Emily Minor on Emily Minor
February 1, 2009 by lisagriffis
Filed under Uncategorized
Hi. Emily J. Minor here, longtime journalist, South Floridian, mom, wife, sister, Marlins baseball fan, NPR radio commentator and Type I diabetic.
Oh, I forgot the most important part for today’s purposes.
Dysfunctional eater.
This was ridiculously clear one recent weekend when we were planning to go to the movies on a Saturday night and I started thinking about movie popcorn that morning.
Feet on the floor, coffee on, newspaper in. Bam. Movie-popcorn-thing going on inside my head.
I mean, come on. Do skinny girls do this?
As it turns out, I think they might. Skinny girls like popcorn at the movies, too. But they probably don’t torture themselves about it all day, waffling back and forth, listening to the devil within, then the angel, then the devil again.
In the end, I had the popcorn and it was actually tasty - sometimes it isn’t, and that is such a waste - and I was happy.
But that daylong debate demonstrated, once again, one very simple truth about myself.
As if I needed a reminder.
I have never been able to re-train my brain about food. Ever.
Oh, after taking a year and losing 50 pounds - I did it in 2007 with practically no processed foods, no alcohol, very little salt, exercise and menus that laid it all out - I definitely eat differently now. I want to keep it off. But there is a part of me that is static and unchanged and set in her ways.
It’s the part that got me up to 195 pounds.
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I have taken many of Emily’s family photos just like this one. Emily was home in Ohio visiting her mother who passed away shortly after this photo was taken. Her sister Kathy is hamming up for the camera and Emily is embracing her mother like often did.
I would still prefer the mini-Snickers over the grapes, the french fries over the fresh fruit and the bun over the bare burger.
That means I have this good-choice, bad-choice argument with myself All The Time. And, believe me, my devilish side can get quite creative. I deserve this. I deserve that.
Sweet potato fries aren’t that bad. Blah. Blah. Blah.
Sometimes the wrangling starts with my morning coffee. Sometimes it doesn’t happen until much later in the day.
And sometimes it never happens at all. I just breeze through my waking hours, eating my Special K and my half a turkey sandwich and my New York strip steak with cauliflower for dinner. (Yum.)
Sometimes it’s easy and I look great and I feel great and I go to the movies with my bottle of water and the one - OK, two - Twizzlers that I score from the husband.
It’s a little boring, frankly. But I still like those days best.
