Tuesday, January 19, 2010

You know you've missed me

Today we're feeling highly accomplished on account of conquering the kitchen and DEEP cleaning the floors. :)

And the thought we're pondering this evening is a quote from one of my cousins. Once when I was pondering on my being fat and the various methods to fix that or not and why I feel bad about it etc- my sweet cousin posted a thought that had helped her in her post baby battle with the bulge (although in her case I am NOT being literal b/c she is naturally skinny and she needed to lose like a half ounce post baby to get back to her perfectly gorgeous self - I admit at times I hate her for that, but not really. She's too sweet.)

ANYWAYS the line she said was "No food tastes as good as being healthy feels". And I admit the first time I read it my jaw hit the floor. My mother's response was much the same she went "Wait, wait, wait - Say that again" b/c to both of us this was just a revolutionary statement.

My initial response was something along the lines of "wow, that could make an amazing diet mantra" but the more I thought about it the more I realized that my initial reaction was wrong in my case, because for me - either I have NEVER been that healthy, or that chick ain't never had food this good (given that I don't think she's been to france this is entirely possible).

This does raise the pondering of the super-taster phenomenon. I've heard it theorized that part of why some skinny people are skinny is because food just doesn't taste that good to them. Therefore they just aren't as interested and they don't get all the happy endorphins from eating it. I do know that in my personal experience most of my naturally skinny friends (ie those who don't police every bite or work out religiously) are picky eaters, there's a plethora of foods they don't like. I have met one or two exceptions but in that case they just have disgustingly good metabolism and in one case have to work actively to maintain their weight so they don't get too skinny (the bastard eats whole pies b/c the doctor tells him too...).

But so I'm wondering if part of why she doesn't think food tastes as good as being healthy feels is because to her, the food really doesn't taste that good therefore she doesn't get the happy mojo from eating it.

There are alternatives, such as - I just don't feel that good. Either my diet/health wasn't good enough when I was skinny such that I enjoyed the "health" of being thin therefore the mojo I get from eating just beats down that mental image, or another option is that I'm a super taster so the food tastes that much better to me and so I get all sorts of happy mojo from eating that she doesn't.

I don't really know the answer. I'm just pondering.

Thus bringing my mind around to the topic of exercise. I have several good friends that have taken up running marathons. And some of them are not little people. This boggles my mind. I listen to the stories they tell and personally that sounds remarkably like hell to me. I cannot conceive of a world where I would desire to do such a thing, and especially not to do it for fun. And so we're left to wonder if I just don't get the same mojo from exercise that other people do, or if its just that I'm inherently lazy or I dunno, missing something?

Because I have never enjoyed running. It's just never appealed to me. Or rather the one or two times that its sounded like fun, the pain that resulted there from was more than enough to give me the strong desire to never do that again. And thats not to say that pain has turned me off from everything. For example, dance. I love to dance. I miss it painfully. I had to stop dancing due to injuries sustained falling down some stairs. I would dance every day for at least an hour 5-6 days a week. I'd drip sweat and be sore and bruised and blistered from dancing and I'd come back wanting more. Even now that I can't dance I find myself occasionally dancing in random places like the kitchen. I literally want to cry right now because I miss it so painfully.

It was just so intense and joyful. I can't really describe it. I love the complexity of it. I love how much of my mental faculties were required. That's the problem with a lot of other options is that I get bored. There's nothing there to distract me from the pain of what I'm doing. Its just putting my nose to the grind stone for the requisite amount of time. With dance, a whole hour could pass and it would feel like minutes. I've gotten that with some really good yoga instructors, or when I'm teaching yoga but I have a hard time with it in my personal yoga practice, which is probably part of why I don't do it. And unfortunately if I ever want to teach yoga professionally, a personal daily practice is mandatory so we need to find a way to get over this issue. But every other method of exercise is simply an exercise in pain tolerance. And since I'm a lazy human, I don't do it like I should.

So I don't know. I need to find a way to get over my mental block about a personal yoga practice because I think thats as good as its going to get for me for the rest of my natural life because until the resurrection happens and I get my ligaments back (that or some variety of medical miracle), dancing like I want to is not going to happen. And I mourn its loss. Deeply.

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