The power of pleasure
Two challenging things are especially difficult at the holidays: being pleasurably social and losing weight. The first is hard because it’s all too easy to get caught up in a whirl of frantic, obligatory, and not terribly enjoyable festivities. The second is hard because, well, cookies. (Need I say more?) And yet somehow I’m managing to do both.
For the first, I’ve been forcing myself to get out of the house even when it’s dark and cold. I’ve had cocktails with friends, attended a gathering for people who like to travel, met other friends for brunch, enjoyed a private tai chi lesson, hit a couple of useful support groups, and most impressively (at least from the inside), gone out alone to several evening events full of strangers. My DSLR has served me well on several occasions as a security blanket; I’ve discovered that it’s a useful prop to hide behind in moments of social anxiety or introversion, yet I can still step out from behind it when I want to connect on more than a small-talk level. And the more I make an effort, the more I’m remembering that expanding my horizons — although it can sometimes be intimidating — is more fun than scary.
For the second, well, it’s all down to willpower, isn’t it? I’m counting calories, I’m paying attention to portion size, and to my intense delight, it’s taken me less than 6 weeks to get 2/3 of the way to my goal weight. It’s boring and frustrating sometimes. (Go ahead, try to figure out the caloric and nutritional stats for something you didn’t make from a recipe. It sometimes takes me longer to do that than to cook the dang stuff.) It also means passing up some of my favorite treats, at least for now. But I’ve also built in a little wiggle room so I don’t bust out in deprivation-and-resentment-driven rebellion. I can overdo it today if I make up for it tomorrow; it all averages out. I’m doing this because I want to, not because I have to. Life isn’t, and shouldn’t be, all about trying to achieve some misery-inducing standard of perfection.
Which is why last night I went to Street Food Friday at an art gallery, took a bunch of pictures, chatted with half a dozen people including the gallery owner and two of the food vendors, and ate an adorable little dark chocolate creme brulee with crushed candy cane melted on top before ordering a plate of vegetable curry.
And when I got home, I realized I’d felt absolutely grand about myself the whole time.
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