We’ve had a lot of chilly days this week, but right now, we’re in the middle of a glorious 60-degree sunny weekend. Everyone is out an enjoying the green spaces in the city. It’s been a lovely week, mostly productive, mostly stable, with the usual ups and downs. Nothing rocking the boat too much, which is OK with me.
Here’s what I’ve been eating, reading, and enjoying this week:
What I’m Reading and Enjoying:
The young adult novels by the author of Dumplin’ (which I first heard about via Netflix) and her Instagram feed.
Please let Mycroft Holmes be fat: The evolution of this character and his portrayal in TV and movies over time.
The art of decision making.
Letting go of the guilt.
Mint and lime shortbread cookies from Sister Pie
What I’m Cooking:
(Meal plan and menu ideas, in case you need some inspiration)
Sunday: Crispy tofu with quinoa and broccoli (this was delicious)
Monday: Stir-fried udon noodles (also excellent — two wins from Bon Appetit this week)
Tuesday: Leftovers
Wednesday: Brassicas bowl with buttered baguette (I loved this, David was much less enthusiastic)
Thursday: Roasted cauliflower and chicken pasta with a side of roasted asparagus
Friday: Leftovers
Saturday: Sweet potato and black bean enchiladas
Book Review
Title: Heavy: An American Memoir
Author: Kiese Laymon
Date: 2018
Format: Audiobook
This book was fabulous and brings to life the experience of Kiese at the intersection of race, weight, education, family, and class. It felt like a new voice (a man, talking about abuse and eating and weight), but the challenges he experienced in his life are so not new.
Listening to the book as an audiobook was a delight. His writing is lyrical, and he narrates the audiobook himself, which I really enjoyed.
I’m less able to take notes and track the moving passages when I listen to audiobooks, but there was one passage, late in the book, that I found absolutely stunning (content below contains discussion of weight and specific numbers):
“That Thursday, the first day in six years I did not push my body to exhaustion, my body knew what was going to happen because it, and only it, knew what I made it do, what I hoped it would forget. When I sat on the floor knowing my body broke because I carried and created secrets that were way too heavy. My body knew in three weeks I would still be unable to walk. It knew I would punish it for not being able to walk by eating cheese sticks and honey buns until I weighed 184 pounds. It knew at 184 pounds I’d call it a fat piece of shit over and over again. And I would eventually take it to the doctor, hoping the doctor would fix it, so I could run it into exhaustion again…
My body knew I would gorge it for weeks until I was 206 pounds and feel heavier at 206 pounds than I felt at 319 pounds. At 206, it knew I would cancel everything I was supposed to show up to on campus except class. When I showed up, my colleagues and students would ask me if I was OK. My body would remember when I had 3% body fat, ran 13 miles a day, ate vegan, had lots of visible veins and fainted a lot. It would remember taking off my shirt and shoes in the weight room to weigh myself, surrounded by thin women people secretly called anorexic and bulimic. It would remember never worrying about anyone calling me anorexic or bulimic, though I was the first one at the gym at 6:00 in the morning and the last one to leave at 10:00. Like nearly everyone else in the gym, I wasn’t in the gym to be healthy, I was in the gym to feel in control of how fat I looked and felt. My body knew that my weight, that exact number, became an emotional, psychological, and spiritual destination a long time ago. I knew exactly how much I weighed and how much money I had every day of my life since I was 11 years old.”
