Tastes Great, Good For You!

As I seem to be fixated on food porn, I thought perhaps I should share some of my own. Food porn generally focuses on “good food,” you know, stuff like chocolate, ice cream, or pizza oozing cheese from every orifice. But I’d like to try my hand at healthy food porn, with my all time favorite vegetable salad. This dish is great for summer picnics, but I’ve also made it for Thanksgiving dinner. The recipe was given to me by my friend and Number One Cheerleader Lyrysa. It tastes divine and you can modify it any way you desire. Here it is in its original form:

Ingredients:

2 pounds fresh whole green beans, trimmed

1 large (or 2 small) sweet red peppers, thinly julienned
1 pint cherry tomatoes, each cut in half
1 cup fresh finely minced parsley
1/4 cup fresh finely minced dill
1/4 cup fresh finely minced tarragon
2 or 3 tbsp minced garlic
2 or 3 tbsp Dijon mustard
1/3 cup olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
2 or 3 tbsp red wine vinegar
Juice of one large lemon
1/2 cup sliced or slivered almonds

Stream the green beans in a large pot until the beans are just barely tender. Put the steamed beans in a colander and run them under cold water to stop the cooking. Drain.

While the green beans are draining, add all other ingredients (except the vinegar, lemon juice and almonds) to a large bowl and toss until well mixed and the oil coats all ingredients. Add the cooled beans to this mixture and toss again until well mixed and the oil costs the beans. Refrigerate for a minimum of several hours and preferably overnight.

Just before serving the salad, add the vinegar, lemon juice and almonds. Toss again until mixed.

That’s it. It’s easy, delicious, and will make your toes curl with delight! And, if you don’t like a particular ingredient, feel free to leave it out or substitute something else. This is one dish that says “Have it your way!” And as no porn is complete without a picture, here’s a feast for your eyes and your salivary glands…

There's A Pill For That

The FDA approved a new weight-loss pill this week, going by the unpronounceable name of Qsymia. This is on the heels of the weight-loss pill they approved in June, called Belviq. (Apparently diet drugs must include the letter “q” in their names in order to be effective.) The article I read noted that one of the side effects of Qsymia is a higher risk for heart damage. So, we are fighting a condition – obesity – that can cause heart damage, through use of a drug – Qsymia – that can cause heart damage? Is anyone else confused?

I think drug manufacturers like us to be confused. We are more willing sheep if we don’t completely understand what is being done to us. And all the more profit if the average patient throws up their hands and decides to trust that “they” (whoever “they” are) wouldn’t let the drug be used if it wasn’t safe. Right?

Have you noticed how similar drug marketing is to food marketing? Both seduce you into believing that you must have this drug/food, not only that but you deserve this drug/food. It is a constant siren song to eat, eat, eat, and when you get sick and tired from eating, eating, eating, then take this new wonder pill and all your problems will go away. What’s really diabolical is that all of this enticement is a nice, neat backdrop to the hand-wringing about the obesity “epidemic,” including lamentations over those darn fat people who just need to get off their butts and zip their lips.

I detect a smelly con game being played here. It goes something like this:

You, the hapless hungry person, see the advertisement for Dominos’ newest, cheesiest, most pepperoni-and-sausage-laden pizza ever. There are close-ups of mozzarella oozing from the crust and you are done for. You must… have… some… now. And so you do, along with a side of wings and a liter of Coke, immediately followed by the next phase of the con game, called self-flagellation. How could you have eaten that greasy pizza? How could you have eaten so many pieces? How could you have eaten the whole pie? You’re a slug. A sloth. Your relationship with food is a hot mess. But wait! You can go on a diet. Yes! But which diet? You remember the last five diets you went on and the one thing they all had in common: you were hungry all the time while on them. Hey, isn’t there a drug for that? Qsy-something? You’ll call the doctor tomorrow and ask for a three-month prescription.

It’s a beautiful cycle. The food manufacturers make loads of cash because we willingly buy their unhealthy but alluring products. The drug manufacturers make loads of cash because we need their products to counteract the bad aftereffects of our food choices. And we do not blame either of them for suckering us into this gastronomic hell. No, we blame ourselves!

Now, I’m all for personal responsibility, but at a certain point the environment has to be taken into account. We live in a culture of nonstop food porn and the promise of an easy fix after the binge – until we do something about that, there will be no solution to the obesity “epidemic.”

In the meantime, I suggest you take care of yourself the best you can. If you happen to fall into the clutches of an extra-cheesy pizza pusher, don’t beat yourself up. Just acknowledge, learn and move on. It's the real pill for what ails you.

Perfection

I’ve been reading a lot of other blogs lately written by people who’ve been through what I’ve been through: losing a lot of weight and working to keep it off. It’s been cathartic to finally find a community that gets it. Until now, I’ve shared my experiences with people who’ve never been seriously overweight, or conversely, with those who have but think there’s no workable, lasting solution to obesity. To finally talk to folks who’ve been there and done that is thrilling to say the least.

One thing I’ve noticed is that while everyone I’ve encountered in weight cyberspace has had similar experiences, many have drawn very different conclusions than I have. This fact actually excites me because I’ve learned some things and discovered new perspectives that can only help as I move forward on this weight maintenance journey. Even when I disagree with what someone says, I can see where they’re coming from and respect that their opinion was arrived at just as honestly as mine was.

There’s a big idea that many of my fellow bloggers have expressed that I completely disagree with, that we have to deal with mental issues – about food and self-esteem among other things – before lasting weight success can be achieved. I’ve brushed the surface of this topic in previous posts about emotional eating and our relationship with food, but I want to explore one aspect of this a little further. I seem to detect something dangerous lurking beneath the waters and that is the specter of Perfection.

Every person who’s ever been seriously overweight has dreamed of the perfect life they will have when they finally reach whatever magical weight they’ve established for themselves. In fact, one of the biggest challenges to maintaining a large weight loss is mourning the demise of that cherished belief, when you reach your perfect weight and find that a perfect life still eludes you. How different from that is this idea that you have to perfect your mental state before attempting to deal with your weight?

It is undeniably true that people have issues with food. It is also undeniably true that food issues can significantly affect what you eat, how much you eat, and what you weigh. But I believe you can take care of your body and reach a state of health that includes being a normal weight without having to clear out every eccentricity and neurotic cobweb from your head. I’m a perfect example. I’m way crazier about food now than I was 100 pounds ago, but I’ve managed to work with my nuttiness. The key is having a strong motivation, which for me was created out of something that happened seven years ago.

In the summer of 2005, I had relatively minor surgery on my foot and had been told that I would need about a week to recover. My recovery took nearly four times longer than that because I had to use crutches while my foot healed and I was simply too out of shape to do that. During that time period, I was a functional invalid and that realization hit me hard, as I was only 48 years old and thought of myself as resilient. It brought me face-to-face with the future and how I might cope with health issues as a 70-year-old woman who weighed 250 pounds. The terror of that vision set me on this road and I’ve never looked back, neuroses or no.

So, I don’t agree that food issues have to be resolved or healed or made peace with in order to lose weight for good. And there is no such thing as a perfect relationship with food, no matter what you weigh. All I can say is start where you are and do what you can. Whatever happens, it is better than waiting for a perfect opportunity that will always be just beyond your grasp.

It's All in Your Head

There’s something I’ve encountered over and over again in articles about losing weight: the idea that an overweight person will never be successful in keeping the pounds off for good unless she comes to grips with her relationship with food. (I use the word “she” deliberately because this advice seems mostly directed at women.)

The theory is that the obese person’s messed up relationship with food causes them to overeat in destructive ways. We are told that this over-consumption is an attempt to fill a void, heal a past trauma, or find solace from a deep loss. It is a psychological crutch, and once the fat person is able to deal with the real issue, she will no longer feel the need to stuff her face with Hershey bars.

Sorry, but I don’t buy it.

First off, it sounds an awful lot like a one-shot fix. But rather than a magic pill or a magic surgical procedure, this is magic for your head. Get in touch with your bruised inner psyche and presto chango! Thin forever! Well, um, not quite. Dealing with obesity may require coming to terms with the fact that you sometimes eat for reasons other than hunger, but that doesn’t mean it’s all in your noggin. It does mean that you need to change what are likely very ingrained eating habits, which may make the goings-on in your head even more squirrelly!

This idea also focuses the blame on the fat person and their perceived gluttony. But consider, for example, that to reach a point where you weigh 100 pounds more than you should, you need to eat an extra 350,000 calories. That’s the equivalent of about 6500 cups of steamed chopped broccoli. You would have to eat almost 18 cups of that broccoli on top of your regular meals every day in order to gain 100 pounds in a year. Could you stomach that? However, those 100 pounds are also the equivalent of only 200 of Red Robin’s highest-calorie cheeseburger options. You could probably manage that, couldn’t you? Would the current obesity rate, especially the rate of extreme obesity, be skyrocketing if our environment didn’t provide nearly non-stop mega-calorie temptation?

Then there’s the matter of biology. A growing body of scientific evidence suggests that the hormones regulating appetite, hunger and satiety work differently in overweight people than they do in non-overweight people. Some researchers have begun to believe that the digestive system of obese people is actually broken, along with the homeostasis mechanism that is supposed to regulate metabolism to keep weight stable, not unlike how it keeps our body temperature steady at 98.6°F. Even the most well-adjusted person in the world will have trouble maintaining a healthy weight if their gut is busted!

There’s also the insinuation that obese people must be mentally warped. Good grief! Fat people already have enough to deal with without being treated as not quite right in the head. This idea that our weight is the result of psychological failings does nothing but keep us in a state of self-flagellation and shame, which just makes it that much harder to seek out the help needed to learn a better way to eat.

I think the best way to fix your relationship with unhealthy food is to treat it like an abusive boyfriend. Ditch the jerk and find something better. But that does not require tinkering with your head. It does require the determination to find a piece of paper on which to write a new and improved grocery list. Plus a healthy dose of self-respect.

Inspiration

One question has dogged me since I started writing this blog and that is: Should I write to inspire?

When I reached my goal weight in 2008, I desperately wanted to be an inspiration. In those days, I didn’t have to do very much to be inspiring; all I had to do was walk in the room. People who hadn’t seen me in a while would do a visible double-take, wanting to know what had happened while delicately dodging having to ask me if I had been sick. Many people, friends, family, co-workers, told me that my success in losing so much weight had motivated them to try again. It was, I’ve since discovered, the golden age of weight maintenance when everything seemed bright and shining.

After a while, the excitement died down for those around me, but not for me. You have to remember that I had been morbidly obese (one of the more charming things a fat person can be called) for most of my adult life, so to finally be thin, now that was something! I was size ten, for goodness sake. I had dreamed of that mythic place – SizeTenLand – for so long, that to actually arrive there was still a thing of beauty. When I continued to share my enthusiasm for my new way of life, however, I started to notice something: my compadres no longer seemed happy to hear what I had to say.

Little did I know, but I had entered the second phase of weight maintenance, the stage where the newly slender person becomes that Annoying Convert. No longer was I the poster child for transformation (you know my thoughts on that); now I had become just another of those obnoxious born-agains who show up at your front door wanting to share the good news of their newly embraced religion. My attempts to continue to inspire those around me went unappreciated at best. Often, people seemed irritated, as if my thinness was some sort of affront.

Which brings me to the third phase of weight maintenance, namely the place where I stopped inspiring myself simply because my weight was lower, and started to fully comprehend that if I wanted to stay this way, I had to continue my new approach to eating and exercising for the rest of my life. Think about that for a minute. It’s quite intimidating!

After four and a half years of weight maintenance, I’ve arrived at a place where inspiration seems beside the point. I’ve learned that no matter how loudly I shout about the joys of life sans excess pounds, the siren call of chocolate croissants will probably out-shout me. My sharing may also piss you off and cause you to think unkind thoughts, like who the hell does she think she is anyway? There’s an integrity issue for me too, to wax poetic about my new habits without also telling the bleak truth about how hard this really is.

In the end, trying to inspire someone else to lose weight is a futile endeavor. Each person has to come to that decision point on their own, and many might never get there. That’s their choice. My goal now is to just try to paint a realistic picture of what to expect, warts and all, for those daring enough to embark on this adventure.

The good news is that it is possible to lose a large amount of weight and keep it off. The bad news is that there is no happily-ever-after. But then, I suspect you knew that already, didn’t you?

Crazy Diet Lady

In reading some of my previous posts, it seems that I’ve painted a rather dismal picture of life after weight loss. I’ve asserted that you can’t eat any of the “good foods,” not even in moderation. I’ve posited that being hungry might not always be a bad thing. I’ve suggested you have birthday broccoli instead of birthday cake. I’ve gone so far as to propose not eating sweets at all, even those containing only zero-calorie sweeteners! Have I become a kind of food Nazi, promoting a joyless gray existence, devoid of one of the most satisfying of life’s pleasures, to enjoy a flavorful meal?

This is exactly the dreary purgatory that the popular culture cautions against, aided in no small measure by the food industry and food advertisements. We are offered a Sophie’s choice. Be healthy but at the cost of eating bland and boring gruel. Or eat with gusto and abandon but endure the indignities and potential health effects of excess weight. This is the reason you drool over pepperoni pizza with cheese baked into the crust, because you’ve been sold on the idea that it’s exciting in a way that grilled chicken and salad are not. And make no mistake. You have been sold.

It’s possible I’ve also portrayed myself as a bit eccentric. Just how OCD do you have to be to measure portions every time, follow the same dietary routine every day, weigh yourself every morning. Just how anal must you become to maintain a laser focus on your diet, making course corrections on a minute-by-minute basis, all to keep your weight within that five-pound sweet spot you’ve selected? Perhaps it seems odd, but aren’t those late night binge rituals that none of us want to admit to a tad strange too?

Well, eccentric or not, the fact is that my life is better at a lower weight, even if that means broccoli instead of cake. A lot better. The three-minute joy of eating a scoop of Cherry Garcia, even the half-hour ecstasy of scarfing down the whole pint, is nothing compared to the difference in the way I feel. Now I can spend an entire day sightseeing without my knees giving out. I can walk up a flight, or three, of stairs without being out of breath. I can wear a bathing suit without trepidation. I can tuck in my shirt – you have no idea how much pleasure I get from tucking in my shirt!

Here’s another shocker. Healthy food is not boring at all! It only seems that way when your taste buds have been taken hostage by the über-flavors of The Pigs. Once you detox your tongue, you’ll discover the amazing taste sensations that nature affords. The tang of plain yogurt. The nuttiness of roasted Brussels sprouts. The sweet juice of a perfectly ripened tomato. Appreciating these subtle and sublime flavors when you’re accustomed to a heavy slathering of fat, sugar and salt is like trying to hear the purring of a kitten while standing next to a construction site. Not gonna happen.

It’s not easy to untangle from the cultural admonition that healthy eating is dull and to be avoided at all costs, but it can be done. It will feel like suffering at first, as you endure withdrawal from food addictions and familiar comfortable ways. But then one day you’ll have a craving and be amazed to discover that what you hunger for is a salad. Yes, a salad.

Hey, crazier things have happened!

I'll Have Seconds With That Emotion

Today I’d like to take a slight detour and talk about the psychology of food. You know, emotional eating. The cultural take on emotional eating goes something like this: Girl has a bad day at work. Girl gets upset. Girl goes home and eats a half gallon of Chunky Monkey. Girl feels better for five minutes. Girl hates herself for the rest of the night, and since she now hates herself, proceeds to polish off the last of the macaroni and cheese, along with a bunch of corn chips and guacamole. Some might call this a food binge. I would call it my life before I lost 100 pounds.

Obviously, a person who would do something like this is seriously disturbed, no? And isn’t that what we believe, even if we don’t say it out loud? A person who is fat is a person who’s lost control. A person who’s undisciplined. A person who is probably psychologically and emotionally deficient in some way, otherwise they would get motivated and DO SOMETHING about their weight.

That’s exactly what I believed about myself for most of my life. That there was something seriously wrong with my head. If only I could straighten out my screwed up psyche, then I would find the strength to stay on a sensible diet and lose the weight once and for all. Not only that, but I believed other people (translation: normal-weight people) were better than I was simply because they could eat cake and stay thin and I could not.

But then I lost 100 pounds. I didn’t lose 100 pounds because I cleared out all of the squirrelly, twisted mazes in my mind. In fact, in some ways this weight maintenance deal has made me more neurotic than ever. I lost weight because I put myself in the hands of a doctor and a nutritionist and DID EXACTLY WHAT THEY TOLD ME TO DO. Yes, I know, that’s an un-American thing to say. I let someone else tell me what to do. Shocking.

Yet, I lost the weight and have kept it off for four and a half years. In that time, I’ve learned a few things. Like how our intrinsic beliefs about what constitutes “good food” chain us to a way of eating that keeps us fat. How food manufacturers design products that are highly palatable (translation: highly addictive) to keep us coming back for more, and oh yes, keep us fat. How our own willingness to discount our strength and believe in our deficiency keeps us from questioning the status quo, and yup, keeps us fat. And instead of getting angry – because maybe you have a genetic predisposition to gain weight and you need help to learn how to deal with that, but instead you are pushed and prodded by the food culture to eat the very foods that will make your genetic predisposition become reality – instead you blame yourself for being an idiot who wants to have her cake and eat it too.

Have no doubt, emotional eating exists. But the question is, did I eat the way I ate because I was screwed up? Or did I eat the way I ate because I didn’t know a better way to deal with life’s difficulties and no one was able to show me a better way? My observation is that most of us have weird, eccentric nonsense banging around in our heads and you can’t really predict how bad it is with any particular person just by what they weigh. Overweight people are not more emotionally disturbed than thinner people, but they do have to deal with an awful lot of disturbing stuff, like being portrayed as out-of-control nut jobs when in reality they just have a physical condition called obesity.

Whew! I feel better now.