or should not feel when you are not at all in that perspective. Further, that's not what I see and whether I'm 100 or 400 pounds, I don't appreciate my viewpoint being marginalized.
But I didn't say anything because the previously link post states, I'm not that bad off. I'm overweight but not obese and the reason I'm overweight is because of the lifestyle choices I make. Another classmate stated on the lunch break we had how upset she was because she has a fit-spiration board on Pinterest and has lost 40 pounds in the last year (which is a perfectly healthy loss as you should only lose 2 pounds a week).
I didn't want to make it about me but I wish I had told my classmate how impressed I was with her efforts but losing weight and trying to maintain healthy habits is most frustrating shit that ever existed.
...ok, that's an exaggeration. But honestly, I have ZERO self-control and I live with two people who have a totally different compass from which they gauge their health and we're all trying to eat the same food. Shit is difficult.
In case you missed it or haven't talked to me I'm trying to eat healthier, work on my cooking skills, and ideally lose weight. I'm aware that my definition of healthy is not incredibly... accurate? honest? complete? productive? all of the above?... since I started from the point where my parents are now. So, I've been cruising the Internet for accurate, honest, complete, productive sources on healthy eating. I found nutrition.gov which is the only site I've trusted so far. I found out I'm not eating enough food. Well, I'm eating more than I should at dinner but the small snacky-ness throughout the afternoon/evening around a large dinner doesn't add up to much and it's mostly bad. So I'm sitting here thinking, "Shit, I have to eat more food, disrupt my day more often and think of a lot of options to meet these requirements because I will get sick of food SO quickly-- particularly if it's good for me." And then we reach the fucking vegetables. Did you know that there 5 different types of vegetables and you need a different amount of each every week? Are you fucking kidding me? And then there's only but so many dead animals that I can slap on a plate and present healthy with all the proteins and stuff needed.
Essentially, setting up for my first week took over 4 hours. Now, granted, some of those hours was just recording and researching the different types of vegetables, what's in season, etc. and will not need to be done again. THEN there was the clusterfuck of incorporating my tastes (I don't like fish or spicy food); my mom's taste which appears to be growing more selective every week (doesn't like vegetables unless cooked to death, doesn't want to eat any healthy grains because they have no flavor which I would think is better that having a BAD flavor but ok); the fact that shit goes bad in like 2 days just BEING in our kitchen (which really cuts down on fresh possibilities); and the fact that I cannot go too nuts with the changes because it will upset the pattern my parents have taken years to form. OH YEA, and we do not really have the money or the space to go apeshit on "buy everything so everyone is happy". AND I'd like to try the recipes I posted on Pinterest and in about 50 cookbooks WITH THE FULL INTENTION TO TRY THEM.
The crap takes 2 hours to do THEN there's ordering everything online and shopping to make sure I got the cheapest stuff without totally eliminating quality. This takes another 2 hours. So I guess the first week the whole process took 6 hours. Either way, WHO HAS TIME FOR THIS SHIT?! No wonder all of America is fat-- we have shit to do! Sweet Baby Rays! WTF?! It's like a part-time fucking job to be healthy! My blood pressure is sky rocketing just thinking about making a weekly menu.
Needless to say, menu planning was not maintained the next week-- it took me months to wrangle the patience to work out the first menu, it will probably take just as long before I get back to it. I'm in over head. Fuck this.
No wonder my classmate didn't want to focus on physical health. Shit is annoying...
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