The Eater & Exercise

I've come across a couple of articles this week addressing the fitness regimens of those in the food world. Chefs, chocolatiers, food celebs lately have been quite open about their issues with body image and their efforts to balance out their fortunate careers with corporeal realities. [Warning: Bitchy moment coming up] Though, I don't really want to hear how efficient and wonderfully laid back Padma Lakshmi is about her "weight gain" during filming for "Top Chef."

Training for marathons, 90-minute daily workouts ... it's all game. And quite frankly, it sounds masochistic. I never liked the word "regime." In French, it is the word for "diet" and quite apt that it's also used to describe totalitarian systems of governance. So yes, in my mind, "diet" and "Kim Jong Il" are closely associated. 

Weight has always been an issue in my life. I can empathize with Frank Bruni whose recent piece in the New York Times Magazine about his childhood of overeating and subsequent disorders rings a bell with this only child, overfed on convenience food, home cooking and anything else I wanted. Mom always felt bad that I was a latch key kid. She compensated with food. Needless to say, I turned into quite the blob. There are photos of me still in elementary school but scarily resembling world-class sumo wrestlers in training. 

I laugh at those now, but the reality was that my weight petrified me and was a component in pretty much everything I did in my life. At this point, I feel like I've cultivated enough self-awareness and reduced the self-loathing to a level that my love of food and cooking trumps the negative feelings.

Oh yes, I give myself the biggest guilt trips when I miss the P90X workout or don't go on a hike and instead do work. But this article in TIME Magazine says it might not be such an issue. The piece makes sense, particularly when I think of my Italian friends who never gave a thought to exercising but were always a healthy body weight. Gorgeous even. It's how we spend our days...live our lives versus the money we spend on the trainers, apparently. 

Now if someone could invent a mobile computer that I can work on and take with me on walks and hikes, I might have the workout issue resolved. Or maybe, our lifestyles just aren't suited to the way we are built. Even this blog and my writing is counterintuitive to burning the calories I ate for my columns or the "research" that I love. 

I never said I wasn't a glutton. 

So I'm curious -- what do you, reader, think of the latest debate? Do we eaters need to furiously balance out our indulgences or is this a factor of our American sensibilities feeding paranoia into our already overstuffed psyches? What do you do for exercise, if at all? And if you don't, why don't you? As I sit here at the computer, sans my iPhone (still looking for it), I'm dying to know what everyone's take is.

Comments

[Katy]

The timing on this post is crazy! Check out what I just wrote on my blog @ www.mikeandkaty.blogspot.com regarding weight loss for my opinion. And not to sound too weird, but I think your body is AWESOME!!!

[SC]

I love food and have to be diligent not to get too fat. (Our Korean mothers always tell us when we're getting too chubby so we know we have someone waiting to keep us in line.) It's so easy for me to pack on the pounds. So I have to force myself to do stuff like run or exercise in order to keep me healthy and satisfy my equally voracious appetite. I love to eat and now I love to run so I can try to keep both sides happy. But I also think you can't let it get to you if you gain some weight once in awhile. It happens (esp. the older you get).

However, when you pay attention to what you're eating - not just pre-processed crap - you don't have to eat as much because you're eating well. Making food from scratch once again has helped my diet. And when I eat fast food (i.e., from lack of any suitable food choices in small towns), I feel it. It's not a happy feeling and typically takes several days if not weeks to flush that crap out of my system. Here's to good eating with an occasional amount of fat - that's what makes one happy. :-)

[Meili]

Ooh, good topic! I grew up with a mom who was opposite than yours in a way. She stayed at home with me and made homemade dinners, but her meals weren't especially tasty or large. Her version of spaghetti was noodles with plain tomato sauce, and maybe a sprinkle of parmesan. I often ate a piece of plain, dry bread on my way out the door to the bus in the morning. It wasn't until I moved out that I began to discover what taste was. This may generate a boo from the audience, but I never had to worry about my weight... until now. After having a baby, I thought my previously thin body would bounce back easily and it hasn't. It didn't help that breast feeding came with a huge appetite, and that appetite included a desire for dessert. Lots and lots of dessert. So after I realized that I was going to stay chubby unless I did something about it, I had to slightly change my eating habits and start working out again. I feel the same way you do about diets, V. So I decided to allow myself 5 (dark, Ghirardelli) chocolate chips every day. That way, I wasn't totally depriving myself from the taste that constantly occupies my thoughts. I've fallen off the wagon several times, but I don't beat myself up over it. I just choose to start again. I'm not losing the weight at a Hollywood pace, but I'm trying to live my life in a way that makes me feel good. I feel good when I'm making healthy choices in general, with dessert (and bread and cheese and butter) in moderation.

[essay papers]

Took me time to read all the comments, but I enjoyed the article.