Lady V – Week 1 Deprivation, Indulgence, Denial. Repeat.
By CocoaDiva on Aug 18, 2009 with Comments
Deprivation, Indulgence, Denial. Repeat.
The scale doesn’t lie and neither does the bank. This weekend I faced
two harsh realities:
1. I weigh damn near 190 pounds.
2. I have paid $2,673 in overdraft fees since the beginning of 2009.
That I’m overweight isn’t news. I’ve been considered thick, zaftig,
curvy – pick your euphemism – since just after my senior year in
college. I can’t remember why I started to gain weight, but I do
remember that it was familiar. When I was about 14 my body expanded
fast, producing embarrassing stretch marks that I guiltily associated
more with my premature sexual activity than with overeating. In fact,
I’ve never thought of myself as having a problem with food or
exercise: I’m just a brown girl with hips and tits and a healthy
outlook on nutrition and exercise. I eat California healthy, I’ve a
regular yoga routine, and I even have my own pair of weight lifting
gloves. I always chafed at the notion that I had a weight problem, or
less, an eating problem. But, the fact is my weight has steadily crept
up – from 145 in college, to 160 in my mid twenties, to 175 in law
school, to my current 188. And, at 5’ 4”, that makes me forty-five
pounds heavier than I should be, brown girl or not.
That I am a spendthrift isn’t news either. I’ve always said that I
have a magical relationship with money: it magically appears and it
magically disappears and I am just fine with riding along with the
tide. After all, how did my mom raise three kids with no help from my
deadbeat dad? Magic! Didn’t you know that the same $100 can pay for
the groceries, the phone bill and car insurance, too? And when there
is no more money, I just eat what’s in the cupboard, avoid driving,
and make my own beauty products using ingredients I already have at
home. I can stand the deprivation because I know I’ll catch up when I
get paid again. But then there are always the forgotten/unplanned for
bills: the gym membership that gets paid right out of my account, the
dinners and drinks out with friends, the
I-feel-so-shitty-I-need-a-massage and, oh look, I have a coupon for
20% off at Burke Williams! The overdraft fees got to be so damn
frequent I took to calling them ‘the Andrea tax’, as in: the $100 I
just spent at R.E.I. for a sports bra and running pants is really $133
with the Andrea tax.
Staring at the facts, the cold, hard, 188 lbs/$2,673 facts – I feel
differently. Awake. And when I look at the behavior that has gotten me
here, I see a pattern of deprivation and indulgence, with a steady
dose of denial throughout. With money, the pattern is easy to see:
When I have money, I feel rich, and I spend it. When I have no more
money, I feel poor, I scrape by. With my weight, it’s a little
harder. I’ve never been a donut eater or a soda drinker. I eat salads
with spinach and chicken and candied walnuts and gorgonzola cheese and
dried cherries. I go through periods where I’m working out almost
every day. And while I’m eating that way and exercising that way, I
feel great and I don’t deny myself a glass of wine or two or a piece
of rich dark chocolate or two. Because, after all, I’m behaving right!
But then I crash. I skip yoga a few days in a row, and then I pick up
a breakfast Panini at Starbucks, followed by three bean burritos at
Taco Smell. And days turn into weeks until I can’t remember when the
last time I used my weight lifting gloves.
Right now, I’m still reeling from the cold hard facts. I haven’t yet
figured out how to change my frame of mind, much less my behavior. I
sense though, that both my weight and money issues are related to the
nagging memory of growing up poor, of rushing to enjoy the good times
when they come and having to buckle down when they disappear. Not much
has changed even though I’m now a lawyer making a steady salary and I
know exactly how my body responds to diet and exercise. Somehow, deep
inside, I still feel like its all done by with magic and I just
haven’t found the right wand.
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