Luckily, I don't diet

I work out for a lot of reasons. I work out because I like to be strong. Because I like the challenge. Because it helps quiet the voices of the demons that kept me on a 600-800 calorie diet for most of high school. Because I like the people. Because I enjoy doing bizarre things like Spartan Races and mud runs. Because it gets me out of the house and separates me from my demanding toddler for at least 6 hours a week. Because it's part of my routine. Because I like to eat and, yes, because it burns calories and helps me attain and maintain an appearance and level of fitness that makes it easier for me to negotiate sanity on a day-to-day basis.

On Thursday afternoon, between mini vacations to Rhode Island and the Catskills, I saw the following picture (with the accompanying caption as a comment) posted on FB. It was posted by a fitness trainer and casual acquaintance, and, though it clearly wasn't her intent, it seriously annoyed me. I've been thinking about it pretty frequently since then.

Uh Oh! Don't ruin your diet! You work so hard... Dont ruin it cause its 4th of July. Stay strong!

I find this problematic on many levels- the grammar to begin with (but I've often been told not to be the Facebook Grammar Police- so I'll let it slide). It's insulting. It's misleading. It's belittling. It is not inspirational. It's just plain wrong.

The majority of the women whom I've come to know at the gym, and to whom this FB post was largely addressed, go to the gym the way they go to work, the way they pick their kids up from daycare, do laundry, cook meals, keep appointments, pay bills, cut the grass or take the dog to the vet. They do it as part of their day, part of their routine, part of what they just do. They have gone to the same classes or machines week after week, stood in practically the same spots evening after evening and morning after morning through relationships, marriages, divorces, deaths, injuries, surgeries, pregnancies, miscarriages, births, high school, college, job changes, relocations and hardships that I'm sure I don't even know about. To tell people who are so committed to a part of their lives that it could be in jeopardy from a single hot dog (or an entire plate full of them) is ridiculous. And it's part of what is wrong with the "diet culture" in our society. It's not a fucking diet. It's just life.

I'm coming off a span of nearly 3 months where I decided to kick up my exercise/weight loss efforts for a little while. I set a very attainable goal, took very careful-but-doable measures to reach it, battled a few demons along the way, patted myself on the back for gettin' it done and then settled immediately into a week (A WEEK!!!) that started  on Saturday with pizza and Nutella fudge brownies for my daughter's 3rd birthday and segued into meatballs and baked ziti, potato chips, more pizza and cake at her official party on Sunday. On Monday we killed the leftover pizza and cake before hopping in the car for a 3 hour trip up to Rhode Island to rendezvous with my sister and brother-in-law and meet my 4 month old nephew. Tuesday started off with a 60 minute hotel workout (SO SORRY to my sister and brother-in-law for the 6:30 AM jumping jacks- I didn't realize you were right below us!!), followed by a hotel breakfast, our yearly pilgrimage to Iggy's for fried seafood and, later, a homemade clam bake-- complete with giant chocolate chip cookies for dessert. Wednesday, another hotel workout, another hotel breakfast, off to the beach- where I worked up the metaphorical balls to wear a two piece bathing suit in public for the second time in 14 years- with deli sandwiches before afternoon wine and a dinner of lasagna, garlic bread and more cookies...and then ice cream. Thursday, breakfast, Wendy's, home, grilled chicken salad for dinner. Friday morning, 6 AM, bowl of cereal, mug of coffee, back in the car- this time up to spend the day in the Catskills at the home of new friends where there was a breakfast FEAST awaiting us (fried ham, sausage, cheesy eggs, pancakes and COFFEE) before a lunch of homemade guacamole and chips and then an amazing July 4th (one day belated) BBQ with all the trimmings-- right down to coleslaw, a hearty bacon cheeseburger and s'Mores before a long, dark, quiet ride home. I guess, to the original poster of the image, it wouldn't just look like I ruined my "diet". It would look like I blew it out of the water, gathered up the remaining bits, ground them into a fine paste, squeezed them into a sausage casing, grilled it over a fire and ate it on a hoagie roll with fried peppers and onions.

Luckily, I'm not on a diet.

10 years from now when my snuggly, cuddly, precocious and curious toddler is an angsty hormonal teenager and I'm looking for reason NOT to seal her in her room with nothing but basic cable and a feed slot, I'm not going to look back on this past "birthday week" and think, "Damn. That was the week of my undoing. I shouldnt'a eaten that clam cake." Because my life is going to have gone on from this week. It's not even a matter of picking myself up, dusting myself off and slinking, shame-faced, back into the studio to hide the indiscretions of my first week of summer. I'm just gonna change into my gym clothes, drop my kid off in the nursery, and hope that no-one settled into my favorite spot while I was away.