Category: Intuitive eating

We were talking about the moment when doctor Z told me he was about to have me savour a Mars.

– Are you hungry now?

– No, not really.

– Good, the goal is that you eat without hunger. Are you stressed?

– Currently I’m stressed 24/7 so yes.

– On a scale from 1 to 10, how would you rank your stress level?

– I would say…5

– We can do better?

– Easily

– So we’ll be a bit masochistic and we’ll raise your stress level

And here I am, eyes closed, a mini Mars in front of me, listening to my good doctor playing Cassandre and, just like a telepath, explaining how the subject of my anxiety could have indeed stressful and negative consequences on my life. So much insight actually made me think that despite a high number of patients, he obviously scrupulously took notes of what I’ve been telling him for the past months, indeed, my mother, my sister, my Churros or my Zaz could have said the same thing. Disturbing. I tried to create a diversion by teasing him with “I’m glad I came, when I leave I jump off a bridge, and you’ll have it on your conscience” but it didn’t work, he looks nice mister Zermati but you don’t want to look for trouble too much with him and the glower he threw me did calm me down. After five minutes visualizing how my life could turn, in the coming months, if everything would go wrong as I have a tendency to imagine, that’s how optimistic I am, tears started rolling on my cheeks and you can say that if the objective was to make me panic, it was a success.

“On a scale of 1 to 10, where is your stress?” he asked again

– 12.

Of course, doctor Z, alias mister Hyde was delighted, we could start the experiment.

He thus asked me to concentrate on my breathing, without trying to modify it, simply think of the air flowing through my nose, my trachea and my chest. “Thoughts that are coming to your mind, you make a note internally and you come back to your breath”. After a few seconds, he gave me the mini Mars, which I took out of its wrapping. He told me to look at it, to smell it, to touch it and then to have a bite. “ Now, you make the piece turn in your mouth, you enjoy the different textures, the smell. You take notes of the tastes you perceive, the sweetness of caramel, the softness of chocolate. Now you can munch it, chew it and then swallow it. You linger over its passing in your throat and you open your eyes again only once you have completely absorbed what you had in your mouth”, he intoned while I was getting, clearly, a shoot of Mars.

When I opened my eyes again, it seemed that my pulse was slower than a few seconds before. I munched only a few milligrams of chocolate but it felt like I had the entire piece. The doc had me take another bite. Following the same ritual.

– So, what’s you stress level now?

Stress? What stress? Gone, disappeared, in a totally temporary manner, I was aware of this but the fact remains that I felt lighter, though stuffed with a good dozen of calories.

In the meantime, I just understood why I like Mars: simply because it’s awesome, fuck, this crunchy chocolate, this soft caramel, oh lord, hung me high.

“The difference with what you just did, savouring food with the objective to calm down an anxiety, and a compulsion is that when it’s a compulsion, stress is not reduced after eating, it rises, which causes the intake of another biscuit, another piece of chocolate, another piece of bread. The difference is the full awareness with which you have eaten this piece of Mars. And even if you have a full Mars every day at the moment because circumstances are so that you need it, it is FINE. Because you also know that you can regulate yourself. That you’ll probably eat less at the next meal. Two bites of Mars or so won’t have any impact on your weight. On condition that you do it the right way.”

I left with new homework: make a note of my emotions during the day, name them (anger, anxiety, culpability, sadness) and grade them from 1 to 10 and assess how the food taken in case I wanted to has managed to make the tension drop.

I admit I am rather perplexed, even after this session. I feel that, indeed, complicated things are getting started, and not only because I have a good reason to worry. Time for prowess and perfect student has passed, it is now about living in the long term, accepting the idea of gaining weight again (inevitable because life is not alas or so much for the better always a flower paved journey), realizing that it won’t change the love my kin have for me and stopping to demonize all temptations which inevitably punctuate my days.

I’m not there yet but at the same time it’s so reassuring to know that nothing is forbidden…

Edit: No panic, I’m not ill, neither are the Churros or our children. I don’t want to give more details, because not everything should be told but no worries, nothing that is irreparable.

Edit2: The picture is a souvenir of a massage at Nuxe on Montorgueil street, a gift from my dear friend Mimi. More expensive of course than a Mars but zen effect guaranteed. During the hour I spent in the expert hand of the therapist, I thought of NOTHING and it was really NICE.

Friday, I had a session with Zermati.

Each time, it starts the same way, with the same question: “How are you?” Harmless, we all agree, except that of course, the answer generally relates with how I am food wise. Well, in fact, I always start by telling my life a little bit as over the sessions, we are not very far from something like a therapy.

The thing is that inevitably my qualms bring me back rather quickly to the kitchen table.

And that time, more than any other day, it didn’t fail.

— I’m rather good, except that I’m preoccupied by rather stressing news. (Tearful eyes, noisy tears swallowing, silence and talk resumption). And thus… I feel like eating.

Of course, this good doctor, far from loading me with reproaches or coaching me as Cohen and Dukon would do, I guess, like: “you are stronger than the Twix call”, seemed almost happy. Wait, he was sorry for me and listening, but rather satisfied with my confession.

“I was starting to find the whole process too smooth”, he explained.

Like he was wondering if I hadn’t swallowed a Buddhist monk or interiorized so much our discussions that I became more Zermatist than Zermati. He shouldn’t worry, the little voice that is telling me daily that my issues can dissolve in a slab of Milka is still there, ready to sound the bugle for the slightest complains.

— And then what do you do towards this eating desire?

Then, the good student I’ll always make sure I am, I think, lifted her head proudly and bragged:

—Well very surprisingly, I think I manage it quite well. I mean, I treat myself but I wait to be really hungry to do so. Exactly as you said.

I think I looked like a dog standing on its back legs, convinced its exercise deserves a sugar lump. I haven’t been disappointed, instead of a sugar lump, I got a Mars.

But before, though, from the frustrated look of doctor Z, I felt that my brown-noser side didn’t hit the bull’s eye. Even that, basically, I didn’t understand anything.

— You must absolutely know AS WELL how to eat without hunger and feeling guilty. Yes, in some instances, food IS comforting. You eat to feed yourself, to answer nutritional needs but to comfort yourself as it is a pleasure. And just like you sometimes take care of one children more than of the other because she is sick, you can also favor one function over the other, punctually.  So if you feel that your stress can be calmed down by a treat, you have the right to do so.

— Yes but I’m too scared that one thing leading to another…

— That it would be a compulsion?

— There you go. I know myself and I know I can rapidly go back to the other side.

— Except that we have worked together and all is not exactly like before. You must trust yourself. Compulsion will come from this restriction you are forcing on yourself during this difficult period.

— Yes but how do I know I’m not giving in to a compulsion? How can I be sure a piece of chocolate will be enough and will do me good? How can I be sure I won’t end up eating the whole biscuit packet with all guilty feelings that go with it?

— By listening to your desire. By analyzing it. By asking yourself why you feel like eating , by thinking of another possible solution. Sometimes, you find one. Sometimes… you don’t, it happens that the piece of chocolate IS a solution, or at least the best available one. And in that case, you CHOOSE to indulge with that piece of chocolate. Yet a compulsion is forcing its way, it is not decided. When making that decision this is not compulsion. Then you take the time to eat that piece of chocolate. You stop and savour it. Do you like Mars?

“Do you like Mars?” What a question? Do cats like mice? Can tea go without milk? Can David spend holidays without Jonathan? Does Peter need Sloan? Does…

The answer is yes, Doc, I like Mars.

—Thus you’ll savour one now.

I’ll tell you the rest tomorrow if you’re in, I feel it has been a bit long and also, I like creating episodes. I mean, in case it is boring at one point…

Edit: On the picture it’s me wondering if I prefer Mars or Twix. What a hassle…

So, this idea of liking and loving yourself. I will try to report the fruit of our discussion with doctor Zermati on the question, without being sure I’ll make myself clear.

The problem is actually easier if you state it in the following way: do you like the people you love? Be careful, ‘like’ is to be taken in a broad sense, not necessarily in its ‘physical’ meaning. For you to ‘like’ someone, that person must correspond with norms which we think are personal but are in reality obliged by our communities (basically, is beautiful what everyone finds beautiful, apparently it can be verified if you show pictures of individuals to a panel group, there is unanimity on who’s handsome and who’s ugly). In short, the fact that you like someone is subject to several conditions.

That is not the case for love.

For example, our kids. Do we like them 100%? Is our love subject to their weight, their eyes color, their joyful, sweet and docile character? Do we need to explain why we would go through fire for them when these vermin deprived us from sleep during the first three years of their lives? (Ok, it’s not the subject but we are not out of the wood yet for that matter, I wanted to mention it too)

As far as I’m concerned, the answer is no. My thingies I love them unconditionally and somehow, doctor Z pointed out, luckily, as the entire human species is at stake, we don’t need to find our children beautiful to cherish them. Especially as, of course, ours are magnificent but it’s not the case for all children, right. Hum.

The comparison works for our days and nights lover, who, let’s admit it, have a dog’s breath in the morning, snores like a pig at night and doesn’t necessarily looks like Brad or George. Not to mention his steady habit of leaving the toilet seat up or of throwing away our personal belonging exclusively, on the pretext of ‘it was lying around’ when not at all I left it here intentionally (yes, ok, I’m deviating from the subject)

Nevertheless, even if you turn your head slightly when he starts talking to you in the morning, you love him. Yes yes. You can’t really tell how or why, it’s just there, you have him under your skin, this jerk.

Let me stop here, you get me, it’s the same with Bénédicte, whom you met in high school, who has a whole lot of habits that drive you mad, but whom you couldn’t do without for more than three weeks and it has lasted for 15 years. You find her pretty of course, except, if you really consider it, ok, her pores are dilated, her breasts are not so firm and she has a slight squint. Nevertheless, you love her, that goose.

In short, I think I’ve made my point, we don’t like everything about people we love but something happened, something was built, a bond was created and it’s like that.

So why would we need to like ourselves to love ourselves? Who, frankly, looks at himself or herself in the mirror in the morning and screams damn I’m hot, and brilliant as well? Well very few people. Or not every day. Nevertheless you have to accept yourself because, a priori, except if Rael and his visionary friends are right, you have only one life and one physical body. And loving yourself is a good start for the trip.

Except that our thoughts are upside down or even crooked, doctor Zermati was telling me. And the messages sent from all over won’t help us see more clearly. Then we interiorize that not liking yourself implies not loving yourself. And that, as a consequence, other won’t love us either.

— “Yes but I, I believe I wish I were liked. I’m a bit ashamed to say so, but I wish I were, once in my life, an objectified woman, a pure object of desire, not because I’m been appreciated or found funny or nice, simply because people turn round for me. I know, it’s foolish and stupid, but I never got this.”

Instead of making fun of me, doctor Zermati replied that indeed, during teenage hood, you need that thing, to be desired, displayed like a trophy. And thus sometimes you look all your life for that thing you didn’t get. Except that, let’s be clear, I’d be really embarrassed if, right now, Stan, good looking kid from grade 10, on whom I’ve drooled for hours in vain, were to propose a French kiss behind the toilets.

Or maybe not.

Edit: Picture taken with my phone, not very high quality, but I love her, what can I do…

Six months. I’ve been following doctor Zermati’s advice for six months. Without meaning to do an appraisal, because I think it’s too soon and mainly because I’ve integrated the fact that featuring my weight loss could, at the end, causes another loss, I keep in mind the below ten commandments which are not really commandments but which have become, over the weeks, my own mantras, my crutches when chocolate is calling…

#1 – What you eat when you are hungry doesn’t make you gain weight.

#2 – It’s eating beyond your hunger that causes weight gain.

#3 – A balance diet is obtained in the long term never over one day, nor over one week.

#4 – I’m not more responsible for being fat that I am for being small, short sighted or stammerer.

#5 – Losing weight won’t make me kinder.

#6 – It’s fear of gaining weight again that nine times of ten makes you put on weight again.

#7 – My value doesn’t depend on the weight my scale displays.

#8 – After an excess, the only thing to do is to wait for the feeling of hunger to come back before eating, without feeling guilty for the pleasure taken.

#9 – Eating without hunger is as dumb as charging an already full cell phone battery.

#10 – You can lose weight while eating chocolate daily or any other so called taboo food.

That’s it for today, I’ll come back soon on the “do you need to like yourself to love yourself?” subject, after discussing it in length with doctor Z., I believe I’ve understood his point and, at the same time, made a giant step forward, when it comes to what I think of me and also of my relationships with lovers, friends and family.

What is funny in this regard, it’s that Jaenada’s book I’ve just finished ends in particular with this sentence (as I recall it): “You don’t love someone for a particular reason, you love him or her and that’s it”. That’s, in substance, the conclusion of my exchange with Zermati: we love in general unconditionally people, whether they are our parents, children, partner or friends. Why aren’t we capable of doing so for ourselves?

Edit: I’ve chosen the picture because I believe I haven’t dared such a pose for ten years and because, even if it is indeed there, this muffin top, modest but present, strangely, doesn’t bother me.

“On a day to day basis, it’s fine. I deal quite well with my cravings, I don’t feel distressed by food, I indulge and stop almost all the time when I’ve had enough. But now, for example, I’m going for a week-end away with friends, I know that we’ll party, that there will be no set time for meals, that there will be temptations all the time and that I won’t be able to do like I do at home, namely leaving the table when I’m done, to avoid temptations. Thus, I’m getting distressed”, so I explained last week to doctor Zermati.

To which he answered: “You need to really trust yourself now. To trust regulation first and foremost.”

“Yes, you will most probably eat more than usual, in exceptional circumstances, exceptional food behavior. If you think it is possible to always eat according to your sensations, eating exactly what your body need, you’re totally wrong. People who never take a break, who have linear diet have a problem, precisely with food. They are the unbalanced ones. For that matter, honestly, I don’t know any”, he added.

What a relief, once again, to hear such things. Life is not a long quiet river and neither is food. As result, would you believe, I was chilled out during those two days, not denying myself anything and, above all, not thinking about what was too much or too little. And at the end, no mess on the scale.

And even if there had been a mess, I think it would be sorted, because when I came back, chock-a-block with toasts, pastries, champagne and beer, I craved furiously…

Braised chicories.

I know, it’s crazy.

In short, what I’m trying to understand and integrate, it’s that fearing extra kilos will make me put on weight. What I understand too, it’s that yes, it’s nicer to spend your evening dancing with a light feeling, yes, compliments from friends I haven’t seen since my figure was at its biggest last year are flattering. But no, it doesn’t change much the pleasure they’ve had – or haven’t had- to see me again and even less the one I felt.

I also understand, since doctor Z’s scientific explanations, that in order to put on weight like I can do, you must suffer from two pathologies. The first one is being unable to handle emotion without eating. We’ve spoken about it already, it’s independent from willpower, it’s a Pavlov classical conditioning, some will cry when they are sad or worried, others will need a drink, others a piece of Milka. Sometimes, you are even lucky enough to need all three at the same time. The other disorder, genetic this one, causes fat cells to multiply, an irreversible multiplication that make your set point evolve towards higher numbers inexorably. This, either you have it or you don’t. People who don’t have this genetic mutation will put on weight if they eat a lot but their cells will only increase in volume and this volume will be lost as soon as their diet reduces. People like me produce plenty friends for their adipocytes. And it’s only a combination of both disorders that causes weight gain.

I add that according to Doctor Z, if more and more people are obese it’s also and very simply because over the course of wars and famines, beings who were not able to multiply their fat cells have disappeared for lack of surviving abilities. Basically, us fatties, we are a bit like winners, survivors1. How about that huh? I would have loved to throw this in the face of the moron who wanted to start a ‘carothon’ to make me lose weight in secondary school…

In short, only one solution to stop the process, act on emotions. Not on the cravings they trigger, once again, you can’t help it, it’s a reflex you’ve had for too long. But when these emotions are coming, understand in which situation you are vulnerable, find the origin of the ill-being. I am currently working on this, a process which is much less simple than behaviorism from the beginning or knowing my sensations. It’s a quest which brings me back in my childhood, my teenage hood and I don’t know exactly what it will enable me to find out. But it’s fascinating and, oddly, I have very little compulsions currently. I have too, and it’s even better, more confidence in front of the ones who usually have me go to pieces (and there are many, I’m a corridor big mouth, may I remind you).

In short, no magic in all this, no evidences, lot of introspection and sometimes a few brain-waves which help me understand the reason of some snack times that, long ago, lasted until dinner…

“Is it necessary to like yourself to love yourself?”

Yeah well it’s all fun and game but I am supposed to work on this subject for my next session with doctor Z.
And I’m lightly drying up.

Let me tell you that the Doc has his thoughts on the matter and from what I’ve understood – we’re starting to know each other well – the answer is no.

It could even be the reason for all our misfortune, this confusion we make between being liked and being loved.
No, you’re welcome, it was a pleasure.

Edit: The picture is there just because, right now, I wish I were in Sifnos. And also I like the mise en abyme: I’m taking a picture of you taking a picture of me. And finally, it is not that far from the question of liking our image or not. Ok, I talking shit now.

“You are exposing yourself too much, be careful”.

It’s doctor Zermati who warned me on Monday. Wait, no value judgment in this warning, neither criticism of my articles about the therapy. No, what he wanted me to understand, is that giving here details on how many kilos I’ve lost wasn’t necessarily good for me.

Why? Because somewhat, I put myself under pressure. The pressure not to « deceive », to have to hold on absolutely, not to fail, in order not to then be ashamed and have to confess here that yes, I’ve put on weight again.

“I often saw more or less famous people who were supposed to lose weight for a brand of health food and whose weight loss became a selling point. They all ended up putting on weight again”, he added.

On the spot, I have to admit, I’ve been shaken. After all, I do what I want, and on this blog I’m used to telling everything, and I’ve also shown myself when I was bigger, and the idea is not to talk big, simply to share my experience. No, I’m not using it as a selling or communication point, rubbish man!

Excep that… hum.

Of course, I talk big.

Just like a kid who sports her hard fought medal, I gave in to temptation to pin up the lost fat on these pages. With great many flattering pictures and victorious announcements, minus one, minus two, minus three, minus ten, minus… stooooop.

That’s right, if I think about it, it puts me under pressure. Because putting on weight again would be, wrongly most probably, a failure. For sure. A failure all the more so stinging that it would be public and observed by all of you.

“I don’t wish you this at all, I even touch wood, but it’s possible that one day you will put on weight again. Even if you respect your food sensation for all your life, there are mainly external factors that can play de role. You could be forced to take medicines (antidepressant, anticancer or others which act on the metabolism), suffer from menopause’s hormonal effects and so on. On that day, will you be worth less?”.

Wow, then too, needless to say, I’ve been a bit shaken. Wait, I’m the perfect Zermati good student and here is what I receive? No but where are the gold stars, huh?

More seriously, I believe it’s the way to calm down my hysterical goose euphoria from being able to fit into a size 12 again.

Yes, it’s good, yes, it’s normal to be happy and appreciate yourself again. But no, over-highlighting this change in my figure is not good on the long term. Because it’s getting the idea into my head that gaining two kilos would be tragic. And the odds are that it wouldn’t be two kilos that would add up but ten more, as a result of stress and generated anxiety.

All these remarks, the doctor expressed them after reading my list of how I would feel if I were gaining weight again. It was clearly highlighted that, for me, obesity and self-esteem don’t get along so well (actually that’s not really a scoop, huh)

In other words, I have a slight tendency to consider myself as person with a higher worth when I slim down.

“What matters is not how other people look at you, you can’t do much about it. What matter is that you are convinced that you haven’t been fat during all those years because of a lack of will, weakness or lack of tenacity. Because, yes, I assure you, it has NOTHING to do with willpower. Actually too much will in those cases just damages the system a bit more.

To make a comparison, a goal keeper can stop one penalty. If twenty persons kick at the same time twenty balls towards the goal, he won’t be able to stop them all. It’s what happens with the urges to eat with people like you who suffer from a slight eating disorder. One urge to eat, you can, with willpower, stop it. Two, three, maybe, But if your brain sends 50 per hour, it’s impossible. Whether or not you are a stubborn person”.

He also explained the whole process of gaining weight over the years. It’s a bit complicated and tedious to explain, but if you are interested, I will try to express it with my words. But basically, what I remember, it’s that yes bitch mother nature. Or not actually, because according to doctor Z. I’d better stop moaning at her. Because I’m really lucky to have lost so much in so little time, it’s the proof my body is not completely damaged by all the diets I’ve put it through.

What I’ve retained too is that, unwillingly, I take the same malevolent look at me (and thus overweight people) than the boys who were bullying me at school when I was a child. And as long as I won’t stop despising this ingrate teenager, I will not move forward much. 10, 15 or twenty kilos won’t change it.

“In the street or elsewhere, when you’ll come across overweight people, look at them as they should be looked at. As people who are not to blame for those kilos, for which they are not responsible. It will be a good start “.

I left with those words and since Monday they are in my head. I don’t really feel like talking big anymore, I understood, I think, that the game is far far from being over. And I try to convince myself that, indeed, to see the scale’s needle going up again would noy be a proof that I’m worthless…

Edit: From now on, thus, I will keep talking about all this but without giving figures on my performance, which shouldn’t be considered as such.

Edit2: I think it’s obvious but I’d rather point it out, the words I report here are correct in their sense but I don’t take notes and so I write it with my style. Doctor Z. is kind enough to let me tell all this without ever judging or making a remark when I think he reads it, maybe not all but still. These texts are firstly my version of our discussion.

Edit3: I also want to add that I don’t tell everything from the sessions and each patient lives things in his or her own way. Each patient is different and what is true for me might not be for someone else…

Edit4: No, nothing.

Edit5: Yes, the picture is from a shooting from 3 years ago from a shampoo brand which wanted it likes all women, like Dove right. For those who are interested, I wrote about it here and there.

If I slimmed down more…

– I would easily fit into a size 12.

– Buying a swimsuit would make me enthusiastic.

– I might be able to climb on 10 cm high heels.

– I would enter public places with slightly more self-confidence.

– I would feel more attractive.

– I would tell myself tales where I’d be desired only for my body.

– I would look at myself in the mirror all the time.

– I would pose on my blog with my knees inside, like a professional.

– I would feel younger.

– I would be, maybe, less scared to talk in public. Or not.

– I would always be Caroline, 38 years old, married, 3 children.

– I might be less inspired.

– I would be bankrupt but on the other hand La Redoute and American Vintage would be taken as examples of blossoming companies in Davos from all over the world.

– I would still be so scared to die.

– I would put my hands on my jutting out hips and, without understanding why, I’d like it.

– I would create a scandal assuring that you never feel as good as when you’re slim. And I wouldn’t see the issue.

– I might be less funny.

– I would feel fragile.

– I wouldn’t ask myself anymore if the person next to me in the train is too squeezed because of me.

– I wouldn’t be afraid of people letting me have their seat in public transport.

– I would suggest to my GP check my weight, even for an ear infection.

– I would weight myself in a pharmacy, in front of everyone.

– I would go back to La Pitié[1], in the consultations-maternity ward, I would jump on the scale and ask the midwife to tell out loud the displayed figure. I wouldn’t even beg to be allowed to take off my shoes.

– I would go to Comptoir des Chiffonniers[2] to try all their pants on.

– I would offer my mother a shopping session together, to rewrite history for that dramatic episode in Nouvelles Galeries[3] never to show up again,  she and I crying in the fitting room, because I was twelve and the only skirt that fitted me was a brown flannel skirt size 14.

If I were putting on weight again…

– I would want to tear off that muffin top which prevents my pants from fitting without being too tight.

– I would retrieve my clothes that are too big from the bottom of my wardrobe.

– I would put in the bottom of my wardrobe all the newly purchased clothes.

– I would wake up again with this existential question if any: what am I going to wear today. Fuck.

– I would move the scale’s needle to cheat, only for the pleasure of postponing what’s ineluctable.

– I would invent hormonal issues, I would curse water retention.

– I would end up informing everyone, even before it’s visible, that, here you go, another knock for nothing.

– I would anyway go to the beach and the sea would be at the same temperature than with 10 kilos less.

– I would enjoy this coming spring in the same way.

– I would drop the whole tutu idea (ok, it‘s to justify the picture)

– I would always be Caroline, 38 years old, married, 3 children.

– I would fall again head first in the cookies packet, this explaining the gain too.

– I would let him stroke my hips, trying to forget they don’t jute out anymore.

– I would have plenty money again in my account and would shout to anyone who might be listening that everything is ugly this summer in the shops.

– I would say goodbye to my boyfriend jeans and hi to my slim. With no need to buy the latter, nothing’s lost everything transforms.

– I would still know how to write.

– I would still be a journalist.

– I would still be alive.

And the others, what would they think?

I think my friends would be sad for me, sorry even. Maybe some, secretly, would think that finally everything falls back into place and it’s not that bad to keep things the way they have always gone. My mother would still love me but we would forget this shopping idea. She would find me pretty anyway, I think. My kids would tell me that they don’t see any differences and that no, really, nonsense, mum, you are not fat. The man will be very enthusiastic about my breasts coming back.

Maybe once my back is turned, some would tell themselves it’s too bad for it suited me well. And then to my face, they would assure me that, honestly, when you are too slim it makes you look bad, your face is not made for it, it wasn’t you. And it could be that they would be sincere in both cases.

Here you go, all this came out on its own, without much thought. If I’m 100% honest, the most wonderful thing about being slim is that you can get dressed without thinking of it. Is it normal to have studied for years, to claim the fact that a great-head is ten times more important than a perfect body and to however long for such a futility? Not so sure…

In the comments on my article from Friday, I’ve been asked how many kilos I have lost and how, in the end, I cope with this weight loss. It’s funny because it’s sensibly the same subject as the one we discussed during my last session with doctor Zermati.

“If you were to stop losing weight, if these 10 kilos were the maximum you could lose while keeping eating like you do now, how would you feel?” he asked.

“I would be perfectly fine with it”. It came out just like that, without second thought, and I think it was totally honest. You could think that 69 kilos for 1m63 – less 11 thus to be precise – it’s far from the current ideals. You could even say that in terms of ambition I play it safe. But I have to remind everyone that I’m a yo-yo backpacker. And being 38 years old, you are indeed not always reasonable, but you know certain things. Like you haven’t been programmed to be in the same category as Charlotte, Vanessa[1] or Kate.

The doctor seemed rather surprised by this cry from the heart but in a good way. During our first conversation, after discussing my weight history over the years from when I was 15, he evaluated my set point (weight for which, a priori, I am genetically programmed – bitch mother nature) around 67-68 kilos. Meaning we are reaching the target, if there were a target.

But despite everything, he warned me, it might well be right now that it really begins. Simply because we’ll have to identify how I manage what he calls the “weight stress factor”. Namely the fear of putting on weight again. Thus the necessity not to lose too much, I guess. The more you try to maintain a weight that is not your set point, the more stressed out you are not to succeed and the higher the risk to put on weight again. I point out that this is my own extrapolation, the doctor did not deal with it in depth but this is what I’ve deduced and what I deduce from my past experiences.

While if you content yourself with your “set-point”, a priori it is possible to eat your fill, according to your desires, without triggering the infernal mechanism.

Nevertheless, even in this case, the fear to put on weight again is there and I won’t hide it. If I were Dalai Lama, we’d know it.

It’s actually to deal with this fear that doctor Zermati gave me this little exercise for the next session : write what I would feel if a) I were slimmer, b) I’d put on weight again. And also what my kin, according to me, would think in both scenarios.

Objective: working on the image we have of ourselves and the image we think people have of us.

Of course, I haven’t started my homework when it’s due in two days. But I have an idea and promise, if you’re interested, I’ll share what I can say here. I have my decency, eh, even if it’s not always blindingly obvious on these pages.

That’s it, I realise that actually, I haven’t really answered the question from the beginning on how I’m coping with weight lost. Not yet. But the coming list will be, I’m sure, a good start…

Edit: the picture is supposed to illustrate this great coming reflection. Ok, it’s woolly, but sometimes I think hard about the images, right…

During one of my session with doctor Zermati, I broached the question of balanced diet.

– No because you see, indeed I’ve lost weight, but I have the impression  that I eat any old how.

– What does it mean eating any old how? (The question which will lead to a stupid answer from me which will be flummoxed in one second, doctor Zermati’s secret trick)

– Well… it means the five fruits and veggies per day, when we play hide and seek, damn, they can’t find me.

– And is it a problem for you? Are you afraid of deficiencies, are you balance obsessed? (Ok I feel the coup de grâce coming)

– Hum… no, that’s not it, but on the days I eat no vegetable and no fruit, I…

–  … feel guilty? (And bang, spot on, he wins again, it’s too unfair)

– Let’s say I guess it’s not that good for my health, is it? (the girl who tries to buck the trend without really believing in it)

Wrong. Wrong, he explained, mister Zermati, alias Obi Wan Kenobi. Wait he didn’t recommend eating chips with mayo every day, eh, let’s be serious. But you shouldn’t mention too many times these campaigns about 5 fruits and vegs a day to my master Yoda. He looks kind but he could get mad. Why? Because according to him food balance shouldn’t be reached within a short time like one day. Not even one week.

Translation: it’s not because you don’t eat dairy products during a few days that you’ll break into pieces or that all your teeth will fall. Same for oranges, there’s no risk of scurvy if we skip them for a month.

The body knows how to ask for what he needs, same way as it knows how to show it’s hungry. And forcing yourself to eat broccolis with your steak when you feel full, it’s simply dumb (now it’s me talking, doctor Z. is more polite). Because in the end, not only will it not change much on a nutritional level but, furthermore, you gather calories for nothing. And so… you put on weight. By eating broccolis.

The truth, after six months of therapy, is I’ve never bought that many vegetables at the market. Not because I have to, but because I enjoy cooking them and, some evening, after a lunch made of quiche/custard tart/brownie/sandwich (not all at once of course) I want only one thing, to eat another type of food.

But there are also weeks when lacking time, will or need, starches will dominate my diet, or dairies, or fruits or what have you. Likewise thus for my kids. And not only do I keep losing weight but I don’t feel tired or nauseous.

In short, as mister Zermati explained to me, between eating for lunch a pain au chocolat and a full meal like ‘chicken, green beans, bread, yogurt and apple’, it’s the pain au chocolat that will be less calorific. Thus the full meal will make you put on more weight. It doesn’t mean – I insist – that having pain au chocolat at every lunch is good idea. It’s just that we have stupid patterns in mind, as a proof, when he asked me to point out which one of the two lunches would make me put on more weight I chose the pastry. Then I changed my mind, suspecting the trick.

I don’t know for you but it’s doing me so much good this idea that balance is on a longer period than a day. And I can’t tell you how relieved my kids are as I’ve stopped hammering home my dumb principles according to which they will shrink and lose their hair if they don’t finish their soup. It’s a bit like that thing on video games versus reading, basically. You can very well have books periods followed by Mario Bross weeks. And in the end, you will have done both at your own pace…

Come on, may the force be with you, grasshoppers…