Around the block

Dear Reader,

Prepare yourself for another volte face. (I love the expression ‘volte face’ and really wish I had the elan to drop it into general conversation more often, ditto ‘elan’) Yes, sorry to be so inconsistent but I want to talk about food, body issues and dieting. I did say that I wasn’t going to write about weight any more, what with its preoccupation being ant-feminist and such, but then I wrote a blog post about trying to give up sugar and the subtext was very much - I really want this to make me lose weight!
Whilst in the process of writing a diary about living a life without sugar (an ascetic monk’s progress), I read Megan Jayne Crabbe’s book Body Positive Power, and it instigated an instant, inner revolt. I started getting angry; about societal pressure and the patriarchy and stuff. Plus, I didn’t feel any better for having eliminated the white stuff; in fact I had a massive attack of thrush, but that’s another story… Megan talked about Intuitive Eating and recommended a book: Intuitive Eating by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch and so completed my total about-turn.

Firstly, forgive me for repeating myself but here is a bit of
History:
I went on my first diet aged about nine or ten*, I didn’t really call it a diet, I just stopped eating crisps and chocolate and other ‘fattening foods’ and I duly lost weight. As I’ve said before, I found the approval of other people - their congratulating me on my weight loss, utterly intoxicating. And when I say people - I mean the grown-ups, because although other kids delighted on calling me fat, I don’t remember any of them applauding me when I ceased to be so. This early diet was the first of many - Weight Watchers, The Rosemary Conley Hip and Thigh diet, Intermittent Fasting, Slimfast, to name a few! Plus other unhealthy methods such as having nothing but a can of diet coke and a packet of ‘low fat’ crisps for lunch.
*Statistically, the more children are made to feel bad about their weight and encouraged to change their eating habits/diet, the more likely they are to be obese in later life. (Either that or more likely to develop an eating disorder like Anorexia or Bulimia) That’s right folks - body shaming not only doesn’t work, it triggers exactly the thing that the ‘well-meaning’ commentators are trying to halt - it makes you fatter! If you don’t believe me, read the book.

I read The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf and Fat is a Feminist Issue by Susie Orbach, and I tried to take on board what they were saying. I ditched the diet lingo, the attributing of a moral value to food, I tried to stop saying that I’d been really ‘good’ or ‘bad’ when I’d eaten a lot or not but I didn’t stop trying to reduce. I stopped saying that I was on a diet and started saying that I was trying to ‘be healthy’ instead. And yet, and yet, I still tried to be thin, be various means. The ‘not dieting’ methods included listening to a hypnosis CD, intermittent fasting and calorie counting and they all worked, initially, I lost weight, and then I put it back on again and felt like a massive failure until some other new fad or ethos would come along and I’d think - maybe that will ‘work’.

Going Forward
I’ve known for some time that traditional dieting is bollocks; https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/1999/dec/14/healthandwellbeing.health
I’ve even read a book called Dieting makes you Fat by Geoffrey Cannon. But what is the alternative, I’ve thought, if you don’t want to be gargantuan?  I didn’t trust myself to totally ‘let go’.  None of the books seem to offer a viable alternative.   What would happen when you forgot about restrictions and ate whatever you wanted??
If you follow this blog, you might remember that a couple of years ago I posted about losing weight through calorie counting - logging it all in My Fitness Pal, and doing a lot of walking, monitoring it all with my trusty Fitbit. The thing is, I still do loads of walking, that hasn’t changed, but what has changed is that I got bored with weighing out all my food and meticulously recording it, so that went to the wall, along with all the other diets/’healthy eating’ plans!
You don’t know the  pure joy of rebellion until, on a day when you’re only supposed to be eating 500 measly calories (on the 5:2 plan) you just say Fuck It! I’m going to eat!!
Apparently - it’s just this sort of (inbuilt) mindset that makes all diets doomed to fail.

Intuitive Eating
What they say, in Intuitive Eating, is that all diets fail ultimately because our bodies are programmed to fight starvation. Your body goes into lockdown and starts hoarding any fat you have left. (They say it more scientifically than I do). Also, as soon as you tell yourself that you ‘can’t’ have something, you just want it even more. They cite the fact that many people indulge in ‘last supper’ mentality, binge eating, the night before embarking on a new diet, gorging on all the things they plan to ban. This is also what happens when people ‘cheat’ on their diets; it often triggers a binge.
95% of people regain the weight they’ve lost (and a little bit more usually) but instead of blaming the diet, they blame themselves for being weak-willed.
***Ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-dong!*** I don’t know about you but this sounds VERY familiar. Just recently I was telling a colleague that I’d lost a lot of weight with calorie counting, only to regain it because I’d got fed up of logging everything. I said all of this with an apologetic/self-deprecating little grimace; the implication being - I am weak willed!

What is intuitive eating?
It’s eating what you want, when you want it. It’s stopping eating when you are full and not feeling that you have to clear your plate. It’s eating a biscuit, if what you want is a biscuit, and not trying to quell your cravings by eating 10 rice cakes, 2 apples, a bowl of spinach and then a biscuit! It’s not banning any type of food - our bodies need carbs and fat, as well as vegetables, fruit and protein. It’s not feeling guilty about eating anything - unless you’ve stolen it (and I guess not even then, if you’re poor and starving). It’s not feeling fearful of any food. It’s eating what you want to eat as opposed to what you think you should eat. It’s respecting your body and being kind to it. It is refusing food when you're not hungry and not just having something to be polite. It is waving goodbye to dieting, for good!

Does it work? (Will I lose weight or become gargantuan?) I don’t know, I’ve only just read the book. Time will tell, I suppose. One thing I have found is that, once you give yourself permission to eat anything you want, you seem to eat less of it. (eventually, once you get used to it) Goodbye scales!

We need to talk about Morrissey

This machine (seems to) support fascists

They announced on the radio this morning that it was coming up to the 30th anniversary of the release of the Guns n Roses album Appetite for Destruction. I curled my lip in distaste - a reaction as automatic as veering away from a bad smell. But the thing is - I bought that album, in my tender teenage years, I was finding my way, musically, looking for something a little bit different, and I kind of stumbled on rock (can we class G & R as heavy rock?)  and I felt deeply conflicted when I first saw the album cover.

The cover, as I’m sure you are aware but I’ll remind you anyway, features a cartoon depiction of  a half-naked woman, slumped on the floor, unconscious, with her knickers round her ankles. The implication is that she has been raped by a robot. The image is deeply unpleasant, gratuitous and, yes, I’m going to drop the ‘m’ word, misogynistic. Even if I hadn’t  considered myself a feminist, at the tender age of fourteen, I’m sure I would have been disgusted at something which had such blatant disregard for women.
I only liked two songs on the album anyway so I didn’t have to feel conflicted about listening to the music and trying to forget about the imagery. The music was hugely unimaginative, repetitive and painful to listen to. I gave it away and found my way to the more soulful and subtle Indie music, with it’s androgynous, willowy men and empowered women. I no longer had cause to feel ashamed of any of the albums in my collection (we’ll gloss over Wham: make it Big - I did go through a period of being deeply embarrassed by that but now I’ll happily claim it!).

But of, these days, oh Morrissey!
I keep wanting to scream and I’m sure it’s been said over and over on Twitter and other places, but:
And your prejudice won’t keep you warm tonight!
You stupid fucker!
I’m thinking of starting a support group for those of us who hate Morrissey but love the music of The Smiths - who is with me?
Because I’m a bit lazy and a bit of a technophobe, I haven’t removed the music of The Smiths from my MP3 player. And every time one of their songs comes on (I always have it on shuffle) and I don’t fast forward the track, I think - oh no, I must skip past this but I really like this song! And then I feel slightly grubby and hypocritical. I feel so torn - Marr’s guitar and wall of noise and some of Mozzer’s lyrics versus present day Morrissey’s racism, xenophobia, ill-informed views and general dick-headedness.
Can we separate the man from the music? Or must I purge my music playing thingumybob of their whole oeuvre? I don’t have a problem with Johnny Marr, he still seems like a good (vegan) egg.

Johnny be good

Do you know what I’m referring to? I’m loathe to cite Mozzer’s lunatic pronouncements and insensitive claptrap, could you do me a favour and look it up yourself? The final nail in the coffin, for me, after years of trying to kind of ignore the mealy-mouthed racism, was when he compared the massacre of teenagers in Norway at a political camp in 2011, by a far right gunman, to battery farming. I don’t agree with battery farming, or eat chicken but I would never compare the cruel slaughter of children to farming practices. Surely any right minded person would have been sickened by the massacre? It didn’t even seem as if he was placing animals at the same level as humans, but in his lack of sympathy, that he was placing them above humans.

There are a few similar dilemmas surrounding music and musicians but I don’t feel as emotionally attached to anything that Snoop Dog has produced as I do to The Smiths, because, when I first started listening to them (years after they’d disbanded) The Smiths appealed to the lonely, misunderstood outsider teenager in me. As they must have appealed to many marginalised people and now Morrissey is attacking those very people! I should really metaphorically, scatter all their albums into the sea but I can’t quite make that final cut.

Does anyone else feel the same?

I’ve compiled a little list of artists/bands who evoke similar emotions to The Smiths and can offer an alternative:

Radiohead
The Beatles - (particularity anything from Revolver and Abbey Road)
Kate Bush (ah, she’s a fan of Teresa May, you say…)
P.J. Harvey
Bowie
(some of) Joanna Newsom (if I’m in the mood)

It’s a bit of a scant list, maybe when I start the support group we can introduce each other to other bands, over tea and biscuits, bands with great, quirky, imaginative lyrics and amazing sounds. I do like other music, by the way, lots of other stuff, but I’m trying to think of stuff that holds the same power; the power to harness a mood of wistful nostalgia and yearning. Perhaps, after all these years, it’s time to leave The Smiths behind, along with Shaders and Toners and heavy black eyeliner and consign it to the same place as that Guns n Roses L.P.