The Truth About Hot Fudge and Deep Fat

It’s hard to know what to believe when it comes to diet and weight. Every day brings new information about what’s healthy and what’s not, often in direct contradiction to what we were told yesterday.  Eat lots of fish – don’t eat lots of fish, it contains mercury! Eat fresh fruit – watch out for pesticides on fruit! Eliminate fat in your diet – make sure you eat “healthy” fats! Sugar is bad – Splenda is worse! It reminds me of that Woody Allen movie “Sleeper,” where a man who was a health nut in the 1970s wakes up in the distant future, only to discover that the new health foods are hot fudge and deep fat.

Here are two common and contradictory beliefs about diet and weight. The first is that people who are successful in losing weight are completely transformed and will never be overweight again. The second is that it is impossible to lose a large amount of weight and keep it off for any length of time. While these concepts seem to cancel each other out, I see them as two sides of a coin. One belief serves us as we lose weight, promising that once we reach our goal, all the hard work will end and our new thin life will go on effortlessly and happily ever after. Then, when the weight starts to creep back on, the other belief keeps us from feeling too bad about it. Well, in my world, there is no transformation and weight maintenance is not impossible. In fact, rejecting the myth of transformation is what I believe makes long-term weight maintenance success possible.

If there is no transformation, then what’s a formerly fat girl to do? What works for me is to treat my tendency to obesity as a disease that I happen to have, one that I have to work on every minute of every day. As soon as I go automatic, start eating mindlessly or skipping exercise, I’m in trouble. I went automatic last winter and, before I knew it, I had gained ten pounds. That might not sound like much, especially compared to the hundred pounds I lost, but it’s easy to delude yourself about weight. I could say I was busy, stressed out even, and it wasn’t really my fault, but does that matter? Ten pounds gained is ten pounds gained. I’ve spent this summer losing those ten pounds, one excruciating ounce at a time.

Would you believe it if I told you that those of us who have managed to lose weight and keep it off are successful because: 1) something has scared the living daylights out of us; and 2) we have a lot of help? Consider this. I had minor foot surgery in 2005 and it crippled me for weeks. Why? Because I was so out of shape that I couldn’t use crutches. I hobbled around with a walker for a good two weeks; it was the most humbling and terrifying experience of my life, forcing me to confront my extreme weight and what it was doing to me. It also posed a frightening question: if I’m having this much trouble recuperating from minor surgery at age 48, what will happen if I weigh 250 pounds at age 70 and have a health problem? Will it be curtains for me? It took a while to figure it out, but in 2007 I enrolled in a medically supervised diet and exercise behavior modification program. In other words, I got help. Even once I reached my goal weight, I continued to get help by seeing a nutritionist on a regular basis. And believe me, I need the help. If I was trying to do this left to my own devices, I probably would have regained all the weight I lost, and then some, by now.

It’s hard to know what’s true about diet and weight. It’s easy to throw up your hands and say to hell with it. But take it from me, health is possible.

You just have to believe.