Food for Thought

I have come to the realization, and made peace with the fact, I will never be tiny.  Remember My Big Fat Greek Wedding?  Tula says she was a "swarthy six-year old with sideburns".  Well, aside from the sideburns, I fit the bill.  I used to dread the day in elementary school when the teachers lined us all up to measure our height and weigh us.  We could have used that privacy buffer they have at pharmacies now.  But no, they pretty much announced my weight for all the school to hear.  Degrading.

I come from a stock of large, northern European women.  It is astonishing to hold up a photo of my maternal grandmother next to a photo of her mother.  I just look at that and think, Aw, so sweet!  They look so much alike.  Then I think, I'm screwed.

I do not lay all the blame on my genetics, though.  I love food.  I know people say that all the time, but let me reiterate:  I LOVE FOOD!  I love everything about food.  I read cookbooks from front to back - for pleasure.  I take pictures of food when I'm in restaurants.  When I talk to my brother Patrick on the phone, what do we talk about?  What we ate.  And what we're eating.  And what we are going to eat later.  And what we are going to eat when we see each other again.  It's a disease, really.  (Maybe it is genetics, now that I think about it.)

When I'm not doing yoga regularly, I don't think about what I'm eating - or why, really.  I pretty much eat what I want - mystery solved.  (Confession:  I've gained 15 pounds since I started grad school.  Not good.) 

Yesterday, day 5 of my yoga challenge, I really thought about how I wanted (and needed) to fuel my body for optimum yoga.  I was at school (my third to my last class, thank you very much!) and as I perused the choices in the cafe, I paused and thought, What will make my yoga better this afternoon?  I opted for one slice of vegetarian pizza (protein from the cheese) and a side salad.  I espied the array of lovely chocolate bars, but passed.  I thought about a soy vanilla latte, but passed on that as well.  (Nothing like soy jostling around in one's belly while bending forward and grabbing your heels.  Barf!)  I was intentionally choosing fuel for my yoga class, just like going to the gas station and choosing the right fuel to make your car run smooth.  So simple, yet I am rarely so intentional about what I'm eating.  Are you?

(Excerpt from Bikram Yoga, 2007)

"Your body doesn't need all that food you are eating.  But your restless, greedy mind that craves simple pleasure and distraction wants it.  This is one of the biggest problems we face in life and also one of the greatest benefits that practicing yoga gives us: the ability to distinguish between want and need.  When yoga students begin to understand the difference between want and need and are able to act on it, one of the first ways we see it is in their changed relationship with food" (p. 154).