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Every year on Thanksgiving morning, the local YMCA offers a “Spirit of Sharing” fitness
class. For this one day of the year, the Y suspends its normal membership policies, and
open its doors to everyone who brings canned food to donate to the local food bank. The
energy level for the 75-minute fitness class is always high. People are in a holiday mood,
and at the same time they welcome the chance to release a little stress.
I got involved with these Thanksgiving workouts a few years ago, first as a participant
and then as one of the organizers. Thanks to these workouts I enjoy the holiday much more
than I used to. One reason is that the Thanksgiving meal tastes a little better once I’ve
done something for someone other than my immediate family and myself. And the other reason
is that these workouts help me integrate what used to feel like two completely separate
parts of myself: the athlete and the eater.
This sense of being a whole person is still pretty new. Between the ages of 16 and 39, I
felt as though there were two of me. More precisely, I felt like there wasn’t really a
“me” at all, but that two other people took turns inhabiting my body. One of them was like
Cassius in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, lean and hungry. In this incarnation I was always
on the move: organized, productive, fit, and free of the need or desire for food. I
transcended mere appetites. I was relentless, disciplined, and driven. I had “willpower.”
Needless to say, this life was exhausting, and I could never keep it up for very long.
So after a few weeks, or a month or two at the most, I’d revert to my other self, the “fat,
lazy, slovenly” me. This was the person who would do anything to avoid exercise and who
would eat anything that wasn’t nailed down, the more fattening the better.
I always turned into this person around Halloween and stayed that way until New Year’s. So
for most of my adult life, Thanksgiving was not a fun day. It was a day when I punished
myself with food. There was always so much delicious stuff around, and I never felt like I
deserved any of it. Yet I could never resist it, especially when everyone else was
overindulging. I always ate too much, and hated myself for it. The more I ate, the worse I
felt about myself; and the worse I felt, the more I ate.
In other words, during the holidays I would like you to experience the true pleasure of
eating. I know what you’re thinking. You think that if you let yourself enjoy your food,
you’ll never be able to stop eating. I’m here to tell you that, in fact, it’s exactly the
opposite. Once you really, truly give yourself permission to enjoy what you eat, you’ll be
amazed at how little it takes to satisfy you.
Don’t believe me? Try it! It may not change your whole life overnight—we’re talking years
of mental habits here, at least in my case—but give it a chance.
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