Smells Like Soccer

     Don’t you just love how a simple scent can transport you to another place and time? No mental energy involved—you’re just there, in an instant.

     When I stepped outside today, after a long serving shift at the restaurant, to take my dog, Conan, for a walk, the first gulp of fresh air I breathed in filled my mind with one resounding thought: soccer.

     As a little girl, I played soccer every summer. I continued playing through my freshman year of high school, but it’s those childhood summer games that stick with me. I don’t know if it was the freshly mowed grass or the hint of June in the air or the birds chirping, but every bit of what I was inhaling late this afternoon had me back on that field, with bruised knees and grass-stained shorts, running like a maniac and feeling young and free and alive and all that good, sweet, innocent stuff.

     Oh yeah, and after every game, we’d go out for ice cream. I don’t have any dairy-free frozen desserts on hand at the moment, but the memory is sweet all the same ;-)

Conan (the barbarian)

Schizo Soul Sweetness

            Oh, ADD. I’ve never been officially diagnosed, but I and my many personalities know all too well that it’s true. Take this blog, for instance. I started out thinking I’d share about all the wonderful things being ultra-sensitive has done for me in my life. And then it became a wheat- and dairy-free product blog. But I can’t even seem to stay focused on that.

            I’m trying to “trust in the process of self-expression,” as my horoscope instructed me to do a week or so ago, but I feel myself being pulled in so many different directions that I’m surprised my head isn’t physically spinning. I’ve been clinging to my chemistry textbooks and soaking in non-fiction foodie diatribes and documentaries of late, telling myself I’m meant to be a student, and a scholar—not an artist. Perhaps, I suggest to my stifled inner child, I’ll find a way to combine the interests of the artistic self with those of the studious, cause-seeking self, but—seeing as how I’ve never been too adept at multi-tasking—don’t get your hopes up.

Truth be told, it’s been a while since I’ve tapped into my creativity. But this blog, however simple and silly it may be, is absolutely awakening something in me. Suddenly, I’m not only taking pictures of cereal boxes and popsicle sticks and simultaneously venting about and celebrating life as a food-sensitive sweet tooth; I’m writing songs again, and actually wanting to share them (yes, I sing, too).

I think I just need to embrace the fact that my artistic soul has been suffering a bit of post-traumatic stress disorder for these past many months. I won’t go into the details of said trauma, but it’s been enough to silence that most sacred part of myself for far too long: my voice. We've all got one, but sadly, only some of us ever really learn how to use it.

I am emerging, slowly but surely. I guess it took a silly blog to spark my creative spirit back into action, but I feel a change a coming. And it feels good—or perhaps more appropriately, it feels sweet.

Life is Motion (or something like that)

With all this sugar talk, you may be wondering if I have a weight problem. Or at the very least, a compulsive eating disorder. Well, I’ve actually wrestled my way through both of those things at different times in my life, but I’m happy to say that for the most part, I’ve got my head on straight now—and I can fit into my favorite jeans.

            But I’ve been having some serious trouble over the past month or so making myself go to the gym. I thrive on exercise—physically, mentally, and emotionally. And if I want to keep tasting sweet treats and writing about it, I need to get on that treadmill or those jeans won’t fit for much longer. Believe me, I’ve been there before—too many times to count, in fact. And it’s not pretty.

So, I did it. I went to the gym. It took a great deal of mental motivation—arguing back and forth with my inner couch potato and trying to reason my body into sweat-inducing movement on the way home from chem class tonight. But I did it, and it felt good.

It always amazes me how easy it is to slip out of a routine, no matter how well established it may be. Last summer, when I left my full-time job in New York City, I made the gym my life, and subsequently lost 12 pounds in just a handful of months. I was going between five and six times a week, sometimes seven. It may sound overkill, but I know from experience that I wouldn’t have lost the weight so quickly without that level of intensity.

And once the bulk of the extra weight was gone, my gym time tapered off to a more reasonable three to four times a week. This, to me, is ideal. Just enough exercise to keep me sane, stable, and healthy, but not so much that it takes over my life.

Then, in the first few weeks of January, when the rest of the country was getting all revved up for their weight-loss resolutions, I began to lose steam. I started making excuses, like how I didn’t want to wait in line for the treadmill behind all those New Year’s newbies. And how my spin class was so full I had to get there 20 minutes early just to get a bike. But the truth is, I was tired of working out; I was losing my game.

And since I started this waitressing job, I’ve been going an average of one, maybe two times a week. That might not sound all that bad, but trust me—it is. From the time I was 12 years old, I have struggled with my weight. I gain very quickly, and I lose very slowly. I’m a petite person at 5’2”, and small frames don’t carry excess weight well—unless, of course, you happen to be one of those rare and beautiful creatures whose fat settles so sensuously into all the right places. But if you’re built like me, there’s just nowhere pleasant for the blubber to hide.

            Anyway, my point with all this?  I don’t know. I feel like I’ve been finding myself in a lot of conversations lately with people who are trying to lose weight and find a dietary plan that works for them. And I guess I just want to say that I know firsthand how challenging it can be. Getting into a routine with exercise and eating (or anything, for that matter) is hard. Sticking to it is even harder. But once you get in a rhythm, you tend to forget what made it so hard in the first place. And then you grow to love it.

            In the words of my Grandpa Fred, as he lay in bed with a muscle injury a few weeks ago, expressing his frustrated acceptance of his aging body: "Life is motion; stagnation is death."  

A few additional things I’ve learned?

• Consistency is key.
• Calories in versus calories out actually does matter.
• And above all, be compassionate with yourself. Don’t freak out if you relapse into a night or two of binge-eating. Or if you fall out of your workout routine for a week or two.  It’s better to fall off and get back on again than to fall off and never get up. 

Sidenote: No sweet treats tonight, but when I got home this evening, I swear the air smelled like raspberries, and my mouth watered in anticipation. Yum.

Degree Dilemma

     It's no secret that too much sugar—in any form, organic or not—can be detrimental to your health. But watching this video makes me afraid for reasons entirely unrelated to my physical well-being.
     It's not a particularly interesting video; however, the doctor being interviewed is from Bastyr University in Seattle, Washington, which is where I plan to be studying nutrition as of fall 2010. I'm super excited about that fact, but I'm also feeling a bit doubtful at the moment. This isn't the first time I've heard or read about Bastyr profs and grads discussing the dangers of sugar consumption and the benefits of nixing it from the diet completely. Bastyr is, after all, a natural health arts and sciences school, which is why I applied there in the first place (and got in!).
      But I've said it before and I will say it again: I love sweets. Some people can tolerate them; others cannot. I am not pre-diabetic, nor am I genetically predisposed to it. In fact, raw sugar (and its naturally occurring variants) is one of the few substances to which my body simply is not sensitive. (I even have the blood tests to prove it!)
     And yet, in the name of all that is healthy, are they going to try and convince me to let go of my favorite food group?

     Don't get me wrong; I'm all about widening and deepening my understanding of foods and the way they interact in our bodies. That's why I'm spending all this time in prerequisite chemistry courses and preparing to go into massive amounts of student loan debt. But how much is that slip of master's degree paper really going to cost me?
     Think about it: Sans credentials, I can say anything I want when it comes to food. But once I have that official academic stamp of approval next to my name, my words will be judged more harshly, and I'll be held to a much higher standard. My taste buds, however, will not change! Will increasing my knowledge of this stuff steal the sugar-loving joy from my life?
     Maybe I don't want a degree, after all.
     Or maybe, I'll just have to make it my life's work to show the world that sweets can be a deliciously satisfying part of a healthy, well-balanced diet. You just have to know where to find the good stuff. And how not to overdo it. And how to burn off the excess carbs before they coagulate into a blubbery and disconcerting mass in your belly, or hips, or thighs. And so forth.
     Sigh.