The Perils of Navigating Dieting Lifestyle Changes While Raising Little Girls

So, this article gave me quite the sad, and a bit of rage-face as well.

Mom Puts 7-Year-Old on a Diet in the Worst Vogue Article Ever

Be warned, it could be a bit triggering for both both eating disorders and child abuse.  The article basically outlines how this woman was concerned about her somewhat chubby seven-year-old and instead of taking a reasonable route like buying some healthier snacks and maybe putting the kid into dance lessons or team sports, she decided to send her kid on the path to a life-time of disordered relationships with food by putting her on a strict diet and brow-beating and shaming said kid for going off said diet.

And then selling her story to Vogue.

Little girls are under so much pressure from such a young age.  I have to wonder how much we help perpetuate it.  Hell, half the time we aren't even cognizant of the way the media constantly picks at us and tells us how we can be thinner, younger, smoother, and all other manner of adjectives, so how do we know when we are pushing these same unrealistic ideals on our daughters and more importantly how do we cushion them against the same toxic messages when we DO recognize them?

This is something I've struggled with along my weight-loss journey.  I try to recognize what kind of messages about self-image and self-worth I am sending to my daughters, who are at the particularly vulnerable ages of 8 and 10.  The way I negotiate my own weight-maintenance can have long-reaching effects on their own relationships with food and their bodies.

I try to be mindful about emphasizing how I want to feel, that is, healthier and more confident.  I hate when they see me weigh myself, and I tend to wear a pokerface if they are around, regardless of whether I like the number I see or not. In a house full of girls, privacy in the bathroom hasn't been a huge issue so sometimes they will walk in while I weigh myself.  Point being, I don't want them to get the idea that whether or not I have a good day or bad is tied in with whether I am feeling fat that day.

When dealing with food choices I try to always speak in terms of some foods being 'better for you' rather than relying on a 'good/bad' dichotomy.  I don't want them to feel guilt for having treats, or to berate themselves for not always choosing the 'healthy' option.  I do enjoy the idea of 'sometimes' foods.

If I have to restrict them on some items (for example, we can have cookies.. but we're not going to have six cookies in a day) I don't EVER frame restriction in terms of the "EFF" word (eep.. FAT!) because I want to keep them from worrying about their weight as soon as humanly possible.  Instead, I'll limit them to two or three a day because "Mommy isn't made of money and can't go buying cookies all the time!"

Financial insecurity is better than Body image insecurity, isn't it?  I sure hope so.  I'd rather see them grow up annoyingly cheap than with a life-threatening eating disorder.

I love my mom to death, but I will acknowledge that watching her struggle with her weight as I grew up, as well as the on-going concerns for my own health that were often expressed, not maliciously mind you, in terms of my weight when the real concern was not how much I ate, but the fact that I ate shit, did a number on both my body image and my relationship with food.  And I have tied a lot of my self-worth in with my weight.  I didn't totally internalize it, but I did spend a lot of time under the impression that I was A) grossly fat and that B) this meant I was a less worthy human being.

Just to clarify, because like I said, my mom is awesome and I don't want to pin it all on her.  She never said I was less worthy because I was overweight, but that is how I felt.  The truth is, these are the kinds of messages we are bombarded with every single day so that even many people who don't have a 'weight problem' per se see themselves as potentially fat, which to some is a fate worse than death.

No seriously.

Bea Beautiful posted about a woman a while ago who cited 'getting fat' as her worst fear.  Worse than shark attacks, worse than giant spiders, worse than being bludgeoned to death by an friggin' axe murderer.

That, my friends, is some fucked up, if y'all will pardon my French.

This is what I want to avoid for my children.  I don't want them to fear getting fat.. not because it 'won't ever happen' to them because it totally could.  But if it ever does, I want them to know they are still worthy human beings.  Whether we all here succeed on our respective journeys to lose weight and/or be healthier we are all worthy human beings and deserve to love ourselves as we are and as what we become in the future.

I want my girls to know that they are worthy, no matter their size and I think the longer I can keep them from thinking negatively about their body and reinforcing that they are beautiful inside and out, then maybe the idea of unconditional worth will stick with them.

I can only hope.

In Praise of Vegetables. No, Seriously.

I had a conversation with my mother the other day.  It was about my dinner a few days previous.

"Hey, guess what?" I asked with great anticipation. "The other night, I made chicken fajitas and they actually had MORE peppers and onions than chicken.  And I ATE them.  I didn't pick them out or ANYTHING."  I told my mother this with all the excitement of a four year old who has just tied her shoes for the first time.

It's kind of a big deal.

Many people will blame weight problems on a love of food.  Not me, however.  For years my issue was strictly one in which I hated most foods.  And the ones I did enjoy tended to be rather.. hrm.. how should I put it?

Nutrionally void.

Hot Dogs.  Zoodles.  Grilled Cheese Sandwiches.  Kraft Dinner.  Pizza Pops.

I ate some fruits, mainly bananas, strawberries and grapes.  On occasion.  Maybe.

My mom and I have discussed my eating habits and she admits that she could have been more adamant about not giving into my fussiness.  But in fairness to her, she was raised in a you-are-not-leaving-this-table-until-your-plate-is-clean-young-lady-I-don't-care-if-you-don't-like-it type home and remembered mealtimes being horrible.  So she wanted to spare me all that.

Plus, I was a gagger.

I didn't realize how much my gag reflex must have played into my mom's need to cave until I had kids of my own.  The first time my youngest child gagged on something I was insisting she at least try before declaring it gross, I found it absolutely infuriating and like a light bulb being switched on, my mother's actions made sense to me:

I get it now! It was either make something else, or strangle me!

Really.  I don't know what it is about the sound of kids gagging on food that is so rage-inducing, but wow. 0 to Incredible Hulk before you can say "Finebutyou'renotgettinganythingelsekid"

I'd be lying if I didn't think my lack of nutrition didn't actively contribute to some of my health concerns down the road.  But damn if it isn't hard to eat healthy if all those things deemed healthy make you want to die inside, just a little.  Once I hit high school and beyond, I was well out of my parents authority in regards to my eating habits.  Just so you don't think they didn't EVER try to get good food into me.  They did, but I imagine it wasn't worth the frustration or the possible visits from the Children's Aid Society (see: gagging).

Once I was making all my own food decisions I lived off of what Drew Barrymore once referred to as a 'White Trash Diet'.  Added to the list was any kind of fast food, triple-decker peanut butter sandwiches and Cheeze Whiz and toast.  Dear Gord, Cheeze Whiz.  Is there not a more frightening concoction?  I could go through a loaf of Wonder Bread and a jar of processed cheeze - because you know, anything spelled with a 'Z' has GOT to be good for you - in the period of a few days.

No wonder my colon eventually cried 'Enough!' by way of bleeding for months on end.  More on that another day, though.

Not sure when I decided to actually start trying things again, but I believe it was a few months before I really got serious about my weight loss efforts.  I do recall sitting in a mall food court in Toronto with my friend Sammi.  She had a small tray of sushi, while I had my requisite slice of pepperoni pizza.  Somehow, some way Sammi convinced me to try a piece of her sushi.  It was a revelation.

Okay, it was tolerable.  But it was a start.  A few weeks later we went to an all-you-can-eat sushi place closer to home, where I could sample different types of sushi and I fell in love.  I thought to myself.. if I can love sushi, then maybe there are other things I've been missing out on.. other things that I should give a chance.

Slowly, but surely, I've been adding new foods to my repertoire.  I had my first eggs at the tender age of 27.  I'm now in love with egg sandwiches.  Salad is another thing I'm slowly getting used to.  I love a good Caesar, and can handle a lot of other salads.  I learned I love raw spinach.  The green and red peppers in last week's fajitas were a major triumph for me.  So is not picking the tomato chunks out of my spaghetti sauce.

A year or so ago I realized that maybe my picky days were over when a guy I was dating offered to make me dinner.  I warned him of my pickiness, then felt silly when none of the options he presented really sounded that bad.  I guess wasn't as picky as I thought.  (FYI, we ended up having chicken masala that night).

There are still things that I turn my nose up at.. the "brocollis and 'sparegrasses" as my dad likes to put it... but slowly I am learning to embrace the opportunity to try new things.

Andie: Been There. Done That. Got the T-shirt but the T-shirt No Longer Fits.

Well, I guess I should get the formalities out of the way.  I am called Andie and I am aka'd as Yandie, Goddess of Pickles when I blog at my regular blog at Inspiration Strikes. In The Kneecaps.  I'm a 30ish, musically inclined, vaguely eccentric Canadian single mother of two girls who has struggled with body issues for most of my life.

Gross, right?  I know.
(God, I was such an idiot.)

I say "body issues" rather than "weight" because in retrospect, I think the "weight problems" I had as a child and a teenager were grossly exaggerated.  I equated being bigger than my peers with being fat.  I also spent a lot of time internalizing my parents concerns with my shitty nutritional habits as more evidence that I was terribly fat.   Considering where I found myself years later, I have to reiterate that my fat concerns at the time were more than a little unfounded.

The nutritional concerns on the other hand? Totally Not Unfounded. I'll be dead, straight, spit-in-your-face honest when I say that for the first 25 years of my life I was probably the pickiest eater imaginable. I don't mean that I had a sophisticated palate. No ma'am. Picky like a five-year-old. Kraft Dinner (that's Mac 'n' Cheese for those south of the 49th parallel), grilled cheese and Zoodles were my staples. Vegetables were not a part of my vocabulary. To this day, people can list the individual ingredients of hot dogs to me and my response is still likely to be a Homer Simpson-esque "mmmm... Reconstituted pork hooves" complete with drool. Heck yes, I loves me some processed shit.

So what got me onto this health kick? For starters, some severe health issues that reared their ugly heads just after my 18th birthday. These issues, that include some occasionally severe colitis and multiple blood clots, and their various medications also resulted in my weight fluctuating wildly for the next ten years or so. Second, the realization at the age of 27 that no matter your feelings on the beauty and diet industry, when you wake up with 230 lbs on a 5'5" frame and your legs hurt every day, well, son, there's nothing cool about that AT ALL. Third, the idea of dying young didn't appeal to me at all and I became concerned that may be a very real possibility.

myself, early 2007, at 232 lbs

I started Weight Watchers in 2007 and over the next four or so years managed to lose 65 lbs. Yeah, I'm kind of a veteran with this stuff. I started eating better getting more activity and ended up about 20 lbs shy of my goal. I left WW due to disillusionment with the rampant corporatism and within a year I had gained back 20 lbs.

Which is why I am here. I've got a lot of pants that I'd like to wear again and a pretty vested interest in not getting back to my unhealthiest weight. Pretty clothes are pretty and no meds is all kinds of awesome.  I recently signed up at www.myfitnesspal.com which basically uses the same 'calories in, calories out' ideas that are used in Weight Watchers but without me having to shell out my hard-earned cash.  I'm looking forward to writing with these lovely ladies and keeping y'all up to date. I may also touch on subjects such as HEAS (Health At Every Size) and how the media affects our body image and self-worth. Did I mention I have a background in sociology? So yeah I kind of get off on analyzing such things.

Not literally, of course. Ew.