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Weighty Issues
Summer is definitely on its way. The past two day have brought that morning heat, when you wake up slightly sweaty and even after the shower, your skin stays warm and humid. My window has stayed open since yesterday morning, which has required me to adjust my modesty settings; the window itself is frosted glass, so it's no problem when it's shut, but I'm at street level so with it open, even with the sheer curtain, I have to be more careful about stripping down to try on my latest work-in-progress. Which is, surprise, surprise, another skirt! What can I say, Japan is a great place to wear skirts. And they're easy to make without a pattern. I would have finished it yesterday, but a boneheaded cutting move on my part resulted in me having to change my mode of attack. I should finish it today, though, only the hem, the zipper and turning the waistband in are left.
Another reason I'm fixated on skirts these days is to distract myself from the fact that most of my pairs of pants are well on the way to Being Too Loose. I haven't even tried on most of my summer (read, linen) pants on yet but I've indefinitely retired the pair of jeans I wore last summer and my favourite gray slacks, which I wear at least once a week to work, are in probably-slightly-baggier-than-they're-intended-to-be territory. Though in my defense, the largest mirror currently available to me is the small one above my bathroom sink, so it's not as though I can easily check.
I've always found the whole obsession with weight -- not weird, exactly, but irrelevant to me. Granted, I was a skinny kid and even as a teenager was never more than slender, so Society never had anything to say about my weight. As for my parents, they were more likely to comment about my boniness (I spent a good part of my childhood sitting on my father's lap while he read to me) or saying I ate like a little bird (my mother's oft-used expression). My mother may have occasionally said that she needed to lose a little weight, but that was about it.
Now, let's all pretend that I'm going to write a series of articles relating to my weight. First up is food. Perhaps will follow exercise, self-image and genetics, weights and measures.
One of the (many) good things my parents did in raising us was limiting our sugar intake and teaching us to eat right. I don't come from a very carnivorous family, nor one very fond of deep-fried things. We never had sugary cereal for breakfast and on the rare occasion that my mother bought a box, it would be Honey Nut Cheerios and she'd mix them half-and-half with regular Cheerios. Dessert was either yoghurt, apple sauce or fruit (often canned when we lived in Up North) or something my mother had baked and she tended to use less sugar than the recipes suggested; in the summer, we'd often get ice cream, always served in a small dessert bowl, and every once in a while there would be cookies, but we could never have more than three at a time. Imagine my shock when I started staying over for supper and sleepovers at friends' houses and was served ice cream in a soup bowl and was allowed to have four cookies if I wanted them! And for breakfast I could have sugary cereal WITHOUT MIXING IT WITH ANYTHING HEALTHIER! How the other half lives, indeed...
The funny thing is, until a few years ago I was certain that this was all because we were poor. Because obviously, the good stuff like cookies has got to be way more expensive than normal stuff like apple sauce! And while it's true that we didn't have much money, it really was more of a health issue for my parents, about them not wanting us addicted to fatty, sugary foods. And it must have worked, because by the time I was a teenager, I had developed a natural aversion to too-sweet things. Fudge? No more than a bite or two, please. Sugary cereal? Makes the milk disgusting. Though every once in a while, at a friend's house, I'd indulge just to see if it was as bad as I remembered. Even maple syrup on pancakes was too much, especially in the morning, so I'd add yoghurt or apple sauce to them, just to cut the sweetness. This isn't to say I didn't (or don't) like sweets, it's just that I didn't eat them everyday and usually not in very large quantities. Also, my favourite fast food was Subway. Veggie & cheese with lettuce, tomato, green pepper, black olives, mayonnaise, salt and pepper was my usual order. Sometimes pickles, too.
One thing I feel obliged to point out is that the Fast Food Issue was, until I was 7 and we moved Down South, irrelevant, because there was no fast food where we lived. I could have watched McDonald's television commercials all day and begged until I was blue in the face, I still wouldn't have gotten any because there was simply none to be had. When we took our semi-annual trips down to Ottawa, Montreal and Quebec city, we usually stopped in New Liskeard to have lunch at the McDonald's there, which was one of the highlights of the trip. The other being, of course, a stop at Toy City in Ottawa. Do any of you Ottawa people remember it? The logo was a purple panda and it was at Westgate, where Blockbuster is now. They closed a year or two after Toys 'R' Us came to town. At any rate, when we moved to Aylmer, which not only had a McDonald's but had it right up the street from where we lived, my parents pulled the "it's expensive" card firmly enough that we didn't dare ask for it too often.
Even once I had money of my own to spend and was out and about without my parents, I could never really overindulge. I remember once at an amusement park thinking "All right, today I'm going to have hotdogs and fries and ice cream and candy and soft drinks and..." but halfway through the day, I was wishing I'd ordered things on the less-greasy end of the spectrum. I figure if I eat well most of the time, it's quite reasonable to eat rich food some of the time.
My point is, I feel I've always had a healthy relationship with food. Growing up, I was never told that I shouldn't eat this or that (if I shouldn't eat it, it wasn't offered, period!) and while my parents did perhaps think I didn't eat enough, they never really forced the issue except for the "If you don't eat your vegetables you'll get no dessert" rule, which I imagine is pretty much universal, anyway. Food was never a punishment or a reward, it was just food; you need to eat, your body needs certain things, too much of some things aren't good for you. Again, this might have been different if either me or my brothers hadn't been skinny children, but I guess we'll never know.
Once I moved out of my parents' house, I lived on my own for a bit over a year and a half. I must admit that I'm a rather lazy cook, especially if I'm just feeding myself. I stuck to simple things that didn't take long to prepare. Packaged salad from the grocery store with chicken, cheese, tomatoes and raisins added was a staple, as were basic pasta dishes (a favourite was turkey or chicken breast cooked with diced tomatoes, feta cheese and basil, served over pasta). I seldom bought bread because I don't like keeping bread in the fridge and a whole loaf usually went to waste, as I never ate more than two or three slices a day and it would start to go green and fuzzy. I usually had a bagel at lunch, though, because bagels freeze nicely. When I moved in with G and he was doing the cooking, I started eating a lot more pork and beef, as well as rice, and still didn't buy bread because G didn't eat it. I didn't eat bagels as often because lunch was usually leftovers. Our diet didn't change in Japan, except for the variety of vegetables, but THAT didn't last too long. Now that I'm on my own again I've gone back to my lazy ways -- I've written more than once about my soup-of-the-week, I believe. Maybe I'll look into cold soups for the summer. I get the feeling I'll be eating a lot of zarusoba.
One (bad?) thing about living in Japan is the utter convenience of the convenience stores. It's just so easy to buy a meal for a few dollars and I'm never the only one. That young woman dawdling in front of the dessert selection, the old man with two cans of beer and a tray of sushi in his basket, the pair of high school students examining the instant noodles, they're all picking out their supper as well. However, my laziness is tempered by the fact that I'm not exactly rolling in dough and a pot of soup (chicken stock with ginger, onions and carrots; noodles, greens, tofu and/or dumplings or shu mai are added daily) can provide a good five meals for ten dollars or less.
One thing I'm grateful for is that I'm not one for excess and so have no trouble stopping myself because I know I'll feel lousy if I eat too much rich food in one sitting. Even if faced with a table covered with my favourite foods, I'd (regretfully) give up once I started feeling full. Admittedly, that is learned behaviour, because I used to eat until I burst when at restaurants, maybe because they were such a rare treat when I was younger. Also at fault are the serving sizes in many places in Canada. It isn't a problem in Japan, where they're much more reasonable. If I had to list the things I love but aren't really the healthiest, I'd have to say that I love butter and all the delicious things you can make with it (croissants! shortbread! pastries!), chocolate truffles (but only a few at a time and I never buy them for myself, anyway, but I'll eat them if they're there), and Kraft Dinner with ketchup. But it doesn't really matter, because none of those are things I'd eat more than a couple of times a week. The only things I can stand to eat repeatedly are fresh, healthy things. One of the reasons I haven't yet seen Super Size Me is that just the thought of eating at McDonald's for a whole month is enough to make me feel queasy; I would probably have wanted to kill myself after three days of that!
All right, that's long and rambling enough for now. Did I even have a point?
Another reason I'm fixated on skirts these days is to distract myself from the fact that most of my pairs of pants are well on the way to Being Too Loose. I haven't even tried on most of my summer (read, linen) pants on yet but I've indefinitely retired the pair of jeans I wore last summer and my favourite gray slacks, which I wear at least once a week to work, are in probably-slightly-baggier-than-they're-intended-to-be territory. Though in my defense, the largest mirror currently available to me is the small one above my bathroom sink, so it's not as though I can easily check.
I've always found the whole obsession with weight -- not weird, exactly, but irrelevant to me. Granted, I was a skinny kid and even as a teenager was never more than slender, so Society never had anything to say about my weight. As for my parents, they were more likely to comment about my boniness (I spent a good part of my childhood sitting on my father's lap while he read to me) or saying I ate like a little bird (my mother's oft-used expression). My mother may have occasionally said that she needed to lose a little weight, but that was about it.
Now, let's all pretend that I'm going to write a series of articles relating to my weight. First up is food. Perhaps will follow exercise, self-image and genetics, weights and measures.
One of the (many) good things my parents did in raising us was limiting our sugar intake and teaching us to eat right. I don't come from a very carnivorous family, nor one very fond of deep-fried things. We never had sugary cereal for breakfast and on the rare occasion that my mother bought a box, it would be Honey Nut Cheerios and she'd mix them half-and-half with regular Cheerios. Dessert was either yoghurt, apple sauce or fruit (often canned when we lived in Up North) or something my mother had baked and she tended to use less sugar than the recipes suggested; in the summer, we'd often get ice cream, always served in a small dessert bowl, and every once in a while there would be cookies, but we could never have more than three at a time. Imagine my shock when I started staying over for supper and sleepovers at friends' houses and was served ice cream in a soup bowl and was allowed to have four cookies if I wanted them! And for breakfast I could have sugary cereal WITHOUT MIXING IT WITH ANYTHING HEALTHIER! How the other half lives, indeed...
The funny thing is, until a few years ago I was certain that this was all because we were poor. Because obviously, the good stuff like cookies has got to be way more expensive than normal stuff like apple sauce! And while it's true that we didn't have much money, it really was more of a health issue for my parents, about them not wanting us addicted to fatty, sugary foods. And it must have worked, because by the time I was a teenager, I had developed a natural aversion to too-sweet things. Fudge? No more than a bite or two, please. Sugary cereal? Makes the milk disgusting. Though every once in a while, at a friend's house, I'd indulge just to see if it was as bad as I remembered. Even maple syrup on pancakes was too much, especially in the morning, so I'd add yoghurt or apple sauce to them, just to cut the sweetness. This isn't to say I didn't (or don't) like sweets, it's just that I didn't eat them everyday and usually not in very large quantities. Also, my favourite fast food was Subway. Veggie & cheese with lettuce, tomato, green pepper, black olives, mayonnaise, salt and pepper was my usual order. Sometimes pickles, too.
One thing I feel obliged to point out is that the Fast Food Issue was, until I was 7 and we moved Down South, irrelevant, because there was no fast food where we lived. I could have watched McDonald's television commercials all day and begged until I was blue in the face, I still wouldn't have gotten any because there was simply none to be had. When we took our semi-annual trips down to Ottawa, Montreal and Quebec city, we usually stopped in New Liskeard to have lunch at the McDonald's there, which was one of the highlights of the trip. The other being, of course, a stop at Toy City in Ottawa. Do any of you Ottawa people remember it? The logo was a purple panda and it was at Westgate, where Blockbuster is now. They closed a year or two after Toys 'R' Us came to town. At any rate, when we moved to Aylmer, which not only had a McDonald's but had it right up the street from where we lived, my parents pulled the "it's expensive" card firmly enough that we didn't dare ask for it too often.
Even once I had money of my own to spend and was out and about without my parents, I could never really overindulge. I remember once at an amusement park thinking "All right, today I'm going to have hotdogs and fries and ice cream and candy and soft drinks and..." but halfway through the day, I was wishing I'd ordered things on the less-greasy end of the spectrum. I figure if I eat well most of the time, it's quite reasonable to eat rich food some of the time.
My point is, I feel I've always had a healthy relationship with food. Growing up, I was never told that I shouldn't eat this or that (if I shouldn't eat it, it wasn't offered, period!) and while my parents did perhaps think I didn't eat enough, they never really forced the issue except for the "If you don't eat your vegetables you'll get no dessert" rule, which I imagine is pretty much universal, anyway. Food was never a punishment or a reward, it was just food; you need to eat, your body needs certain things, too much of some things aren't good for you. Again, this might have been different if either me or my brothers hadn't been skinny children, but I guess we'll never know.
Once I moved out of my parents' house, I lived on my own for a bit over a year and a half. I must admit that I'm a rather lazy cook, especially if I'm just feeding myself. I stuck to simple things that didn't take long to prepare. Packaged salad from the grocery store with chicken, cheese, tomatoes and raisins added was a staple, as were basic pasta dishes (a favourite was turkey or chicken breast cooked with diced tomatoes, feta cheese and basil, served over pasta). I seldom bought bread because I don't like keeping bread in the fridge and a whole loaf usually went to waste, as I never ate more than two or three slices a day and it would start to go green and fuzzy. I usually had a bagel at lunch, though, because bagels freeze nicely. When I moved in with G and he was doing the cooking, I started eating a lot more pork and beef, as well as rice, and still didn't buy bread because G didn't eat it. I didn't eat bagels as often because lunch was usually leftovers. Our diet didn't change in Japan, except for the variety of vegetables, but THAT didn't last too long. Now that I'm on my own again I've gone back to my lazy ways -- I've written more than once about my soup-of-the-week, I believe. Maybe I'll look into cold soups for the summer. I get the feeling I'll be eating a lot of zarusoba.
One (bad?) thing about living in Japan is the utter convenience of the convenience stores. It's just so easy to buy a meal for a few dollars and I'm never the only one. That young woman dawdling in front of the dessert selection, the old man with two cans of beer and a tray of sushi in his basket, the pair of high school students examining the instant noodles, they're all picking out their supper as well. However, my laziness is tempered by the fact that I'm not exactly rolling in dough and a pot of soup (chicken stock with ginger, onions and carrots; noodles, greens, tofu and/or dumplings or shu mai are added daily) can provide a good five meals for ten dollars or less.
One thing I'm grateful for is that I'm not one for excess and so have no trouble stopping myself because I know I'll feel lousy if I eat too much rich food in one sitting. Even if faced with a table covered with my favourite foods, I'd (regretfully) give up once I started feeling full. Admittedly, that is learned behaviour, because I used to eat until I burst when at restaurants, maybe because they were such a rare treat when I was younger. Also at fault are the serving sizes in many places in Canada. It isn't a problem in Japan, where they're much more reasonable. If I had to list the things I love but aren't really the healthiest, I'd have to say that I love butter and all the delicious things you can make with it (croissants! shortbread! pastries!), chocolate truffles (but only a few at a time and I never buy them for myself, anyway, but I'll eat them if they're there), and Kraft Dinner with ketchup. But it doesn't really matter, because none of those are things I'd eat more than a couple of times a week. The only things I can stand to eat repeatedly are fresh, healthy things. One of the reasons I haven't yet seen Super Size Me is that just the thought of eating at McDonald's for a whole month is enough to make me feel queasy; I would probably have wanted to kill myself after three days of that!
All right, that's long and rambling enough for now. Did I even have a point?