"Less alcohol, more water." I had written that on an index card when I was taking quick notes for my new and improved lifestyle. In passing, you might think of it as a Sunday reminder from a Saturday night bender, a night that I'd swear time and again I would never repeat, but the note was jammed in between similar ones that read "Multivitamins" and "Cottage Cheese." Looking over it now, my heart sinks a little.
As long as the good literally outweighs the bad. Okay, I thought, I'll drink more water, but less alcohol? Maybe less beer, sure, but what about wine? With each new venture to the liquor store, I was turning more into my mother: a vino superwoman who could tabulate the number of bottles in a box, who could make young men rethink their manhood in a round of the Tour de Franzia. Surely I didn't need to give up wine. Women lived long, lush-filled lives in my family. My great-grandmother had a fondness for bourbon and 7-Up and she lived to be 95. I keep bourbon in my pantry. Maybe I don't drink it often, but it's there for a rainy, nostalgic day.
I don't think I'm necessarily supposed to outsmart my new eating regimen, to banter back with a full mouth with something like, "Eat this, fucker." I'd already been doing that for years and I am tired of tight pants. The foods I was told to eat now weren't going to be as big an issue. Despite successfully avoiding diabetes my entire childhood, I was starting to crave foods that didn't involve a craze-eyed cartoon mascot on a box. Chocolate, my closest and most personal friend, was even taking its toll, a reality even I never saw coming.
No one was legally obligated to grab my fat rolls and lecture me on the dangers of saturated fats and Big Macs. I was spending more time in the produce aisles of grocery stores thinking of all the ways to use cucumbers and spinach. I bought tomatoes weekly. And I lingered by the cheeses. Just when I'd begin to walk away after collecting my sharp cheddar and mozzarella blocks, I'd stop and turn my head slowly and scan other options thinking I may have missed something important. I'd volley my head from side to side, drum my fingers across my lips and realize I might need pepperjack and gouda and muenster, too.
Celebrities make dieting look like a vacation. Meals are already made for you in appropriate portions. You can still eat desserts. Sometimes you can just drink some kind of weird berry that Oprah endorses with a hint of pepper juice for like, a week, and then drop the weight of a third grader. Or they just munch on laxatives like Altoids and spend an exorbitant amount of time in the bathroom. Either way, it has to be some kind of sinister magic at work, as if the leprechaun on the Lucky Charms box actually came to life and granted you weight loss and a toned ass in exchange for your soul.
"Portion Control." Another little tidbit on a tiny card that will be my biggest contender. I read and am now told that I shouldn't consume large meals. Not that this is a prescription or anything a dietician or licensed medical professional has personally dictated to me; no one was legally obligated to grab my fat rolls and lecture me on the dangers of saturated fats and Big Macs. I only ask close friends and family members on such ordeals, and when I decided to ask that painful question, "How can I lose weight?" the first answer was always "portion control," or some phrasing along those lines. Instead of three square meals a day, a regimen beaten into my brain since birth, I was now to consume five to six small meals a day, meals no larger than the size of my fist. This alarmed me. It wasn't that I was advised against eating an entire large pizza, washing it down with a pint of Half Baked, and munching on chocolate chips before bed because I was too lazy to actually make the cookies. What alarmed me was that I have very small hands, hands that have been made fun of since, probably, 1992. People marvel at their lack of size. First dates are commonly filled with drinks and a mockery of my hands as the boy across from me lifts his palm and gestures for me to do the same, his face giddy and his laughter a cackle. My father is constantly amazed that I can handle a pen without too much difficulty. And now I'm supposed to use my tiny fist as a measuring device for my meals?
Foods of all shapes came to mind, foods that I would no longer regularly eat because their sizes were much too big to consume. Even a slice of pizza was a no. Sure, I thought, I could probably tear off some of the crust or the tip to fit it into the shape of my fist, but by that point it wouldn't even be considered a slice of pizza, rather a mangled form of its prior self forever reliving the glory days. What if I curved it into a ball to resemble my fist? Was measuring like flour where I just wanted to skim off the top? Or was it more like brown sugar where I was encouraged to pack in the ingredient? I thought of all the slices of bacon I could layer together and wrap into a tight circle, thus outfoxing the major rule of my new "lifestyle."
I especially like the language thrown around to, supposedly, encourage the heavy eater toward a healthier regimen. You aren't just changing your eating habits, you are creating a lifestyle. You aren't just eating less, you are controlling your portions. Slimmer hips and thighs are now magnificent and sexy as opposed to the ones hidden underneath those baggy clothes. To eat unhealthy, whether it is a daily visit to the drive-thru or simply eating one too many cookies at a work picnic, is the result of a diseased muncher, a person who has no say in what goes in because he or she is not in control of destiny. By controlling portions or maintaining a healthier lifestyle, a person has a say in future meals and a placebo effect is created. The world is no longer chaotic because you aren't stuffing your face with your tenth burrito from Taco Bell. In the past, you had no options; you simply suffered until you died. But not today. No, today you have a choice.
Most days, I am perfectly okay with my new eating habits. But sometimes I'll come home to empty take-out boxes from my favorite eateries and I'll feel a little like Kathy Bates's husband in Fried Green Tomatoes. I'll find her jumping on her trampoline in her stylish tracksuit, sweatband covered in sweat, and beer and fried chicken replaced with lima beans or something gross. No, I don't want to succumb to diabetes or high cholesterol and have my death be forever embarrassing, totally uncool when compared to, say, being mauled by a tiger, but I'll punch that happy, Southern-fried face if I can never eat shitty food again.