Summer, Summer, Summertime.

There is little I enjoy more than summertime eating. Ironically, my disfunctionalities with food decrease as the amount of skin I expose increases.

Is this because summer cuisine is healthier? Certainly not! I can't begin to fathom the amount of butter I consume with my lobsters, clams, crabs and corn on the cob. Who would want to consider the amount of cholesterol packed into that steak sizzling away on the grill, or the cheeseburger and hot dog keeping it company? And never mind the sugar necessary for one of the quintessential summer pies (blueberry, strawberry and cherry, oh my!). Should we talk about summer beverage consumption? Best not...

Is it because I exercise more? Well, I do, but the increase in exercise is marginal, at best. In non-summer months, I am more likely to get to the gym. In summer, I'm more likely to get outside and move around. Maybe I have a bit more time to dedicate to exercise. But that is countered with the additional time I have to socialize. I always loose a few pounds in the summer, but that just balances the hibernation weight I take on in winter. So that's not it...

My disfunctionality with food decreases as I bare more skin, I think, because summer equals leisure. Summer, for me, means a less worrisome existence. Summer brings about a perspective on life that is healthy: Enjoy life, family, friends, nature, opportunities...along with BBQs, fireworks and fireflies. This relaxed -- albeit not lackadaisical -- take on life translates to feelings about and relationships with food and nutrition and diet and body image. The focus, instead of being on consumption, is on appreciation and enjoyment and pleasure, often for pleasure's sake alone.

Imagine if we could take our sun-soaked summer ideals and carry them through the year...

Celebrity Skin

Okay, so it's been established that we live in a diet culture. One that doesn't promote health, but rather weight and image. One that encourages fluctuation and self-consciousness. And these messages permeate our media and our perceptions of ourselves and each other.

So let's consider what the beauty ideal is today. Look at the celebrities that society deems beautiful. Most are waifishly skinny, many are over-exercised and lose weight when their celebrity status climbs. I have read numerous interviews with said celebrities who have cited their diets and workouts when they are preparing for a big role or a big event or a tour or whatever. Steamed fish and steamed vegetables and soy milk only. Three hours of exercise a day. No sugar, no carbs, organic food only, whole grains only, macrobiotic diets. Egg whites, salad, dried fruits.

All, though, are sending a message: To be beautiful, do not embrace balance and diversity and moderation in your food and exercise habits. To be beautiful, deprive yourself. To be beautiful, be an extremist. To be beautiful, loathe the natural shape your body takes when you eat and exercise healthily. To be beautiful, force it to conform to society's version of beautiful. To be beautiful, change.

Reinforcement

And I should be on a diet. Shouldn't I? Shouldn't everyone? That's what I'm hearing and seeing everywhere. Online adds for green tea and acai berries and super weight loss foods, whatever they are. On television, Slim Fast and Weight Watchers and NutriSystem and Jenny Craig. And these celebrity endorsers, please. Enough. Now I understand Rachel Ray has diet secrets. Halle-freakin-luyah. Because Oprah sure let me down.

Lite yogurt and baked potato chips and fat-free everything and the Special K diet and Dr. Atkins and South Beach and The Zone and The 3-hour Diet and The Cookie Diet and Raw Diet and Eat to Live and fasting for God's sake and the glycemic index and the Sonoma Diet and 100 calorie packs and Medifast and diet.com and nutritiondata.com and ediet.com and dietdirect.com and calories on menus and the Subway diet and Dunkin Donuts of all companies with an "under 300 calorie egg white flatbread sandwich" and low fat and low carb and low calorie and meal replacement and metabolism enhancement and the Detox Diet and Flat Belly Diet and remember the grapefruit diet and the cabbage soup diet and the principle of halves diet and eat blueberries and almonds and spicy food to lose weight and lowfat cheese. Why the $@!% would anyone want lowfat cheese? What's the point? I might as well start the cardboard diet.

Is it any wonder that we can't eat healthily and with pleasure and do this consistently?

Introduction

I am constantly thinking about weight. It plagues me throughout the day. Okay, "plague" may be too strong, but it is never far from the forefront of my mind. I think about my consumption, I think about my food choices, I observe what others do and say, how they posture, justify, rationalize and flat-out lie about their food and exercise habits. I judge myself, I judge others. I am much harder on myself than I am on everyone else.

I am here now to explore the influences of this obsession, which I don't claim to have invented, to own, to even be original around the subject. And that's precisely why I'm writing now. Because I think I am an average part of America's food culture. Food and image and weight obsessed, lacking the ability to foster healthy choices consistently.

Not that I am unhealthy. I generally make healthy choices. I occasionally splurge. I am comfortable in my skin, although I have a rather low tolerance for fluctuations that lead me to the higher end of my weight comfort zone. And I think I have a stricter weight comfort zone than most. Or at least it appears that way to me. Again, the judgment.

Yet how can we not judge? We see any number of strikingly skinny celebrities in these magazines, candid shots surrounded by bubbles that read something like, "Baby Bump?" Give me a break! So that's pregnant to you? I must look like I'm about to pop. God forbid the media acknowledge the exquisite variety and shapes and tone and tenor of women's bodies.

And yet, I am not forgiving of myself. Three pounds, a bad eating day, I punish myself. We punish ourselves. We punish each other.

So in this blog, I plan to write from my singular perspective (although I have a feeling my voice will resonate with many) how weight sticks not only to by belly and my butt, but also to my brain.