The Adventures of Diet Wonder Woman

Every time I talk about how difficult it is to maintain a large weight loss, someone inevitably tells me not to worry, that things will get easier. I suppose time will tell, but I’m not as optimistic as those around me seem to be. And why should I be? When I consider my genetics, a lifetime of bad habits and the general culture of food working against me, it’s a wonder I’ve been able to pull it off at all.

It is a tempting vision though. I imagine myself as a healthy eating super-hero, who knows intuitively the perfect food for my body at any given moment, and more importantly, who is immune to the allure of the gooey, cheesy, chocolaty devils that perpetually plague we women of a certain weight. If it sounds too good to be true, that’s probably because it is. For just as every Superman must have his kryptonite, the substance against which he is powerless, so must every Diet Wonder Woman have her double-fudge brownie sundae. But no matter, I am no super-hero. I’m just a girl who used to be fat and who has somehow managed to fool Mother Nature for about five years now.

Here’s a question. If all of this did get easier, would my life be better? Would I be happier? Or would I just find something else to get all worked up about? I sometimes think that I’m not really obsessed with food, but rather, I’m obsessed with being obsessed with something. I may have replaced worrying about my ever increasing weight with worrying about why it is that I can’t go to a business seminar without being assaulted by copious amounts of bread and macaroni salad at lunch. What if I stopped expecting my eating life to be a cinch and adopted a more detached stance? As in, oh look, someone at work brought in brownies. Again. How interesting.

What if this is all about entitlement? I was reading Debby’s post the other day about counting as it relates to food intake and it struck me like a thunderbolt. You see, if I get to the end of the day and realize that I haven’t eaten everything I’m allowed to eat, I make sure I eat whatever is missing, whether I’m hungry or not. Because I can. Because I’m entitled to eat it. Because it’s not right if I get less than I’m allotted. It’s almost like I’m six again and raging because I think one of my little brothers got a bigger piece of cake. How dare they get a larger slice! It’s not fair I tell you! Not fair at all!

It all comes back to this, doesn’t it? On the outside, I may look like a competent adult who’s got her act together, yet that’s not quite a complete picture. It’s true that I hold down a responsible job. And I own a house, I vote, I pay my taxes and do all those other things that grown-ups are wont to do. But perhaps I’m still that little girl who is pissed because she suspects she might have gotten a raw deal. She just wanted her cake and size ten pants too. Is that too much to ask?

The main thing I’ve learned in the last five years is that nothing is what it seems. You think it’s just about learning how to eat better, how to take care of your body better, and suddenly you find your entire psyche up for grabs. Not easy. Not even close.

Hey, is there a super-hero in the house?