Chicken Soup for the Dieter's Soul (17 page)

With the support of my husband, I searched for my balance again. I was heavier than I’d ever been in my life and it was a struggle. My weight yo-yoed slightly, and then I became pregnant. I was in bliss for most of the pregnancy (when people weren’t making comments), anticipating the birth of my child. I told myself that it was perfectly acceptable to be heavy while I was pregnant. I had a very important job to protect and nourish my unborn child.

I gave birth to a beautiful, healthy baby girl. A bittersweet time followed. The joy of being a new mom was tinged in despair.My body ached.My feet hurt all the time. I felt so old and decrepit. For months I wouldn’t go anywhere without my daughter. I tried to justify my weight— I wasn’t just fat, I had a new baby. Hope for a quick weight loss from breastfeeding was dashed when the pounds crept down the scale agonizingly slowly, with long plateaus (contrary to what all the pregnancy books said). The old self-loathing came back as a new mantra. I felt frumpy, lumpy and wholly unattractive. My body seemed forever changed, and I was heavier than ever before.

After my daughter stopped nursing and began to eat regular food, I felt a shift inmy attitude as I focused on providing her with well-balanced meals. I realized that every bite counted for her. She couldn’t afford to eat wasted calories if she was going to get what she needed to grow. Her nutritional needs reminded me about balance—not only regarding food, but also physically and emotionally.

In the past I concentrated on the balance between exercise and eating for weight loss. That wasn’t enough incentive for me to stay in balance. The emotional aspect had been missing. This time around I wanted to be a good role model for my daughter. To do that I needed a gentler approach, an approach that I could live with for the rest of my life and not another quick fix. For instance, controlled portions included “nondiet” food, such as dried cranberries and toasted almonds in salads and, of course, chocolate, in small, daily doses.

Once my infant grew into a toddler, exercise became a day-by-day thing and could only be accomplished in smaller segments, like a half-hour yoga session or kickboxing video or a short walk with her around the neighborhood.

Progress has been slow and steady. I take one day at a time and continually ask myself: What do I want? What can I live with? What will keep me going? Is this something I want my daughter to emulate? This is my balance for now. I know I don’t have the perfect, end-all solution for the rest of my life. What I do have, though, is the perfect solution for me at this point in time, and I hope that I can weather future change well enough to stay the course and keep my balance. A funny thing has happened, too. I feel better, not just minus aches and pains, but I feel at peace with myself, and that truly is life in balance.

Laura Schroll

Just Listen to Mom

I
n the long run men hit only what they aim at.

Henry David Thoreau

Mrs. Shatzel outdid herself with this spelling assignment. She asked her students to each pick a classmate, write them a letter using all twenty words in the unit and mail it to their home.

Back in the 1960s, we sixth-graders used the phone and recesses in school to stay in touch. We didn’t write letters, so this assignment was a really unique experience. I couldn’twait to receivemy letter in themail, running home each day to see what the carrier had delivered. And finally, one sunny April afternoon, it arrived. I tore open the envelope, unfolded the paper and gazed at the salutation.

It read, “Dear Lard Bucket.”

I never forgot how I felt reading those words. Armed with plenty of motivation but little information, I embarked on a cycle of fast, binge and surrender, repeating the same mistakes throughout my adolescence into adulthood. The spirit was willing, but the brain wasn’t quite engaged.

Last year I turned forty-five and had long since entered “surrender” mode when my friend Joe proposed a friendly wager: the first to lose 10 percent of his total weight would take the other and his wife out for dinner. What did I have to lose?

So Lard Bucket accepted the wager, halfheartedly. In return, Joe gave me a copy of a fitness profile he had received from a trainer, emphasizing that the recommendations were personalized to his condition. In reading the profile and recalling dozens of past failed attempts, I was overwhelmed by the possibilities. For this round of fast and binge, should I go low-cal, high-protein, low-carb, low-fat, gym rat, diet pills, food supplements, Hollywood Bimbo Grapefruit Diet, or try one of the million variations and combinations of all of them? Or maybe it would be better to just make the dinner reservations.

That’s when “the Pattern” started taking shape. It was as if Mom was painting the big picture between the lines of detail in Joe’s fitness profile. Everything fit. The profile said to eat many small meals in a day; Mom always said to eat only when you’re hungry. The profile said to eat “x” thousand calories per day; Mom always said never go hungry. The profile said people are hungriest in the morning; Mom always said to eat a good breakfast. The profile said Joe should lose no more than two pounds per week; Mom always said to take the weight off slowly so you won’t put it back on quickly.

Mom was right all along; it was only that her advice was too general to apply without information, and now I had that.

I went to work starting with the goal itself. Saying “I need to lose the weight of an average SUV by next summer” sets you up to fail. Saying “I will lose 1.5 to 2 pounds per week, on average, every week until I reach my desired weight” becomes a recipe for success and minimizes the likelihood of a binge on the rebound.

Since you can’t get discouraged if you know what to expect, there was now no fear in weighing myself every day. Weight loss is an up-and-down process. As long as the weekly average was on target, I was fine.

It took almost a year, but I have shrunk from 243 pounds to 183, from a 44 waist to a 34, and have more energy and ambition than I ever dreamed possible. Best of all, I have the knowledge and understanding needed to keep the weight off, as I have done for almost a year. And it wasn’t difficult at all. I just needed to listen to Mom.

James Hammill

Spaghetti Head

A
ccept the things to which fate binds you, and
love the people with whom fate brings you
together, but do so with all your heart.

Marcus Aurelius

The sauce sat simmering for eight hours, mingling the flavors of beef, tomatoes, garlic, onions, green peppers, bay leaf and other spices. I added mushrooms and pronounced it done.

“Good,” replied my young husband, “I’m starved.”

The pasta was cooked al dente, so I drained it, piled it on a plate and ladled the sauce on top. Then I carried it to him, looked at his slim features . . . and DUMPED IT ON HIS HEAD. Immediately I burst into tears.

“Okay, you’re done with this diet,” he calmly told me with sauce dripping from his nose. He began to wipe up the mess and carry it back to the kitchen. “Call the doctor in the morning and tell him, ‘No more.’”

Why would I do such a thing? Because I was starving. Literally. I was on a zero-calorie diet after I began to maintain weight on 350 calories a day. It was the 1960s and the doctor was experimenting with me. He plied me with Dexedrine to keep me going and it worked. I bounded out of bed in the middle of the night to clean closets or scrub the bathroom with great energy and intensity. Most of the time I forgot how hungry I was. But the spaghetti sauce was an old family recipe, and its aroma permeated every inch of our small house. It triggered more than just hunger—it set up a longing to be able to eat normally and a fury at those who could without adding any pounds.

Through the ensuing years I tried every diet that came along, joining thousands of others who struggle to be thin. The rice diet, grapefruit diet, liquid diet, high-fiber diet, cabbage soup diet, even the apples-only diet accompanied by an injection of urine from pregnant sheep—whatever was popular. They all worked for awhile. I just couldn’t stick to them. As soon as I returned to eating what the “normal” people around me were eating, I rapidly gained the lost weight back, plus more. Why? Those starvation diets taught my body to store food for the future since it couldn’t trust me to provide regular stable nutrition.

Finally, I reached the age when being thin for looks wasn’t as important as my health and mobility. I was losing both and realized I needed an eating plan, not another diet. So I gathered my knowledge of diets, which was enormous by this time, and listed what worked best for me. Never get hungry. Keep plenty of healthy snacks like veggies and nuts on hand. Eat small portions more often. Enjoy fruit and simple starches in moderation. Stay away from sugars and high-starch foods. If I just HAVE to have a piece of candy or pie or cake, some macaroni and cheese or ice cream, then I have a little bit of it, savor it without guilt and go back to my new way of eating. The addition of moderate exercise and seven to eight hours of sleep each night makes my plan more successful and I’m working on both.

Am I thin? Definitely not, and I probably never will be. But I’m healthier. My tests come back from the lab with all the “right” numbers listed, pleasing my doctor. I finally enjoy my own kind of “normal.” And guess what that includes? Eating an occasional plate of family-favorite spaghetti with my husband.

Jean Stewart

Half My Size

A
ge is strictly a case of mind over matter. If you
don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.

Jack Benny

Nothing gets you thinking like receiving an invitation to your twentieth high school reunion. The thought of renewing relationships with people you haven’t seen in ages can stimulate a negative response when you’re overweight. I received such an invitation, and while I was tempted to attend, I knew I’d have to lose many pounds before I could face anyone. After having three children in five years and being a stay-at-home mom, I had doubled in size.

I’d become an all-day grazer, reaching for goodies nonstop, and I weighed 237 pounds. My own husband weighed less than me. I’d tried diets before and sometimes opted for healthy snacks, only to have my hunger pangs control my fat-tooth and munch down on a dozen brownies and ice cream in one sitting.

Certain family members made negative comments about my weight at every picnic or holiday gathering. My husband humored me, but I could see him shaking his head as I stuffed myself with doughnuts, dip and salty chips. I just couldn’t control myself. Maybe this reunion would be a goal I could commit to since my husband was adamant that we attend.

The next morning I realized I had to make a decision; he’d taken the reservation form to mail. After the kids went to school, I cried some, ate three bagels loaded with cream cheese and then made up my mind. I’d start tomorrow. I cut out a thin model from a magazine advertisement and hung her on the refrigerator as a deterrent, right next to the actual invitation.

I love to read and had books to return to the library, so on my next trip I skipped the fiction section and browsed the diet and fitness books. I ignored the clerk when she loudly said, “Someone’s going on a diet,” in her singsong voice. My face warmed as the other patrons standing in line stared at me.

Next, I drove to the grocery store. I selected fruits, veggies, whole-grain breads, nuts, cereals and lots of chicken. I’ve seen enough diet commercials to know what you should be eating. For the kids I still bought cookies and their favorite ice cream, but not mine, to help keep the temptation down. Armed with my healthy groceries, I was ready to begin day one.

That following morning for breakfast I had a healthy grain cereal with fresh strawberries and skim milk. Afterward, I chewed a mint-flavored gum and went about my vacuuming. The chewing kept me from reaching for sugary treats and kept my mouth moving. I knew that smokers used this trick to stop smoking.

I retrieved a journal I’d recently received as a gift and started to log what I ate and my beginning weight, just as the fitness book said. I also read about the importance of exercise. Motivated, all I could do at first was stroll around the block. The daily fifteen-minute walks soon turned into thirty minutes, and I even incorporated jogging. The first couple of weeks were tough; my old self wanted to admit defeat and slide backward into the comfort foods. I’d just look at that model and the invitation and know that I’d have to face everyone in eleven months. I summoned all my willpower and fought on.

My walks increased to forty-five minutes each session with one whole block of jogging every ten minutes. The walks combined with the jogging helped to ward off my constant worrying and cleared my head. I felt calmer and slept better at night. I purchased a fitness magazine and tore out some fifteen-minute workouts to target specific body areas and used them to spice up my afternoon routine.

The first twenty pounds of former baby weight came off after two months, and I was encouraged to continue, but I had eighty pounds to go. Challenging myself, I bought a ladies’ bike at a local garage sale and added a thirty-minute ride to each afternoon. Each book stressed the need to exercise six or seven days each week to lose weight and only four or five to maintain. I logged in my journal everything I ate, along with the daily walks, bike rides and spot workouts.

I became consumed, goal-oriented and somewhat proud of myself. If I felt depressed, I’d step on the scale and marvel at the readings. I’d tell myself that I didn’t want to cheat and ruin everything after I’d come this far.