Day 16, Tuesday: In Which I Reveal My "Problem Area"

Felt great today. My eyes actually looked sparkly when I saw myself in the mirror by chance! And I'm looking slimmer, which is a nice perk.

I agree with Susie Orbach that "fat is a feminist issue." I generally don't define myself by how I look. I've been lucky not to have struggled with the issue of body image with the same intensity as many women of my generation. That being said: I've found that substantial weight gain, for me, is a sign that something is out of whack. It's a marker of my health, so I keep an eye on it.

A lot of people monitor their weight with a scale. I don't own one. You may think this is a careful strategy to avoid weight obsession. No, it is because I am too lazy to either get a scale or go downstairs to my building's gym and use that one. Other people gauge their weight by how their clothes fit. That doesn't work for me. 90% of my clothes are stretchy yoga clothes. So I don't notice I'm gaining weight until I'm REALLY straining the waistband of my lululemons.

Instead, here's how I monitor my weight: I keep an eye on my arms. That is the FIRST PLACE I put on weight. Trust me, it's not body dysmorphia speaking here--while I'm no Michelle Obama, I'm pretty proud of my arms. Even when my arms were blowing up like marshmallows toward the end of my Chicago visit, my sister rubbed my shoulder and was very impressed by the muscle under the fat. "You're solid all the way through!" she said. Hell yes! If there's one thing plank/caturunga/downward facing dog gives you, it's biceps, triceps, and delts of steel. Now, after two weeks plus on the Detox, you can actually SEE my steely biceps! and I like that.

Today I worked my ass off and actually didn't have time for snack.

Breakfast: two hardboiled eggs.
Lunch: leftover pork and cabbage.
Dinner: Lime skirt steak, avocado, lettuce wraps. Holy crap this was good. It was one of those situations where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. The flavor was excellent, but I just can't manage the whole "wrapping with lettuce" thing. Invariably, the lettuce falls apart and the juices drip down my arm. This puts a real damper on me shoveling food into my face as rapidly as I'd like, so I've decided I'm just not doing it anymore. Instead I shall lay the ingredients over the lettuce like a salad and eat it like a lady. A lady with rippling, powerful arms.