The battle of the bulge restated: “I have seen the enemy, and it is me.”

I hardly know where to begin.
Last week I posted a piece about my own wake up call regarding a year long run of weight gain. Not the first by any means, only the most recent in a long and nightmarish pattern (haven’t I seen this movie before?). My body was screaming – no more! My mind was saying – this is it, you’ve got to deal. And my heart was crying – not again, how did I do this to myself?  I knew there would be others who could relate, but I had no idea how vast, deep, and heartfelt the response would be. I’ve been inundated with support, suggestions, and encouragement. But what has come through most clearly, and touched me most poignantly, have been the stories. Stories of struggle and heartbreak.  Stories of grit and determination. And – yes indeed – stories of hope and optimism. I saw a desperate edge to our search for answers, and an indomitable spirit willing to try again. We want to conquer this thing, and we want to help each other. But are we fighting the wrong battle?
The subject of last week’s entry was my determination to take off 45 extra pounds. No small potatoes here. No smidgen of flesh in order to fine tune aesthetics – this is health threatening. It has to go. I am just under 5’7″ and last week, when I finally mustered the courage to get on the scale,  I weighed in at a whopping 194.4 lbs. There. Now, I’ve done it. I’ve come clean. Nothing like full disclosure to cleanse the soul. I’m a classically female, hourglass type. When I was in my 30′s, and trim (looking at old pictures makes me crazy – why was I dieting?) I weighed in the 140′s. By my late 40′s, I settled into the 150′s, with occasional forays into the upper registers of the 160′s and 170′s, and once I hit 184). At 150 I feel great, and look good (not perfect, but good). It’s not a case of trying to get back to some mythical body I had in the dim and distant past. It’s not going to happen, I know that. I do wish I had appreciated it more when I did have it, but oh well, I had my chance. I heard there was a bumper sticker in Texas after oil prices collapsed in the 80′s, “God, please give us oil one more time, and we promise not to piss it away.”
 God, let me look like Sophia Loren one more time, and I promise I’ll never touch sugar again.
Well, now that I’ve got that out of my system, let’s get down to business.  
The problem as I see it, is there are so many layers to this thing, its a veritable snake pit of issues all tangled and laid one on top of another. Hard to see the forest for so many brutally thorny trees.
We do have to look at the issue of self esteem and body image. Most of us are, admittedly, pretty screwed up in this regard. Blame it, as I do on mass media, and cultural insanity. We’re all victims despite our brilliant minds that know better, and our well intended determination not to be bamboozled, and made to feel bad if we didn’t look like Twiggy (remember her? If we’d only known it was just the beginning!) The brainwashing was persistent and insidious, and has become deeply rooted in our unconscious minds – thinner is better. If you’re doing it “right” you’re thin first, fit if possible, and that’s that. I think those of us between say, 50-65 are having to come to grips, for the first time, with the fact that our “young’ bodies are a thing of the past. Our older sisters have, for the most part, had longer to get used to the idea and make some measure of peace with it. Oh, we knew it intellectually awhile back, but didn’t really buy it. Now the evidence of degrading systems is mounting and undeniable – our hair is going grey, our eyes don’t work as well, our joints ache sometimes, our skin is sagging, and weird brown spots are popping up in random places. No use running it into the ground, I’m sure you get the point. So maybe, as one of our fellow Vibes suggested, we need to figure out, and really be ok with, what a healthy, menopausal, late middle, early elder woman looks like – right? We might just be able to picture it, but can we really believe, in our deepest of deeps, that its ok? Maybe. Meanwhile,  I can’t let myself off the hook with a cute image of a jolly fat grandmother. She’s going to have bad joints and a heart attack, and that’s not ok.
So, even with a properly adjusted image of what we’re shooting for here, we still need a way to get rid of the truly unhealthy layers of fat. We need a plan. Not a “diet” – we all seem to agree that’s a dirty little word, but a plan would be good. How do we eat? What do we eat? We do, after all, have to eat. Though I’ve often thought it would be a hell of a lot easier if we could skip it altogether like alcoholics who can walk away from their brand of poison. (I don’t mean to sound simplistic, I know it’s not that simple).
Many members suggested plans that have worked for them – raw food vegan, Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, or major calorie cutting for morale boosting quick results. Everyone has a past or present success story, and has thrown it out to me like a rope over a cliff edge.
“Lorri” wrote extensively about something called nutritional cleansing, which appears to have worked wonders for her. He story is very compelling, so I looked into it a little, and will continue to do some research and consider what parts might work for me for the long haul (can I give up meat? dairy? buy expensive supplements and easy ready made concoctions? Probably not.)
My favorite was “Gloria”(aka “irishgirl”), who wrote in to tell me that she’s dropped any idea of shoulds and shouldn’ts if favor of no plan at all. She just eats what she wants only when she’s hungry, and it has worked for her. What a brilliant, novel idea – eat when you’re hungry! Interestingly enough, I was given the same advice by a lovely elderly woman years ago, and actually think it makes a great deal of sense. BUT we have to get there from here. As I said to her:
“Gloria – Your “eat what you want when you’re hungry” approach makes TONS of sense to me. It’s pretty much what I did for over a year with great success. And, as you said, when I tuned into what I really wanted, it was rarely junk/sugar. I did, however, have to impose smaller portions than I had gotten used to, b/c my “portion meter” was clearly broken (rusted out from dis-use?). But that wasn’t hard either, as I reminded myself that if and when I next got hungry, I could eat again! No starving allowed. So no panic. At the same time I worked on fine-tuning my choices based on research about the kinds of foods my body could best use/handle – like whole grains (with, for me, less wheat), natural sugar (agave, maple syrup, now trying stevia), “good” as in beneficial, fats (olive oil, coconut oil) Plus I re-committed to walking at least 5 days a week for about an hour. It worked. Then I dropped the ball, lost my balance, and regained the weight. Trouble is, it was very easy for me to fall back into “going unconscious” around food. The eat what’s on your plate syndrome. I can’t think when I’ve actually stopped a meal mid-plate because I realized I’d had enough. The taste buds in my mouth seem to over-ride the “full” mark in my stomach. Needless to say, I assume that like most of us who love, love, love, to eat, I eat too fast! Sometimes it seems I’ve polished off the plate before it even hits bottom! So I’m also working on eating much more slowly – “savoring”, as they say. Feeding my brain as well as my body.
So the only caveat I would add to your brilliantly simple idea, is the fact that so many of us who have been long time mis-users  of food (food as drug of choice) have long since lost our natural meters – not just for portions, but for quality, and even for hunger. So sometimes some “rules” to get started on new habits and a new relationship to food might be in order until we learn to trust again – our bodies as well as our food choices. But, at the end of the day – I think you’re right on the money. Let’s take the fear out of eating. Let’s take the compulsion out to eating. Let’s refuse to make this a Battle. Maybe it’s actually possible, just like our friend “Irishgirl” to wave the white flag and make peace with the whole thing instead.”
There’s so much more. Stay tuned. I’ll be back next Monday with more ramblings from the psychological/biological front lines. Meanwhile, I’ll do my first post diet weigh in on Friday. As long as it’s at least one pound, I’ll be fine. I’m measuring too (shocking numbers!). Since I’m working with weights as well as walking, I may sometimes lose inches and but not pounds, so want any little ray of encouragement I can find. Wish me luck. And to all of you out there with me – hang in there. We ARE going to do it!

other blog entries from »