As I was sitting in the nail salon today waiting for my appointment, I treated myself to a little bit of Allure. Now, I’m embarrassed enough as it is buying Cosmo and Marie Claire… Allure is something I allow exclusively at hair salons and at the beach, where my friend buys it. As I was flipping through this particular issue with Britney Spears crawling at me through the cover as if she were going to eat me, I came across a spread about several women who had signed on to Allure‘s food and exercise regimen for a year. This being month seven, the magazine was starting to advertise ways of keeping off the weight in the long term, which brings me to the relation this whole story has to my food blog: there, in black and white print, Allure had confirmed my worst fear: to keep weight off, one must stop watching the food network, stop reading food magazines, and basically, stop loving food.
As someone who has been struggling with body images my whole life, on and off of Weight Watchers for nearly four years, I nearly cried there in the nail salon. Cancel my Gourmet subscription? Stop throwing dinner parties? Abandon my dear blog? For the sake of my size six jeans… I suppose…
And then, the roar of the hair dryer blasted me back into the real world. I closed the magazine and stared back at Britney. I was taking advice from a beauty magazine? Me? The girl who spent several years of high school with peroxide-orange hair covered with a Yankees beanie and didn’t abandon her army coat until well into the spring? Besides… I knew that Allure‘s allegations were completely unfounded: just look at Jen and Annie, my fellow bloggers. They have a healthy love of food and a healthy attitude towards it.
And then I took a look at myself: completely obsessed with vegetables, I have known to eat bagged salad directly out of the plastic, for want of another method (see evidence of my friend Katie doing exactly that as we backpacked through western France this summer). I am constantly trying to find ways to cut the calories of the French peasant food I love, so that I can enjoy cassoulet, despite the fact that I don’t work eight hour days in the fields. I force entire boxes of clementines upon people “so you don’t die of scurvy.” Sure, all obsessions are a little unhealthy, but how was my obsession with fresh ingredients and gorgeous plating going to make me less healthy than someone who lives out of their freezer on jalapeño poppers and microwave mac ‘n cheese?
I abandoned Allure then and there. I’ll stick to my Bon Appetit, thank you very much, and the next time I have a desperate desire to read my horoscope, I’ll do it from the safety of the pages of Cosmo… at least they give me recipes.