yes I can

I overdressed for last night’s 3 mile run, and ended up stripping a little off each mile, until by the time I arrived home I was carrying more than I was wearing, but other than that it wasn’t a bad run. The first mile sucked – of course – and I once again wondered why I ever imagined that running was fun, and then sometime during the second mile I started feeling clear-headed and strong. I love that feeling.

It was a cool night, but not nearly as cold as it has been lately, and my lungs were just fine which always makes me happy. I came home and stretched for about half an hour, just sitting on the floor talking to Lia who was ever-so-slightly tipsy on bourbon and Coke, but just enough to make her pink-cheeked and sloe eyed. It was pretty darn adorable. Poor girl has a hellish schedule this semester, full of teaching during the mornings and evenings, and in between taking classes toward her PhD. I think she’s getting a little burned out, and I know I am. We’ve both been in school again for over a year, her in the doctoral program and me in the MFA, and we’re overworked to the point of exhaustion. I confess that as much as I love my degree I’m looking forward to being finished at the end of this year and once again having my evenings for my real life and relationship, rather than just writing and reading.

Thanks to amazon.com’s “search inside!” feature, I more or less read the book “Intuitive Eating” this week. I’d been hearing a lot lately about how diets don’t work, and as much as it pains me to say it, that’s true for me as well. I went on Blotkins (TM Marla) almost six years ago for the first time, and yes I lost 30 pounds doing that, but I estimate that I’ve been “on and off” that same diet in the years since with relatively no effect. Last spring’s 40 pound loss owed a lot to my new antidepressants and a desire to only eat until I was satisfied (instead of full). For a while there I started to listen to my body – eat what I wanted when I was hungry, but only when I was hungry, and stop when I was satisfied. For some reason this firm resolve toward self-awareness didn’t last long, and I’m trying to get it back because I hate fetishizing food into moral categories of 'bad' and 'good'. I hate slotting myself into a 'bad' or 'good' category based on something I put in my mouth. It's ridiculous. So this week I’m very into the “I can have that if I want it!” stage. I can have spaghetti for dinner if I want it. I can have that sandwich. I can have a candy bar. But, I can also have the grapes I bought yesterday, and the lentil soup I made, and the black-bean salsa, and strangely enough since determining that I can eat anything I want I find myself feeling freer somehow and more grownup. I’m choosing a cup of lentil soup and a half a sandwich instead of the pizza. I’m choosing the grapes instead of the candy bar. And for the moment I’m trying to roll with that momentum.

First yoga and now intuitive eating! Look out world, I might try meditation next. *g*