The healthiest town around
It's possible that Montclair is the healthiest town around. Everywhere I look there are people jogging and biking even in 20 degree weather. I overhear people ordering organic brown rice to go with their Chinese entrees. I've known mothers who sign up to provide nuggets for a class picnic so they can bring Bell&Evans organic, free-range chicken nuggets to expose all children to antibiotic-free poultry. Sometimes I wonder if there is a collective orthorexia, where the whole town is so focused on eating healthy that it is an unhealthy obsession. But I only think that when I'm pms-ing and I was pms-ing last week.
Last week I missed the crazy abbondanza-sized sandwiches from the Italian deli in Carroll Gardens, the gelato on the street corner, and the absurdly large muffins and Cannoli at Mazzola's bakery we get every Sunday night. In Brooklyn, the food was reckless and authentic and most important, delicious and when I ate it I didn't feel like I was being “good” I felt like I was experiencing a culture that still mattered. Food was a celebration, in every bakery, coffee shop and trendy restaurant.
Everyone in Montclair loves to cook and we have lots of fun at dinner parties. My favorites were the night friends made chocolate fondue and after we dunked all the exotic fruit we broke out a bag of pretzels, or the exquisite curry a friend made for my birthday, and I'm pretty sure my husband eyed his second wife the night a friend served Ina Gartens's flaky and comforting chicken pot pie. But with every entrée there is always a predictable side dish: a discussion about how much exercise will have to be done to pay for the crème fraiche sauce.
Last week, I just couldn't deal with listening to women qualify every bite of food with the promise of kettle bells. It was so cold and I was ready to eat pasta for breakfast—and lunch—and dinner. But I went to bootcamp and all I heard was how little everyone was trying to eat. I know why. Its the new year we all have goals, but it was boring to hear woman after woman say, I'm doing a cleanse or I'm giving up sugar or I'm giving up wine and chocolate. I wanted to say I'm giving up being miserable about my body. But I couldn't because the more I listened the more I compared myself to them. I am the curviest of the bunch and I easily fall into a Special-K hole of diet obsession. The trouble is, dieting doesn't make me feel good, it makes me feel cranky, and hungry, and fat (and I've been to enough disordered eating workshops to know fat isn't a feeling). I keep looking in the mirror to see if I've lost weight. It takes me forever to get dressed or I'll walk around in yoga pants because I need to an elastic waistline to stop thinking about my progress.
When I start this cycle, it's like my own diet version of Back to the Future. I did all this fretting over food in high school and it just made me heavier and unhappier than I needed to be. I can't go back to 11th grade and worrying about how much sugar is in a Certs. And if I could, I would tell myself to put away the Weigh Watchers scale and find the things I really love to do because that has been the only way I've found happiness.
The other day I was walking the dogs and I had spent a good five minutes thinking about what I wouldn't eat that day and I realized I was tired, more tired than I usual, and I knew I it was because I worn out by feeling like it was senior year and I was hating my thighs. So I thought, screw this. I love food and I love exercise, and when I let myself have as much as I want of each, I'm happy.
It just so happened that I had to skip a week of working out at the gym because I was helping with school tour week. I started walking the dogs a lot because they were home alone in the morning and I ended up clocking in four miles a day. I ate salad when I wanted and chocolate covered almonds too and you know what? I lost two pounds.
I'm a grown up and I'm over feeling bad about my body and I'm over feeling bad about food. But I'm not going to call a bearclaw that Dashiell made in cooking class bad. I'm too old to live in a food police state. I simply need to trust my instincts and taste buds and my clothes will fit. And now that I am 40, I know if I really want to worry about something I can obsess over the wrinkles under my eyes instead of my jiggle on thighs.