Weight is a funny thing. We spend most of our lives fighting it. Don’t eat this. Don’t ever eat this. Years stretch by where a french fry is something to look upon with lust but never eat.
And, then, in the blink of an eye, radiation and chemo strip away butt and thigh fat, eat boobs whole and startle youngest children when they spy bony backs. After that, there is the task of putting weight on–for women of a certain age–a first. In the beginning, it doesn’t come on. Really. Doctor prescribes meat, potatoes, starchy stuff. Do I like ice cream?
Well, not usually, but the frozen stuff becomes a friend. It slides down easily and slowly adds bulk. In a cancer free year, I regain a butt. Boobs, I fret, are lost forever. And all things are, shall we say, loose? Back to a healthy weight, there’s now an ice cream addiction to break. Can you say Haagen Daaz Coffee flavor? A mix of sweet and deep, it became the elixir of not just weight gain but mood stabilization. Pints became serving sizes and suddenly I’m the girl in the movies–Netflix, flannel pj bottoms, Haagen Daaz and a spoon.
Enough say I. The search is for a diet that isn’t a diet but a health plan. What, exactly, are healthy foods? Depends who you ask.
I’ll never be a nature girl. Hemp clothing will never fill my closet. Shoes are just better the better the hide. I like lipstick and makeup too much to go about bare faced. And pearls, well pearls–who knows what they actually are–an irritant only to the animal that produces them. Thank you little sea dwellers.
I start with smoothies. But not the green kind. Smoothies should be pink so I don’t know there’s spinach and kale in there. Friends recommend chia seed pudding and overnight oats. I prefer oats slathered in maple and brown sugar. Kimchee, fermented cabbage, sounds repulsive and smells as bad. Millett is actually in bird feed and Marmite, although some magical yeast extract, sounds like a small rodent.
Enter Kombacha Tea. It’s all the rage in places where they rage about such things. It’s tea featuring a floating glob of goo with strands hanging down into the drink. This is not made up. To prepare, a SCOBY is added to the tea mixture. What the hell’s a SCOBY? Oh, that’s simple. It’s a jelly like layer of cellulose that grows tentacles the longer it sits in the tea. People even trade their SCOBYs for the health benefits. Really–give them to each other in little baggies. Here, I love you, have my SCOBY.
I ask if it tastes like tacos. I figure its got to taste like tacos or corn fritters or fresh baked bread or Haagen Daaz Coffee Ice Cream for people to actually drink something with a ball of slime and slithery arms creeping down the jar. Nope, it tastes like tea.
Hmmmm. Maybe a fat ass isn’t all that bad.
The Duchess Diaries 