Does this war make me look fat?
Rachel WeinsteinRachel is a medical social worker by trade who teaches Krav Maga to women
and girls, and is the co- …
Try as may, I
cannot stop rockets with M&M’s. Hershey’s syrup doesn’t stop the sound of
booms, Cocoa Pebbles don’t stop sirens, and chocolate, glory be thy name,
doesn’t stop war. I have tried in earnest to employ all of these methods and
alas, Operation Tzuk Eitan is still in full swing. My name is Rachel and I am a
chocoholic.
I have lost nearly
30 pounds since making aliyah and have a significant amount more to go. Despite
a love of exercise and vegetables, I find myself eating not to alleviate
hunger, but to satiate the worry, the fear, and the reality that we are in.
Though I live in Beit Shemesh, an area not nearly as badly hit as those in the
south and Gaza belt, the sound of that dreaded siren means the same thing no
matter where you live; there’s a missile aimed at us, shot by people who want
us dead. Even one of those is enough to make you freak out. Dare I add, even
one those is enough to make the people who love you who don’t live in Israel,
freak out, too.
When the war
started weeks ago, though I’m having a hard time remembering what it was like
pre- war at this rate, I found myself “war shopping.” In the States, when a
heavy snow storm was predicted, grocery stores would fill with people shopping
like the famine was coming. Shovels, rock salt, milk, water, and bread would
fly off the shelves like there was literally no tomorrow. I was one of those
people who admittedly blurred the lines between practicality and OH MY GOSH
WE’RE NEVER GONNA EAT AGAIN! It had nothing to do with the starving children in
another country, but the mere possibility that we’d run low on coffee before
the snow had melted. Honestly, I can’t really tell you what I accomplished by
war shopping other than to feed my increasing anxiety about living through it.
I assure you that our grocery stores have not shut down, no one has starved, and
we, thank G-D, still have plenty to eat.
Food has
traditionally been a source of comfort for me. I am a child of a Depression
baby and as such, grew up with food that I was certain grew from our kitchen
table. We always teased my mother, may she rest in peace, about her seeming
ability to feed the entire third world with the food in her freezer alone. She
shopped for the people in the house, who might come to the house, and people
who drove past the house. I grew up with food as a source of goodness and love,
so I guess it makes sense that I’d use it now to try and make things better. It
doesn’t.
It is comforting
to know that I am not fighting this Battle of the Bulge alone. In a recent and
very unscientific Facebook survey a friend polled her community by
asking, “Eating more or eating less because of the “situation”?”
The answers
varied, but most came to the conclusion that war is bad for your waistline.
Many respondents admitted that their chocolate and carb consumption had gone
up, as had their weight, while others said they were eating less as a result of
the tension. Not eating because of stress is something I just can’t relate to;
I don’t understand it and it confuses me. To be clear though, I am in awe and
unabashedly jealous of people who can pull that one off. The common denominator
everyone could agree on though was that war is stressful. It doesn’t matter if
you have a child in the army or know of someone else’s on the front lines,
whether Hamas is shooting at you non- stop, or every now and then. Knowing
people want you dead? Not terribly calming.
It’s hard enough
to watch your weight when things are relaxed. It’s that much harder I find,
when consumed by social media, news, and the insanity of folks who still think
the good guys are the bad guys. I feel The Grip of all of these things on my
brain, in my nervous system, and struggle with things like,
How can I work out when 3 more soldiers have been
killed? How irreverent does that make me?
The reports say that the soldier may still be alive. I
should wait to see what the updates are.
Oh man, my “red alert” app is going off like
gangbusters. I want to stand up and do something else, but they just don’t
stop!
Don’t get me
wrong, I KNOW how ridiculous this sounds. But I also know that I share this
obsession with others who like me, logically get that being glued to a computer
isn’t going to help us win the war any faster. The longer I sit, the less
energy I have. The less energy I have, the less desire to cut open a bag of
lettuce instead of plowing through a box of cereal. War really is bad for the
waistline but it also wreaks havoc on the mind and soul. And that coupled with
a case of “I am now one with my chair,” makes for yet more stress, more
anxiety, more poundage, and no clearer end to what’s going on.
The good news? We
are in these battles together. The existential ones, the physical ones, and the
ones involving foods that call our name. I look forward to the day when this
war is over, when missiles are no longer aimed at us, when our enemies no
longer force us to protect ourselves in ways we wouldn’t otherwise fathom. May
we soon be able to refer to this time the way we lovingly refer to many of our
holidays,
They tried to kill
us, we won, LET’S EAT!
* Looking for more support? Check out Honey, I Ate
the Fridge on Facebook. It’s
where weight loss and real life meet!*
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