Modeling Moderation

I hope everyone had a very happy July 4th weekend! Our 4th was nice, but having July 5th on a Sunday was my favorite day in a while. The weather was perfect - high 80s but not too humid. Every place we went in St. Louis had little to no crowds. This is Art Hill in Forest Park - normally it would be packed on a beautiful day like yesterday. We went to the pool, the Art Museum, did a little shopping, and tried a new-to-St. Louis ice cream parlor.

Oh, and Marlena did my face for me. I always love the way she does it, and she frequently asks if she can apply my makeup. I just ignore the wrinkles, ha! 

If you ever get a chance to try Jeni's Ice Cream, I highly recommend it! Marlena was cracking up that she somehow got hot fudge all over her arm! 

But the ice cream brings me to my topic: Modeling Moderation. 

Moderation has never come naturally to me. Honestly, I didn't lose 150 pounds by eating/exercising moderately. As the mom of a daughter, I have tried to never ever say negative things about my body, but there have been many times I've said things like, "I *have* to work out!" or eaten different meals from my family to stay On-Plan. From everything I've read, I have internalized the message that "being hardcore" is the most efficient way to maintain. I try to follow most of Dr. Barbara Berkeley's rules from "Refuse To Regain," including weighing and exercising daily and keeping gains to a bare minimum. A couple years ago, though, I made a choice to eat more treats with Marlena, solely for the purpose of modeling moderation. I'm OK with my extra 15 pounds that resulted. 

In the past six weeks, though, we (Marlena, my husband and I, and a couple adults close to her) have become concerned about her vulnerability to eating disorders. It goes hand in hand with her other emotional issues, and it appears to be widespread among a group of her friends. At this point, her food intake hasn't changed, I don't think her weight has changed, but she's begun tracking her food on My Fitness Pal and worrying about her weight and what she eats. She's also begun running, and continues to love dance. My mama gut instinct tells me she does not have an eating disorder, but we are watching it carefully. My gut also tells me that her running is probably 50% for her mood, and 50% for her weight. 

I have always been very open with my family that the main reason I exercise daily is to maintain my mood. So I shouldn't be surprised that, from the list of 100 Ways To Self-Soothe her therapist gave her, she chose exercise. She's been watching Mama self-soothe with exercise for 8 years! 

All this is just to say that there's a reason I've been eating ice cream this summer, even when I'm not really in the mood. My kiddo and husband absolutely LOVE ice cream! It completely breaks my heart to watch Marlena talk herself out of an ice cream because she thinks it has too many calories. So when she says she wants it, I cheerfully walk her to the ice cream parlor in our neighborhood, and we enjoy the heck out of those ice creams. I enjoy the heck out of our walk & talks. And I say "f- it" to the ice cream calories, because showing her it's OK to be moderate is one of my most important jobs right now.