Haiku diet

Losing weight is a lot like writing haiku (“haiku,” by the way is both the singular and plural form of the word, which I totally had to look up).

A haiku is a three-line Japanese poetry form that must stick to a strict number of syllables in each line. Lines one and three equal five syllables each, and line two gets seven.

Like this:

You rise, walk the dog,

Start the coffee. The bed, now

Cool … level … lulls me.

The restriction of the syllables is both a mental challenge and a frustrating annoyance. On the one hand, writing the barest of bones forces the best, right, most perfect word choice. There’s freedom in the boundaries. “No, I can’t use the word raspberry here; berry will have to do.”

But on the other hand, raspberry is a great word. It’s a better word than berry, much more specific and evocative. The rasp suggests the tartness of the fruit itself and the sensation of the seeds poking at my teeth.

It’s a great three-syllable word, and if I want to use it in a haiku, I have to give up a syllable or two somewhere else. I can skip an article or a verb even, but what I cannot do is exceed the syllable limits. Just can’t. It’s a rule.

And so dieting.

When I stepped onto the scale this morning, the display read 125.6. About eight pounds ago, I decided I wanted to weigh 125. I like 125. I can wear all the clothes in my closet at 125. Nothing pokes or prods or pinches. I look a little taller. And, frustratingly, I am treated better. My peers and superiors and even my teen rascals all respond to me in a more open, friendly way when I’m slim.

I know this. I have weighed 190 pounds. I have weighed 105 pounds. The way I look affects how people treat me.

I’ve spent the last, oh four years, telling myself weight doesn’t matter. I read Melissa Toler’s blog, and I agree wholeheartedly with Megan Tietz every time she says all bodies are beautiful. Wholeheartedly. So as my weight crept up and up, just little bits at time, I said, “Oh, look! Here’s a cupcake right here on my hip!” I’ve eaten and laughed and felt full of joy.

I told myself that I couldn't lose weight post-menopause. I’ve looked at women my age with fuller middles and done my best to deem them dignified, not frumpy. That worked sometimes, but I'm ashamed to say, not often. 

I’ve looked, too, at thin, thin women dying their hair and injecting their foreheads and taking nightly barre classes. Occasionally, I experiences a pang of envy, but mostly I think, “Oh, sad. They are not enjoying their own lives.”

I can't really identify with women with thick or thin hips.  I don't want to throw all caution aside and just decide once and for all to be pleasantly plump (it doesn't feel at all pleasant to me), but I have no desire to obsess about my weight, either. The voices in my head nag, even when I can't find me in any of the women I look at. I argue endlessly with them. I tell them self-discipline is not the same thing as obsession, and that I don’t need their stupid rules, and my body is beautiful no matter what the scale says.

But I don’t like scootching certain skirts and jeans aside in the closet. I don’t like worrying what Matt thinks (or doesn’t think). I don’t like avoiding mirrors any more than I like seeking them out. I don’t like indulging one day and starving the next and watching my ever-thickening middle spill over the sides of my pants.

I agree with Melissa Toler. Our diet culture is killing us. The shame alone could fell a giant. The pre-packaged diet foods are trash. The images on the covers of magazines are lies. There is no life, no joy, in finding self-worth in a perfectionist push towards beauty that feeds only on comparison.

At the same time, there is no joy in daily over-indulgence, in defiantly ignoring what my body needs. Just as surely as Snackwell cookies will kill me, so too, will McDonald’s. Lugging around extra weight hurts, literally. And emotionally, too. It acts like a barrier between who I am and what I want.

And so, I am writing a haiku on my body. I’m giving it boundaries. I’m choosing to choose less.

I have no illusions that weighing 125 pounds will heal the decades of body image wounds I can’t seem to let go of. But I can say this: I am learning to like my body a little bit. It has limitations, but I can lean into those limitations, if not with gratitude, at least awareness and acceptance.

Year of the Body? I’m listening. What else have you to say?