Why You Should Just Eat the Macaroni and Cheese

I have never gone a day without food.

But I have gone 28 days on a low fat, low sugar, low sodium, no dairy, no meat, no alcohol, no caffeine, no oil diet. Also, I only ate whole grains. Well, technically, I only went 27 days. I cheated once in the 28 day span because there was oil in my vegetable soup.

A little background: I was working for a “wellness club” that promoted this restrictive diet. According to studies, this diet is fantastic for the heart. I had read books like the China Study, Dr. Esselstyn, Joel Fuhrman all promoting this “lifestyle.” It was something we were selling so I figured I should give it a real go.

And so, on February 1st, I began the 28 day challenge. I planned my meals, switched to decaf and did my shopping. I really thought I managed it pretty well. I even maintained it during a bout of stomach flu. In a month, I had lost 5 pounds.  In a lot of ways, it was great. I got to flex my culinary muscles. I learned to cook a bunch of new things. I got really creative with my food purchases to stay within my budget. I saved money not buying meat, dairy, alcohol, and caffeine. I even discovered a few new foods that made me feel really good. 

HOWEVER….. there were problems with this "lifestyle" that made me reconsider the value of the diet: 

1. I got a little nuts and judgey about food.

One time during the 28 days, my boyfriend and I ordered sushi. I forgot to ask him to request brown rice but hoped that he would remember because he knew that I was doing this challenge. When he did not remember, I was a little hangry and kind of lost it when I realized my tiny sushi roll had white rice. I then marched back to the sushi place to buy replacement sushi with brown rice.

In short, I was a pain in the ass and pretty neurotic about food. Even after the 28 day challenge was over, I didn't feel comfortable eating foods on the “no” and “low” list. I had a hard time feeling okay around foods on the bad list and spent a lot of time feeling guilty for indulging.

 2. I didn't really feel that great.

In the depths of winter in New York City, it’s pretty hard to go fully vegan. When it’s cold outside, eating lots of cold fruits and vegetables is challenging. I was cold ALL THE TIME. This is likely because heme iron, or a more absorbable form of iron, is more prevalent in animal products. 

I was also HUNGRY all the time. I realize now that I didn't have much protein or fat which are both digested more slowly than carbohydrates and, therefore, keep you fuller longer. 

I was tired and a little weak. I think it’s because my body just runs a little better with animal protein and living without coffee is HARD. Also, I was calorie deficient. As calories are literally a measure of energy, it makes sense that I had less energy.

3. I was a little anti-social and it was hard to go out with friends

Going out to eat or gathering with friends was its own animal. A few of my friends had birthday parties that month so it was a bit of a bummer to show up to those parties with guacamole, whole grain pretzel sticks, fruit and seltzer and then proceed to not partake in any drinking or eating festivities. No pizza. No cake. No booze. I’m not saying those are necessary to a good time but they certainly help. Even though I don’t remember minding that much, I just felt like a weirdo.

Going out to eat was basically a no-go unless I had full control of my food prep, so that wasn’t great for my romantic or personal relationships. I stayed home a lot. 

4. I was straight-up obsessed with macaroni and cheese.

Because macaroni and cheese was forbidden for 28 days, I became obsessed with it. I’d walk the frozen aisles of the grocery store perusing ingredient labels seeing if it could somehow fit into my crazy diet. Inevitably, there was oil or too much salt. I did end up making my own version of vegan macaroni and cheese which was delicious but did not stop the cravings.

And so, when the 28 days were over, I proceeded to eat macaroni and cheese for the next two months. This resulted in about a 10-15 pound weight gain which undid my challenge weight loss and left me heavier than before. In the end, it was a lot more trouble than it was worth. 

I’ve talked about this in previous blog posts; restriction often leads to the very thing we don’t want. Our intelligent bodies compensate for starvation. Dieting isn't really that great for your social life. It's not guaranteed to make you healthier or even help you feel better. It can leave you with some long-term issues around the food you restricted. 

So, save yourself the trouble.  Just eat the macaroni and cheese. 

Weight Off Your Shoulders

***Warning: strong language in this post. So, don't read it out loud to your 1st grade classroom***

I used to have a serious ritual about weighing myself. 

 Wake up. Go to the bathroom.Take off all my clothes. Zero the scale. Weigh myself. 

Good number meant a good day. Bad number meant calculations. 

I'd consider what could be causing an increase in weight: digestion, salt intake, my menstrual cycle, etc. If I was feeling super confident, I'd just assume it was something simple and totally healthy and move on with my day. 

Mostly though, I'd be kicking myself wondering what I could do to fix it and what I did wrong.

Ugh. I don't miss those days. 

I'd be lying if I said that I can step on the scale and be totally unaffected by what it says. There's too much in our culture that tells me how important it is. There are too many conversations about weight loss and weight gain and what that means. 

So, this week I simply want to encourage every person who reads this blog to stop stepping on the scale. 

I know. I know. I know. If you were anything like me, this is like asking a smoker to stop smoking. 

Even so, I can directly blame that scale for so many obsessive thoughts,  crappy diet lunches and money wasted on diet books. And you, dear reader, probably can too.  But, I know you're scratching like a heroin addict because I might be taking that scale away from you. 

You're rationalizing: 

1. Sometimes the scale makes me feel better when I'm at the weight that I want to be at. 

To which I respond, "Why does being at a certain weight affect how you feel about yourself at all?"

Fuck that. You deserve to feel good about yourself regardless of what the scale has to say. You are a lot more than the grams of water or whatever your molecules are holding. Contemplate what really matters in your life. I fully support an existential crisis here with the support of a well-trained mental health professional.  

2. If I don't know, I'll obsess all day about whether or not it's gone up or down. 

To which I respond, "Why do you need to know? What information does that give you? Are you not going to eat when you're hungry? Are you not going to stop when you're full? Will you not listen to your body tell you what it craves and desires because of the scale?" 

Fuck that. Your body is a genius. Doctors don't even know how that it all works. Somehow, your amazing and beautiful body never skips a heartbeat. It never forgets to breathe. It keeps your body temperature within a decimal of its perfect point. It regrows skin. It's phenomenal. So stop trying to control this multifactorial pathophysiology by trying to control one variable. 

3.  If I'm not paying attention to the scale, I'll balloon up like the girl in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. 

To which I respond, "Why are you so worried about being bigger? Do you want the world to keep you starved and small?" 

Fuck that. Nourish yourself. I've said this about 800 times on this blog but being a size 0 is not the right size for everyone. Here's a video to remind you. Watch that now. Remember there are many beautiful women of many sizes. Follow a plus size model on Instagram or look at pictures of Marilyn Monroe if you need to. Being beautiful is not worth forgoing your own health. If you've ever thought foot-binding is ridiculous, this means you agree with me. 

If you still feel like you need to step on the scale or if you've successfully stopped weighing yourself, please let me know in the comments or email me at info@noeljane.com.

Forget love at first sight

I've been dating someone for almost 7 years. We are deeply in love. 

We met at a party when, let's just say, I did not exactly have my A game running for "traditional sex appeal."

 I was recovering from some of the worst acne in my life.  It was a toga party (please don't judge me).  I lamely only had a top part toga (AKA american apparel scarf that also turned into a shirt). I wore pants and a tank top underneath. For a party that was all about showing off skin, I was kind of covering it all up. 

If you know me, this nerdular style is pretty classic. I dress pretty functionally at parties because dancing is a priority. Looking cool is not. 

And that night, I met the love of my life. It wasn't exactly love at first sight. He didn't see my face and fall suddenly in love. It took getting to know me.  For me, I think it was love at first joke. 

Here's the nitty gritty: 

I'm going to call bullshit on this whole, "I just want to lose weight to be healthy" crap especially if you're single. 

I've said it once before and I'll say it again: If you eat fruits and vegetables, exercise regularly, get good sleep, don't smoke, and limit alcohol intake to 1-2 drinks/day, weight is not a factor for increased risk of death.

I will believe you when you say that being less "traditionally attractive" means that you might not get laid that often. However, certain evidence suggests otherwise. Ergo, less sex=less healthy but that's all relative.  I haven't heard of a study that shows how more sex with strangers who judge you based on appearance is good for you. 

And, I'll give it to you. The media SUCKS.  We're not exposed to enough images of diverse bodies.

But REALLY. We need to stop forcing ourselves to be a part of this weird cult of skinny-only worship.  Most importantly, we need to stop caring about the opinions of the people who continue to buy into it. 

Here's how: 

1. Having sex with someone you care about and who cares about you tends to be better than someone who just sees your body as an object.

Source I'm going to cite here is Joseph Gordon-Levitt and the film Don Jon. I think it's on Netflix right now.  

Also, as I've pointed out before.  Self-objectification is not great for your self-esteem, happiness, or sex drive. 

2. If you're looking to fall in love, physical attraction should not really be the ONLY factor. 

Here's a fact: You are going to get old. Whoever you fall in love with is also going to get old unless they're a robot. They may be attractive now but, if you want to hang out with them for the rest of your life, you're going to need them to be more than just a pretty face.

Notably, many heterosexual women are attracted to men who are not "conventionally attractive." We know this because dad bod is a thing.  If physical appearance were the only important thing in a healthy sexual relationship, I just don't believe humans would still be on the planet. We evolved because of our brains not because of our plumage so maybe let's stop the sexist "evolutionary psychology" arguments for why being good looking is so important. 

3. Sex involves more than 1 of the 5 senses. 

We see. We hear. We taste. We smell. We touch. Maybe this is an overshare but it's those sensations and how people take care of you in that space that make for the most pleasurable experience.  Don Jon also taught me (spoiler alert) that you don't have to be a "dime" to be good in bed.

 4. As a human being, you deserve to experience whatever you want. 

We talked about this in my post about bikini bodies. We really shouldn't stop fully participating in our lives because we're worried about what people think. My home girl, Isabel Foxen Duke, has talked about this: You can have sex with the lights off and your t-shirt on. OR, you know, you can just do what you want.  

I want to invite you to be part of the bold and brave women of the world who are no longer the objects but the subjects of their sexual and romantic lives. 

Let's start a coup d'etat on the tyranny of love at first sight. 

No Pain. No Gain

I am a swimmer. It's been my whole life since I was a kid. 

This is based off the Tao 66 quote. You can find that here.

Swimming is sort of a masochistic sport. The joy comes from hard work, seeing how hard you can push yourself. And when it comes to competition, it's all about swimming faster and better. It's taught me to compare. 

When my competitive career finished by college, I started to play with yoga.

I was drawn into yoga by cool inversions that showed off how strong my upper body was, like crow-to-headstand. It was like gymnastics with breathing. 

In the poverty of post-grad life, I found the cheapest exercises were running and donation yoga. I hated running and when my shin splints got worse, I went to yoga. 

Let me tell you, in comparison to 5000 yards of swimming, 1 hour of yoga feels like nothing. I'd be down on myself because it wasn't so demanding cardiovascularly. However, each day I went, the instructors would remind me to focus on my breath and my practice. 

"Don't pay attention to what those around you are doing.Focus on your body. How does it feel in YOUR body?" 

"Try not to judge today against yesterday. Some days the same poses are not available to you."

"Whenever you lose your breath, child's pose is a space where you can always resume your breath." 

"Yoga is a moving meditation." 

"Savasana is the most important pose."

Inhale. Exhale. They reminded me to focus on me, close my eyes, and listen to my body. 

Making the transition from someone who always had her eye on the next lane to somebody who closed her eyes and listened was amazing. 

I found myself enjoying yoga. Doing regular exercise felt good. And the best part: nothing came crashing down. I'm still strong. I can still walk up stairs two-at-a-time. My blood work is within range. 

Yoga has taught me that exercise doesn't have to be about pain and suffering. A yoga practice isn't "No pain, no gain." It's about getting to know your body and listening to it. 

This was a crucial step for me in believing in intuitive eating. Dieting culture teaches us that we must be hungry. We must be left wanting. You cannot achieve what you most want by "taking it easy." (I blame capitalism, the American Dream, and Jillian Michaels). 

Yoga is not about hurting and punishing the body. It's about listening to this amazing creation that manages to never miss a heartbeat. 

And, rumor has it, yoga shouldn't stop on your mat. 

Not the word I'm looking for

I hesitated before I clicked on it. 

Body-checking one more time, I was about to click on a quiz to determine whether or not I had an eating disorder. 

"I don't think I'd qualify as having an eating disorder," I thought. 

This was my freshman year of college at NYU, a place ripe with young beautiful women coping with the move from their smaller towns to the bright lights of New York City. If you were thin in your small town, people in NYC are thinner. If you were pretty in your small town, there are plenty who are prettier, better-dressed, smarter, better, faster, stronger. Even bigger fans of Kanye West and Daft Punk too. 

I was struggling with this. I didn't know who I was any more in the big city and I was lonely. 

I felt like all I knew was that I weighed more and had more acne than I ever had before in my life. I was desperately trying to have the body that I had before college as an athlete. 

I was in a deep dieting phase of restricting and, inevitably, binging (although I wouldn't have called it that).

I tried to eat clif bars and green juice for lunch. My sugar would crash pretty rapidly and then I'd give up and eat an entire box of cereal before dinnertime. When dinnertime came, I'd vow to eschew the dessert table and then be disappointed when I found myself 3-4 cookies in. 

Once or twice after my clif bar lunch and taking a pretty rough round of antibiotics for my new NYC acne, I felt pretty pretty dizzy. Then, and only then, did I think, "Maybe what I'm doing isn't healthy. Maybe I have an eating disorder?"

I quickly shook the thought though because I never passed out, my weight was in the "normal" range on the BMI scale and I had regular periods. Also, I didn't try to make myself throw up. So, no. Clinically, not eating disordered.

"Eating disorder" is a loaded term.

It's clinically diagnostic and many people think that it just doesn't apply to them. It only applies to one of them Olsen twins and, like, Ellen's wife or whatever. 

Often when I describe the work I do as a body positive health coach, I'll mention my time as an operations manager at eating disorder treatment center because it transformed my relationship to the word. 

Beyond the fact that I now know the diagnostic criteria for insurance companies (although I'm sure it's changed), I also got to see the people that it affected. In meetings, I learned about what people were struggling with. I read the books we recommended to clients, families, and the rotating interns. 

I started to see my own messed up relationship with food through them. 

When I realized this, I went from seeing the disease as a #firstworldproblem to a feminist issue.  And it wasn't just restricting in totally crazy ways or purging in totally crazy ways. It was far more insidious than that.

Diets, calorie counting, body-checking, obsessive food thoughts, getting on the scale multiple times a day. These things all sounded familiar to me. 

I still don't identify as "having an eating disorder." If I should, then I think most women should.

Beautiful, smart, and talented women everywhere, regardless of their size, are spending time, energy, and money on their body projects. And why? You know: a fat-shaming, sexually objectifying, patriarchal culture. 

I still very much believe in the importance of thorough clinical work for those suffering with clinical eating disorders and to be fair clinical diagnostic criteria is not as exclusionary as it once was (look up OSFED and EDNOS. Some therapists are just avoiding the diagnosis entirely).

I believe that women don't have to spend any more time dieting, calorie counting, body-checking, obsessing, and weighing themselves. 

Ladies, we have more important work to do.