Celery

Preface: It’s been well established that I’m an idiot.

While I was off work, Tom and the girls and I ate horribly. I mean, seriously, it was awful.

We had fast food at least once week, often twice. I swear, it seemed like as we were finishing one meal, we were already talking about what we’d have for our next snack.

As one last hurrah (OMG, that’s so stupid) I picked up some appetizers from Applebee’s on the Friday of my first week at work.

Olivia had been asking about Applebee’s for a while. She loves the garlic mashed potatoes and the spinach artichoke dip.

So yes, on that Friday afternoon, we all gorged on deliciously fattening, nutritionally-void fried foods. It was glorious.

After she’d had honey bbq wings, her own spinach artichoke dip and one of my mozzarella sticks, Alyssa leaned back in her chair and said, “Oh, I’m so full. My stomach is poking out this far!”

And here’s where my stupidity steps in.

I raised an eyebrow at her and said, “Please. I could eat a single celery stick for three days and then have you eat what you just ate and we could compare stomachs.”

Then, because I’m JUST THAT STUPID, I said, “No, actually, I could eat a single celery stick for a WEEK and still my stomach would be bigger than yours.”

Hello. I’m Mrs. Ordinary and I’m an idiot.

I’m almost 50 years old. I’m not active. I eat horribly.

And I’m sitting here comparing my NON-ACTIVE body to my seventeen year old daughter’s. She, who is active, who works out every single days, who eats well and takes care of herself.

What the actually hell? Why would I do that? Why do I bring these body issues up at all? I do not want to make thinness a thing for my girls. I want them to feel good in the skin they’re in and to know that all bodies are beautiful.

Except…I don’t actually believe that.

I do not think my body is beautiful. I hate my body. I hate the skin that I am in.

So. Yes. Because I opened my stupid mouth and issued that stupid challenge, the next morning, I started my week of celery.

Or, you know, week of hell, tomayto/tomahto.

I know how stupid this is. I do.

I also know how stupid is that once I’d issued the challenge, I felt like I couldn’t back down. It’s my own challenge. Hello, stupid, you can stop anytime you want!

Except I won’t.

Instead, I’ll sit over here with my daily stalk of celery cut into eight pieces and I’ll feel sorry for myself.

Because yes, of course I do that too.

I sit at the kitchen table while the girls are eating their noodles and their chicken strips and their mashed potatoes and I choke that damned celery down because I HAVE TO. And I sit there feeling sorry for myself because that’s just how it is. I don’t WANT to this but my brain tells me that I’m a total loser if I don’t complete this ridiculous task that I set for myself. I am the only one who insists that there are RULES in place and that I MUST follow them.

And because I’m perfectly aware of how dumb this endeavor is, I say it out loud to Alyssa. I tell her not to internalize this little experiment because it’s stupid. Do NOT do what I’m doing.

What the hell, MOM! This is some brilliant parenting right here. Sign up for my webinar and I’ll teach my ways. The small print at the bottom of my webinar contract will alieve me of all responsibility when your child has to reparent themselves or pay exorbitant amounts for therapy.

But I explained to Tom, it’s only a week. Big deal. People do cleanses and fasts and it’s only seven stupid days. And let’s face it, I am absolutely big enough to go a week eating a stalk of celery a day.

So what if I’m so tired I can barely stay away when I get home from work. So what if gnawing hunger makes it hard to sleep even with the blinding tiredness.

It’s only a week.

But please remember: do as I say, not as I do. YOU are beautiful. You are perfect just the way you are.

And for your own mental health, don’t watch several (4) episodes of My 600 Pound Life right around the time you start contemplating your own enormousness.