Disordered But Determined in Everyday Ramblings

“Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” That is the famous take away from the writer Michael Pollen’s most popular book The Omnivore’s Dilemma and a thing he still says today.

This last week I listened to his two hour Audible exclusive (most likely an excerpt of a new book he is writing) on Caffeine. It was fascinating in terms of how caffeine actually works and benefits particularly the coffee plant in terms of enticing bees to keep pollinating it.

It certainly entices me.

Yesterday morning I met Mrs. Sherlock at the gym for a Body Pump class, group weight lifting. I was a little anxious about my back, which hasn’t completely recovered from the effects of the fall and the recovery period but I was fine because I used light weights.

At one point I was thinking no problem, I can lift more but with the repetition, particularly across the chest and the broad upper back muscles, ugh, no.

There was this gorgeous 6’2” ish youngish woman in front of me with a lovely plant like tattoo along her spine and a guy next to her about my age, with white hair, that had absolutely perfect form, great muscle definition and had a lot of weight on his bar.

I was doing fine, Mrs. Sherlock was doing fine, until we got to the last set of upper body muscles, the deltoids and I plain couldn’t keep lifting the weight. I put the plate down and did the movements with no weight.

But right there my mood took a downward turn and I was in this funky depressed ornery mood for the rest of the afternoon. I took Mrs. Sherlock to show her this great house for sale and it had been sold on Friday! Grr.

It was all about shoulds. I should be stronger, I should be thinner, yoga teachers are more flexible and blah blah blah.

I had just slipped into the pit of disordered thinking.

I mean geez. Mrs. Sherlock and I are awesome, I am 65, she is 71, we went on a lovely but energetic 5 mile hike Friday with Frida that involved a lot of elevation gain, a new trail for us, enjoying the heck out of the cold but clear weather.

I would never in my wildest dreams talk to a student the way I talk to myself in my head.

After resting when I got home I bagged up some clothes that I haven’t worn in years and found a podcast about intuitive eating and positive body image to listen to.

The two dieticians that promote intuitive eating introduced a new term to me, Orthorexia. This is considered a possible subset of Anorexia and is all about the compulsive need to focus on healthy eating. We all know someone like this, most often a youngish woman who has all kinds of food rules, no sugar, no dairy, no gluten and obviously no meat.

It is the climate change warrior thing to do. It is the pure yogi thing to do.

I am almost certain that a very well known yoga teacher, maybe a number of them, that I follow has this disorder.

And both of the women on the podcast said that Michael Pollan’s book had not been at all helpful to them. That (I am paraphrasing) they had taken this idea of never ever eating processed food as yet another food rule.

At the library last week I saw this gorgeous Cooks Illustrated cookbook on Vegetables and instead of checking it out I came home an ordered it (it was on sale) and it came Friday. Oh my gosh it has great recipes in it…

And no nutrition breakdowns. Like say…Roasted Mushrooms with Parmesan and Pine Nuts.

Kes and I spent an absurd amount of money on a big bag of pine nuts on Tuesday at Costco where I accompanied her as moral support for the overwhelming-ness of it all.

I also realized yesterday in my horrid mood that I had accomplished almost all of the myriad tasks I had set myself that seemed so daunting four months ago when I decided to bail on my job.

And now it is time to turn and face what I hope to be this new phase of my life with curiosity and a sense of adventure.

We go to class to learn things, not to confirm what we already know!

The weight plates are my friends and I am perfect just the way I am. :)
So there.

Last updated February 23, 2020