I had an epiphany the other day, and it has made me wonder how anyone in the history of ever has kept a New Year's Resolution to lose weight for more than two or three months.
Everybody knows that in January, right after New Year's with its resolutions, the gyms are all packed and most of America goes on some kind of diet. We're all fat, we all wish we weren't, so with a new year comes fresh convictions and optimistic changes and hopes that we can change ourselves for the better. Well, through both personal experience and observation, I can tell you with relative certainty why people don't/can't/won't stay on a diet for very long after the new year.
Easter.
Shocking, right? Think about this: in January, your diet/exercise plan is both new and novel and you are all excited and maybe even getting some results. Then, BAM! Valentine's Day. Now, if you're single, you might be able to avoid the Valentine candy. But no sooner has that passed than EASTER hits you. And Easter is different; Easter is special. When you really get down to it, there are really four big candy related holidays: Valentine's Day, Easter, Halloween and Christmas. But of all of them, Easter has the most decadent and tempting (irony given the holiday's meaning?) seasonally specific candy. Sure, Valentine's day has conversation hearts and Halloween has candy corn.... but Easter. Who can resist Robin's Eggs? Or.... Cadbury Creme Eggs...... It's a dieting person's nightmare!! Just when you're really getting used to not eating crap (read: tasty, fattening food) all the time is when the absolute most delicious and bad-for-you treat rears its sugary, chocolatey head. And like I said, it's seasonally specific!! You can't even GET Cadbury Creme Eggs any other time of the year, so I, for one, feel like I'm wasting a delicious opportunity by NOT eating
I realize that this is getting lengthy (that's what she said), but I have a related topic I must send into the blog-o-whatever. My Caleb friend and I were discussing this very thing last night, but it was within a larger discussion of the differences between men and women. Yeah, yeah, this can go on forever, but it started with me mentioning a girl we both know and how I thought she was absolutely gorgeous. He said that he didn't think she was all that pretty. I, being an avid reader of Smitten blogs, I said that our mutual friend must just be "girl pretty." He, reasonably, had never heard the term, so I explained it with regard to our friend: "She's a girl that girls want to look like, not necessarily a girl that guys find attractive." I supplied a couple more examples of friends we have that I would absolutely kill to look like, but he reiterated that they weren't really what he would consider super attractive. I asked him if there were any dudes that he would want to look like, and he told me that he's never really thought about it. I understand that he's a dude, and dudes don't typically think about their looks in that way, but the interesting thing is that he didn't know how much I, as a girl, thought about it. Let me just let all of the boys in the world in on a secret: Women think about that all the time. Who they'd rather look like. I have an extensive mental list of women- actresses, musicians, friends- that I would love to look like, or at least approach looking like. Most of them are just skinnier than me, but others have good hair or pretty teeth or blue eyes or whatever other trait that I envy to a certain degree. Women are just like that (truly Così fan tutte! Ha ha... opera humor.... ::ahem::).
Anyway, I feel like this could be a contributing factor as to why women are "crazy" or whatever other stereotype you can think of. I mean, it's probably helping with why I'M any bit of crazy. When I say that I compare myself to other women, I mean, every single day, all day, many, many times. When I'm watching TV, or at my crappy retail job at the mall, or at the frickin' grocery store... doesn't matter. I will say this, though- the time it happens the worst, the most consistently? When I eat. Day to day, I can tell you without much thought exactly what I have eaten, what I consider "cheat" food, what I'm planning on eating later and if I have any snacky food at home to facilitate more "cheat" eating later. When I told this to Caleb, he was surprised and just couldn't fathom comparing himself to other dudes like that, or monitoring his food intake with borderline obsession. I'm an emotional eater, too, though, and that doesn't help. THAT'S a whole 'nother blog, though....
This sort of reminds me of a while back, when we were at rehearsal. Our director was telling us that no one knows how beautiful they truly are. "Women, especially. They are always comparing themselves to other women and judging themselves to ridiculous standards. Something else, they're always jealous of each other's hair." At this point, I indicated a friend of mine whose hair is always SO cute and at the same moment she goes, "Yeah, like Courtney." The fact that we proved his point was kind of forgotten as we both just died laughing.
So what does all of this mean? I don't know. Aside from the fact that I need to quit eating so much damn Easter candy, it is just something to think about.
