Hold that thought.... and the mayo

(Warning: this post is probably not going to be PC. I am going to put it in the least offensive terms I can come up with, but it may still not help... Nevertheless, I have to post this, because it is a valuable lesson for myself, and I want to remember it.)

I recently returned to a thought I'd had years ago. It relates back to my need to revamp my eating habits in order to get myself into better physical shape. And in order to get my point across, I must tell an anecdote or two.

I have had, over the years, several good friends who were quite a bit overweight. Two of those particular friends and I got into the habit of going to diners all the time, being in our late teens/early twenties, and living in a place with nothing to do and nowhere to go except movie theatres and diners. At the diner, they would typically not order much, but it would be something like mozzerella sticks, or cheese fries, or fried ravioli. I, on the other hand, not overweight, would habitually order a bare, plain hamburger (no fries, cheese, bacon, etc.) and a tossed salad. I would also forego ketchup for a little salt and pepper on my burger. They not only thought I was weird, but they laughed at me and made fun of me for ordering what I did every time.

Since then, I have often wondered if they ever made the connection between our respective weights and our respective eating habits (at least at diners).

The other day, twenty pounds heavier, I was standing in the school cafeteria and saw a girl who was quite overweight, the bottom of whose shirt did not even nearly meet the top of her jeans. I won't go into detail, but let me suffice to say that it was not the sort of thing one wants to see in public. Then I noticed that she was holding a Haagen-Dazs ice cream bar. While making note of that, a squat, older woman, almost wider than she was tall, walked between me and the ice cream bar girl, holding a tray with nothing but two large pieces of pizza on it. After that, I got to my seat with my little box of Indian food and sat down facing a very large man, who had the remnants of a container of french fries on his table, and in the clear plastic carry-out container, the bottom was completely smeared with what looked to have been an exorbitant amount of ketchup.

Here's what scared me: with the ketchup man I couldn't identify (blech!), but with the pizza woman and the ice cream bar girl, I could. I've been continually telling myself that I'm so stressed out, I work so hard, that I deserve such-and-such a treat, all the time, whether it's pizza, ice cream, croissants, Reese's Pieces, or a cappucino-chocolate-chip muffin. But then I complain about how I feel tired, how my clothes don't fit right anymore, yadda yadda. So I made the connection once again, an important connection that I had completely forgotten. If you want to be thin, you have to eat like you're thin.

Obviously, there are more complicated factors that go into everything. Not everyone who eats cheese fries or ketchup will be fat. It's very easy to oversimplify. But I know I need to return to that simple grain of truth, which I at least believe holds true for me, to get one part of my life back on track.

(BTW, I got to the gym again on Thursday, and I have felt pretty great since then. The Izer noted the day afterward that I was still "bouncing around." It was cool. No change in my weight since last time, tho... not counting the gain of a half pound or so... :o/ Gotta start putting all this into practice, faithfully.)