Losing Weight Journal

Study of my nutrition. July 2012. California

Monday

I have put on weight. I gained five kilograms. How terrible. I can’t look at myself in the mirror without disgust. I want to give up.

Tuesday

It feels as if there are two persons inside me. The hungry me, and someone else….Well, at least I should listen to them and try to find out what they want. I get up from the sofa, go away from computer and find a place in my room where I (hungry me) can stand. I do it just intuitively. I start feeling, imagining. Yes, I feel that I am very hungry, as if there is some emptiness inside me. My thoughts run to the fridge, my tongue becomes very sensitive. My whole being is begging me, “Fill me up!” I go to other side of the room and try to feel the other me.

— “I can see your desire and craving, your hunger and your open mouth. I will get food for you as long as I am not tired.” I feel lots of strength and self-confidence in this position. My posture gets straight and I feel that my hands want to do something. I give myself several minutes to walk around the room like a big powerful active person. And then go to the another side.

— “Oh, so you are fulfilling all of my wishes!!??”

— “Yes, all the loudest ones. I can hear what you are asking for loudly and I believe that you really need it right now. I am strong and persistent.”

I felt as if I was next to a fairy Godmother fulfilling my wishes. She was strong but not so astute. It seemed she had strange notions of taking care, of feeding, feeding.…feeding! I’m trying to unite with her, I like her vitals, that large, tireless strength. I walk around my house like her. I feel powerful and resolute, my muscles getting stronger, and my attitude towards everything around me, more detached.

— “This is how you are, Xenia, you can create everything you have in mind, and you can get everything you want. But your real desires lie hidden inside you. Time shall come and you will be able to hear them. Listen to yourself!”

— “But so far I still have a plan to lose weight. This is also not a small task.  Also I have a list of creative desires which I do not dare approach yet.”

— “You know, I am strong and I love you. I love all of your demands: the deep, the complicated and the simple ones. What I do not like is to sit idly, without anything to do. I am your strength and persistence. Use me wisely! Whenever, wherever for whatever in life…otherwise I’ll get bored and….Eat!!!”

Wednesday

I decided to go to the store and buy lots of tasty and healthy foods. I bought fresh tomatoes, many-colored radishes, different kinds of onion and garlic, red chili peppers, young cauliflower and fresh pimply cucumbers. I bought fragrant coriander, soft avocado, limes, green leaves and my favorite low fat cottage cheese. I also bought seeds and dried seasoned seaweeds and a big carton of low fat milk and eggs. I have arranged a special shelf in the fridge to place my favorite products. With their help as soon as I feel hungry, I can make a crispy spicy salad seasoned with cottage cheese. I decided not to buy sausages, because when I looked at them in the store I noticed my annoyance with them. I remembered the story about companies who add special chemicals into cat food, to attract cats to eat it. I am not a stupid cat. I won’t eat everything they are trying to sell me in the store!

Thursday. Sausage

I will devote this day to sausage, canned foods, and other foods that I love from my early childhood. These were implanted not by somebody lazy nor by a greedy person, but someone who grew up in hunger and poverty. This is something that comes from the family of my grandmother and grandfather, from soviet stores and holiday food parcels. Food was always a main concern, a real treasure. I imagined someone from those distant times. She has a round female face, a head shawl, a burly figure in a calico dress with an apron and she looked satisfied.
She: “Eat Xenia dear girl, eat sausage. I have been cooking it for several days, smoked it for you. I cooked you preserved food for the whole summer, so that you always have a jar on your shelf. I raised a pig to make lard especially for you, and to make you eat better. I have added seasoning and more fat. In order for you not to feel fat, I have added more salt. Eat my sweetheart. When you eat, I feel needed and important.”
Me: “Why do you cook that much? Why is it so important for you to make all the food so fattening?”
She: “I am stocking up food, I have the habit of cooking like this since the olden times, this is what I know and it is important for me that you take it and love it.”
Me: “Why don’t you learn new recipes? You cook so old-fashioned. This is not the seventeenth century when people need to stock up food for the winter.”
She: “What for? You eat and others eat. This can be sold easily.

I got angry. This is mean. It’s like getting someone hooked on drugs and then selling them to that person. She pretends to be caring, but in truth she is a greedy and a self-seeking woman. It’s like those companies who put the face of a mother figure on their brands pretending to have your best interest in mind, selling you nutritious healthy food yet it is poisoned with sugar and poor ingredients. They put chemicals in the food that arouse the senses, yet deprive the body of any nutrition. Well it’s clear why they do this, for profits and markets. They do indicate that they are a for- profit company.  It’s me that has to be smart and progressive about all of this. I need to prepare my menus ahead so that when I see and smell sausages they can’t seduce me with their fragrance.

Friday. Food as an Art

 I like the idea described in various books dedicated to healthy eating that making food can be an art. Usually, when there are no guests in the house, it’s easier to make myself a sandwich. But there is also a very strong aesthetic part in me. It likes doing everything in my life as an art. Beautifully, detailed, tasty, unusual, every day in a new manner. The weekend awaits me and today I want to start a new period of my life, cooking as an art. I go to the store to find new tableware, napkins, candles with a very specific scent of pomegranate and grapefruit. I like opening this page of my life like a ritual. I have chosen dishes that look like they are made of clay, and colored in beige stains. This reminds me of the sand shores of an ocean. Dishes are big and handy. Big glasses are made to look like cracked glass. The wicker place mats are greenish grey, like grass. It would be nice to dedicate time preparing salads, so that every day they would be slightly different. This is a very interesting, and creative task. It is important HOW I do it and not what I do. Beautifully, Creatively, Sexually. I am a Woman!

I remember one of my favorite Hollywood heroines – Lara Croft. She couldn’t allow herself to do anything ungracefully or unattractively. But that wasn’t the old-fashioned grace of a lady. Lara has the very precise and strong grace of an adventure seeker; she has absolutely no laziness or unnecessary habits. I imaged how seductively Lara would cook for herself, and how she wouldn’t allow anyone to sell her sausages in the store; only to use them in some trick against a guard dog. Every dish should be like a bunch of flowers. By the way, whenever I go to buy flowers, I can spend an eternity choosing flowers for a bouquet. Exactly the same approach should be applied to food! So I imagined myself being her. I gazed somewhere into the distance, my body leaned, I looked at “ordinary me” through her eyes.

Lara: Hey! Life passes, don’t get stuck as a housewife! There are so many interesting things around, you are a Woman, don’t forget it! You are strong, special, loving life and everything new.

I look out of the window with Lara’s eyes. Everything seems new, and unknown…. as if I was seeing this for the first time. I try to feel her qualities. “Novelty, sobriety, precision” words came to my mind. I should watch the movie again and live this weekend the way she would do it, to learn from her.

Me: “What would you do, Lara, if you were staying by the ocean with your family for two weeks like I am doing now?”
Lara: “I would enjoy it, keep on training and plan the most unbelievable adventures.”

Looks like I got two gurus, “The Big Bird” and” Lara Croft”. But since they are alike and not to create another teacher, I will simply call her Bird Lara.

Saturday. Cravings

I am at the supermarket, walking and looking at all the food. I want a sandwich, right now! Otherwise I will torture and annoy everyone!

Bird Lara: “Hey, calm down, this is just a habit. Relax, breath in and engage yourself into something interesting. This will pass away after a few weeks. Stop complaining.”
Xenia: “No, you can’t say that!  You should be supporting me. This is violence against the freedom of my personality and even abuse.”
Bird Lara: “Abuse is something that is being sold in stores and by the food industry. You should simply overcome it. You are losing weight for a reason, aren’t you….something important? Why are you doing this? You are strong. I am not questioning your strength and persistence. Probably you need them for something very important, something very interesting in life?”

Those words stopped my whining. I started thinking about what my life would be if I lost 5, or better 10 kilos. What could I do more easily?

Sunday

 Well:

• I created my Guru, a character that is of great help for me. Lara the Bird. I drew her and placed her on my desk today!
• Also I formulated several advices for myself. In practice, I made a plan.
• In the future, my homemade or restaurant food will be constructed as attentively as if I’m picking flowers for a bouquet.
• My understanding of healthy eating differs from that accepted in mass culture. It is important for me to choose products and stores, as strictly as I choose clothing stores.
• Overcoming my addictions is the most natural thing I can do in this situation. By working on my addictions I can practice my strength, self-control and discipline
• To dream and write about how my life will change when I lose weight. What are those fun things I could do more easily if my body felt lighter? Those dreams could be very pleasant and offer new prospects.