I Moved

FYI, readers: you can now find What I Weight Today at whatiweightoday.com

This site-whatiweightoday.wordpress.com–won’t be updated anymore so please change your favorites, bookmarks, RSS or whatever accordingly. I would love to see you at my new home.

Women and Men

This morning, I heckled my husband until he got on the scale. I also calculated both of our BMIs. Dan hates me writing about him, so I’m not going to spill the beans about what he weighs today, but I will say that he is usually with me when I’m on reviewing meals and that he loves dessert more than anyone I’ve ever known. In the end, he said he would also like to lose a few pounds. The whole reason I asked him to weigh in is that I’d like some support in my efforts. When you have a buddy–someone who’s along for the weight-loss ride–it can be a huge help.

I don’t know if the wake up call provided enough motivation though. Not enough, certainly, to make him join the gym. It isn’t that he’s less overweight than me (in fact, my weight and BMI have gone up less than his since we met), it’s that he notices nothing different about the way the world regards him. Being a few pounds overweight for a man is nothing.

Like all men, Dan’s BMI would have to shoot well into the obesity range for him to experience the discrimination that women begin facing at a BMI of 27, according to this New York Times piece from back in March. My BMI is 26.4 but just a few months ago it was 27.3. And though I don’t exactly feel discriminated against, it is undeniable that people treat me differently than they did a few years ago.

In 2003, my BMI was 21. Often, running around in my size 10 jeans, I feel utterly invisable to woman and men alike. Rarely does anyone tell me I look good, and if they do it’s because I’m wearing makeup or a dress. At 123 pounds, wearing tiny designer jeans that actually look like doll pants to me now, I had everyone’s attention–bar tenders, cashiers, coworkers, fellow gym goers, morning commuters–in I way I simply don’t anymore. I had this temporary magnetism that was all about the size of my body.

As someone who spent a few years very thin, I know that there is a lot of power in thinness. Thinness in women is revered and even a little extra weight affects the way a woman goes through the world. But in men? Men can feel free to ignore their weight, their BMI, their health, their level of fitness, because no one even notices they are fat until they are morbidly obsese.

When I lost the weight back then, I was in graduate school. A woman professor chastised me for it. “What you are doing is politically incorrect,” she said. I’ve thought about that so many times since then. It was politically incorrect. I was sumbitting to a mysoginistic set of demands placed on women that are not placed on men.

It was wrong, and bad for me, and frankly I wish I didn’t know how differently people treat woman who are thin. I am not trying to fast my way into my old jeans. I would, however, like to get back into my healthy weight range. And I hope my husband is coming with me.

154

Dan really did hide the cookies, and they remain hidden. He’ll take them to his office tomorrow, where than can provide excess sugar and fat to his colleagues.

I was relieved to see the holiday gain seems to have leveled off. Tonight I’m off to a reviewing meal, but not until after I’ve made a big pot of healthy lentil soup for the week and gone to the gym …

154 or Dan, Can You Hide the Cookies?

Well, that was not what I was expecting this morning. I truly believed the holiday creep-up was over. Yesterday’s Xmas lunch leftovers were moderate; it’s true I stopped for oysters and just one beer on the way home from Jersey, but I went to the gym right after; and for dinner I had just a little leftover pizza. And one glass of wine.

But then I remembered the coconut cake we took from Christmas dessert. It was this coconut cake recipe from Alton Brown. Apparently, it’s a labor-intensive project that spans several days. I’ve never made it. But whatever it takes, it’s worth the effort because it is incredible. While we were plating ourselves that giant slice, I said to Dan: how about a few cookies? Is that excessive? He replied, “Yes, but it’s still the holidays.” Stupid christmas.

153.5

This is–I hope–the post-holiday high. We have just one more Christmas to go–lunch today–and when I get back, I’m going straight to the gym.

152

What a shock. Santa did not bring me the miracle of Christmas weight loss. And yesterday I only ate 12 butter-rich cookies, 11 stuffed mushrooms, 10 slices of pizza, 9 scoops of chai ice cream, 8 alcoholic beverages … and a partridge in a pear tree.

Merry X-mas!

151

I dreamed I weighed 156 last night–probably because I went to a party last night, drank several beverages, and ate 5 pounds of bad-for-me-food right before watching the first episode of Cowboy Bebop on DVD and going to sleep. All’s well that ends well. Now I’m frantically prepping my first annual Xmas eve pizza party.

Happy holidays! Don’t worry. I will weigh in tomorrow!

Women Cooking on TV

I learned to cook watching food television, and I’m not ashamed to admit it. Back then, there was more Sara Moulton, less Sandra Lee. And of all the women I loved watching put spoonula to a cake batter, no one has influenced and inspired me more than Nigella Lawson, whose book How to Eat is a cherished favorite (though not the most used) in my collection.

What I love most about Nigella is that she’s uncompromising. She’s all-out sexy, all-out greedy, round as a renaissance sculpture, and totally confident. It’s like no one ever told her she’s a little overweight. Earlier this year, when writers and bloggers were criticizing her for gaining a few pounds while testing recipes for a new book, she said that her husband likes her figure and who cares what anyone else thinks?

I also loved watching Stephanie Izard kick dude and skinny-girl tush on Top Chef last season. From the moment the show debuted, people starting telling me I resembled her. We do look something alike. But if she struggles with not being thin, it never showed. (Or so it appeared on the show; maybe she, too, weeps in department store dressing rooms.) If she ever lands her own TV show and loses 30 pounds, I will be very disappointed.

The new crop of ladycooks on Food Network (including Alex Guarnaschelli, Anne Burell, and Sunny Anderson) all outweigh the new faces of seasons past.  (And none of them fall into the Paula-Deenish fat clown role.) Sunny, in particular, looks curvy, fit and fashionable–not like someone who thinks she should drop a few pounds.  All seem comfortable with their bodies and ready for the spotlight.

Could this mean that women in the audience like watching normal size, beautiful woman teach them how to cook? My female food heroes actually look like they love to cook and eat. There’s a limit on how much a I can trust a food expert who looks like she hasn’t eaten since the 90s. Give me more Barefoot Contessa and less Robin Miller please!

151

I am calling my efforts to avoid gaining holiday weight successful so far. Everyone knows it’s impossible to lose weight during the holidays.

I had planned to finish up a writing project this morning and then go shopping in Center City for a couple of outfits I can feel good about wearing at various events in the next week.

Historically, I only shop when I’m thinner. Over the years this has resulted in a wardrobe that doesn’t fit most of the time. I have numerous items I bought when the scale hit some new low and then I subsequently wore just once–that one day it fit. I have clothes in sizes 4, 6, 8 and 10 and only the size 10 items fit. Of course, those are the ones I have the fewest of. I do get into size 12 territory. Those are the times I stick to pajamas and sweatpants.

Nice, flattering clothes that fit make everyone look thinner. But I stop myself from shopping because I tell myself I’m just about to lose 10 pounds. So I resolved to go out today, take advantage of the sales and buy some things I feel good wearing. Now it’s just the fact that its 19 degrees that keeps me from heading out …

151

Really, I’ve eaten enough cookies. Stacked up on our kitchen table, we have two types of shortbread cookies, chocolate cookies, Italian cookies, oatmeal-chocolate chip cookies, and merginues. I have “sampled” each variety. For, you know, quality control. No more cookies.

I missed the gym yesterday and we ended up ordering takeout from Ekta–samosas and  vegetable curry for me. (But I only ate half; the rest is for dinner tonight.) I also polished off a half bottle of red in the cooking/eating process. So how much did I really want to see the 140s today? Not enough to skip the wine. Not enough to eat the last of the “health stew” for dinner.

Today I’m finishing up work projects and continuing on with cooking for Wednesday. No matter what happens, I’m going to go to spinning at 6:15. Spinning or bust!