Battered and Bruised?

Ha ha, not really -- although I am always intrigued by the fact that after I eat "normal" food, I end up with stomach pains and a massive pseudo-hangover effect. The two times I've had cake in the evenings, I've had stomach pains all night for my trouble. The night I went out for dinner with my workmates, I spent the entire next day feeling headachy and nauseated and blah. And last night I went to bed mostly because I thought I was going to be sick. Honestly, it's like a hangover. It's ridiculous. And it's also very nice to be back on the diet! You'd think it wouldn't be, but in all honesty I'm already over the rich food. Although it's also obvious to me how much your tastebuds adjust to whatever you're eating, because my first chocolate the other day tasted horrible, but by the end of last night I was enjoying it again. And Diet Coke had already started tasting rubbish again, and this morning my yoghurt had gone back to the blander taste I remember from the early days of the diet. It's really quite fascinating. It'll be fine again, probably by tomorrow, but...yeah. Interesting.

Still, I blew out the diet for the day and even though I know it will be an unpopular opinion amongst many die-hard adherants of the diet I am doing...I am glad I did it. Definitely not something to be done often, but I am glad. I was chatting to my mother between dinner and dessert yesterday, and as I was describing my adventures in French toast (my breakfast cooking attempt), she observed that I had completely blown my diet. I think she was more surprised than anything else, as when she had been talking to my aunt earlier, my aunt had been assuring her that I was actually eating normal food, but I rolled my eyes a bit and said: "Look, it's one day." I then went on to explain something that I have been concerned about, which is Life After The Diet, AKA Maintenance.

This is a funny diet. Obviously. My understanding is that it was actually designed to cope with obesity and its resultant fertility issues, as it was designed for women who wanted to get pregant. Being that PCOS both causes and maintains an obese state in some sufferers, I think -- it's actually why it appealed to me, because although I have never been diagnosed with PCOS my doctor's fairly certain I have enough of the symptoms to make it likely. Now, the curious thing about this diet is the fact you're told to weigh yourself monthly. Because your body, whether male or female, looses weight on a cycle that's roughly four-weekly. Almost no-one obeys this rule; I myself weigh weekly to keep an eye on things, although at this stage it's fairly unnecessary because I know my own particular food-water-sleep combination, when followed, allows me to loose at least a kilogram a week, if not more. But I like to see it go down week by week. Some people weigh daily, but I find it counter-productive as there's too much room for variation on a daily weigh basis.

So, what does this have to do with the diet blow out? Well, I notice that despite the fact the weight-loss phase asks for monthly weighing, there seems to be a maintenance attitude of daily weighing. Or even post-prandial weighing. And this? Terrifies the hell out of me. I explained to my mother that I really do not want to finish this diet and live my life in constant fear of a decent meal. I mean, I know now that carbohydrates? Are not my friend. I simply can't eat a plate full of rice or spuds or bread and expect not to be roughly the size of a barge. I do, however, want to be able to have tuna, avocado and pasta for lunch once a week and not immediately jump on the scales and say OMFG I GAINED A KILOGRAM I AM SUCH A FAT COW I AM NOT EATING CARBOHYDRATES FOR A WEEK!!!11!!!1!!1! I just...well, look. I am halfway through this diet. I am learning about myself, and about food, and about what I can and can't do. I accepted I had a weight problem, and that is what allowed me to do this. But now I am looking ahead to the future and I just...don't want to switch one weight problem for another.

My mother rarely speaks to me about her own weight problems. She's yo-yoed up and down all her life, and is currently in an up phase. But when I mentioned the post-pradial weighing, she sighed, and said: "I used to do that." And it wore her down, obviously. You can't live like that. You can be fat and miserable, but you can also be skinny and miserable. It's just that our culture says the latter is better. That lean is better. And I just...I don't know. I'd rather weigh sixty kilograms and be happy with a mostly-kosher healthy diet than fifty kilograms eating lettuce and steak and crying every time a carb passes my lips. This diet is about being healthy. And a food obsession of any kind is not healthy. They have that silly mantra, don't they? "Eat to live, don't live to eat." I think it's missing something, though. Maybe it ought to be "eat to live, don't live to eat -- but remember, above all? Just live."

However, I am about to go and brave the Boxing Day Sales, so I may not live very much longer anyway. <g> Here comes the REAL battering and bruising, for sure! ^_~