Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Traveling on My Sister's Stomach

Last weekend, i spent a few days with my sister and niece in Philadelphia. It was a lovely weekend and I was thrilled to see them and to get out of town.

Re; Food, however, i actually felt a little off balance. i live alone and am not used to traveling on other people's stomachs. My sister and niece are ALWAYS hungry and always talking about food and their next meals.

>My sister is my polar opposite -- she never sits still, lives to exercise and clearly charges through calories at the speed of light. As a mom, she's always looking to feed her kids, athletic teenagers who are still growing.

>Between my sister and my niece last weekend, someone constantly needed a snack. And kudos to them, they don't eat like "girls" -- it's bagels and croissants and pasta and dessert

Next we come to me, a gal who's idea of exercise involves rolling over in bed. i'm excessively sedentary and have always leaned toward chubby when left to my own devices. as anyone who's read this blog knows, i held great disdain for my "chubby" and spent my life dieting, starving, binging, purging, eating compulsively -- it's been a long cycle of severely dysfunctional eating.

i'm pretty comfortable with how i eat these days and maintain a healthy weight by working to eat when i'm hungry and stop when i'm full. what i've learned over the years, kind of disappointingly, is that with my zero exercise level, sedentary metabolism and pudgy genes, i just don't get very hungry at all, and i'm rather quickly full.

As i'm comfortable at my current weight, 135 pounds at 5'6, which i've maintained for several years without bingeing, purging or starving, i listen to my quiet little metabolism and kind of graze.

i was surprised to find that i wasnt completely comfortable with the big food-oriented weekend - i hadnt thought it would get to me particularly. But as we ate breakfast with my cousins, my sister planned where we'd have lunch and dinner and breakfast the next morning and lunch and snacks (she is a planner extraordinaire)... i REALLY wanted to think about something else. i spent most of my life thinking about food and eating and not eating........and binging and starving and purging, of course.

Confession -- i found myself jealous that my family could spend soo much time seeped in food and food talk without feeling kind of uncomfortable. i try to make the whole food thing a small part of my life -- tasty nourishment, but that's as far as i want it to go really.

it was a grand relief to go back to my own apartment, knowing i'll eat meals on my own stomach.

i wonder/worry if maybe i'm unhealthily bothered but on the other hand, there were a few other things that also got to me.

i guess i'm just a confirmed bachelorette, all set in her ways. i've lived alone for the last 25 years and gotten used to doing everything my own way. Sharing a hotel room with sister and (messy) niece felt cramped. my sister snores and my niece kept the air conditioning cranked to frigid, so she wouldn't get a migraine. my sister wakes at the crack of dawn and likes to get rocking and rolling. And mom and teenaged daughter test

Yes, of course, i had the best time and came back relaxed and rejuvenated, knowing i'm loved by my two favorite gals. i miss them both and wish they lived right down the street.

just not with me!