Relax

It’s been a hectic week and I’ve been hard-pressed to find the time to blog. It seems that the pace always picks up quite a bit in September. Despite that heady sense of the return of busy-ness, this is a good time of year for me. It’s a kind of in-between time. The summer is over, so I can enjoy a reprieve from the press of potato and macaroni salad. And it’s still a few months to the national gorge-fest that takes place from late November through early January. There is that little blip at Halloween, but I’ve never been a big candy person, so I expect I’ll make it through that holiday just fine. This is a lovely season, perfect for long walks on cool and sunny afternoons, with few food temptations.

I’ve been noticing how much more relaxed I feel when there’s no major food event looming before me. That’s actually kind of funny. For most of my life, food was relaxation. I liked nothing better than to kick back with a big bowl of something gooey, all the upsets, the frustrations, the irritations of the day melting away along with the ice cream in my mouth. After all, who needs Valium when you’ve got Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia? You know. Chill, baby, chill. So to find myself dreading any situation that involves my former favorite foods, well, that’s a little weird.

How did food get so cozy with my notions of calm anyway? Even though it’s different now – food has become the antithesis of calm – it’s just two sides of the same coin. What I really want is to find a way of life that doesn’t focus so much on food, whether as salvation or damnation. Trading an obsession with eating for an obsession with not eating doesn’t seem like a particularly good trade.

But what other options do I have? For the time being, I need to be hyper-vigilant about my diet. I’m all too aware of the statistics about weight regain – heck, I’ve lived it – and I don’t want to undo all of my hard work because I feel a tad stressed out about eating sometimes. I keep telling myself that eventually it will get easier. I thought perhaps that would happen when I hit the one-year anniversary of reaching my goal weight. But it didn’t. Then I thought it might happen at the two-year mark. Nope. I’m approaching the five-year mark, but still I fret. What if I never get comfortable around food? Can I live a life of continual unease and still maintain this lower weight? I honestly don’t know the answer to that question.

But for now I will enjoy this little autumn oasis between seasons of gastronomic indulgence. Just don’t offer me any cider donuts please.

That Old-Time Religion

In a recent post, I talked about getting outside of the food culture. As I noted, the food culture is a sneaky little beast, hard to see or hear or smell. It’s like the air that surrounds us: we take it in without much thought. In fact, the only time we generally think about air is when it’s absent. Which I suppose explains much of the distress in my life these last few years!

It’s not easy to get yourself free of the food culture’s grasp, partly because of its invisibility, but also because it’s so ingrained in us. Our beliefs about food are not conscious choices, deliberately debated and chosen, but notions that have seeped into the deepest folds of our subconscious brain from the time we came into being. How many of us recall crying as a small child and being offered a cookie to make it all better? And before that, everything you learned pre-memory, being held and comforted by your mother as she fed you? Is it any wonder that food is so strongly connected to feelings of love and comfort and an unshakable sense that all is right with the world?

In many ways, the food culture is like a religion. Think about that for a minute. A religion asks you to have faith in a set of beliefs about how the world works. It explains what is right and what is wrong. It gives you rituals to celebrate and observe that which is sacred. Doesn’t this describe much of how we relate to food?

The beliefs of the American food religion include things like the Food Pyramid and its obsession with whole grains. That ice cream, cakes and pies are acceptable foods as long as they are eaten in moderation, perhaps as an occasional treat, without ever defining what is meant by “moderation” or “occasional.” That chocolate cannot be resisted. What is right? Why a “balanced diet,” whatever that means. And what is wrong? Being hungry. Or worse, being a food radical, as in someone who rejects mainstream foods, you know, those pesky “picky eaters.” The food religion even has a sacred trilogy, those Gods of Good Taste, whom I like to call The Three Little Pigs: fat, sugar and salt.

Giving up the food culture feels a lot like abandoning your religion. You feel excommunicated. Banished. A deserter. And also bereft, for what can replace the cavernous void left behind?

The last five years of my life have been an attempt to answer that question. I’ve had to create a new set of beliefs to live by, in other words, a new religion. I guess that explains why I seem like a convert, even a zealot, at times. My new creed doesn’t quite have the power that the old one did. Not yet at least. But, all things in good time.

It’s not all gloom and doom, by the way. My dinner plans for tonight include poached salmon, a salad, maybe a few asparagus spears, and fresh strawberries for dessert. By golly, I’m starting to feel a religious fervor already!

Duality

There seem to be two camps in the world of food beliefs. One says a calorie is a calorie. The other says all calories are not created equal. I’ve been in the second camp for a while, for as God is my witness <holding clenched fist in the air>, one hundred calories of say, ziti, do not have the same effect on my hips as one hundred calories of say, spinach. I don’t have any science to back me up on this, but I do see the evidence that shows up on my scale. Yet, if I were to get into a heated discussion with a “calorie is a calorie” person tomorrow, I would not be able to convince them of my position even if I brought a two-foot stack of peer-reviewed clinical studies with me. When it comes to food, we believe what we believe and no one better try tell us otherwise.

Here’s another dichotomy. Some people eat to live while others live to eat. Again, I’m in the second camp on that one also. In fact, that’s much of what this whole weight maintenance journey has been about for me, trying in vain to become an “eat to live” person. As opposed to what I have been for most of my life, which is someone who reacted with extreme shock and dismay at the discovery that all of the ice cream was gone. It’s just so darn hard for me to see food as nothing more than fuel. Regarding food as simply nutrition seems a lot like living in a world that has been scrubbed of all color until all that’s left are muted shades of gray. Gray food is not appetizing at all. But then, now that I think of it, maybe that’s the point.

Another twosome: you do know that some people are cooks and others aren’t, don’t you? In other words, there are those who get goosebumps at the thought of buying a new paring knife. Just as there are those who’d rather all the messiness was kept behind the kitchen door, a perfectly delicious meal magically appearing before them. Actually, I am both of those people at different times. When I’m tired, at the end of a work day perhaps, I want my dinner and I don’t want to know about all that slicing and dicing nonsense. But sometimes, on a weekend or a day off, I can really get into cooking. I’m not a baker at heart and I don’t care much for elaborate recipes. What really excites me is when I have a bunch of leftovers that I find a way to make into a particularly tasty dish. That’s how my husband’s favorite chicken sausage and zucchini soup was born.

There’s another thing about cooking. When I cook, the experience of eating is better. It’s not merely the obvious, that when I prepare a dish, I can control what’s in it – think home-made stir-fry versus Chinese takeout. It’s something else, something intangible. I feel more connected to the food. The food is more satisfying. It’s not just something to be consumed, but something worth spending time with, something to celebrate. I don’t think there are too many calories in the celebration part of food.

Which brings me back to my original point that a calorie is not a calorie. And food is more than food. I’m a pretty logical person and the muddle of all this drives me crazy sometimes. But perhaps I protest too much. For while good nutrition is clearly necessary for survival, a meal savored, in all of its meaning and mystery and paradox, is crucial to any life worth living.

Attack of the Fat Monster

I often wonder how I have managed to maintain a hundred-pound weight loss when everything I know about weight says that I shouldn’t be able do it. Of course, I’d like to think that I’m some sort of exceptional person, but my life provides daily evidence to disabuse me of that silly notion. And don’t forget, I’ve lost weight many times before, only to regain it all (and then some), so what’s different this time? Well, I got lots of help this time. I didn’t assume that I knew best because the sad story of my life before this last weight loss proved that I didn’t know a damn thing about how to eat and exercise. I was extremely public this time also, so much so that I started reading personal essays on the radio about my struggles, even going so far as to announce my weight on the air! Were those things enough to make the difference? Certainly, they helped, but I think there may be another factor. This time I did something that I never was able to do before. This time, I got outside the food culture.

Getting outside the food culture is similar to seeing the forest for the trees. If you are just beating yourself up for not eating enough vegetables, you may feel like it’s all about you and your deficient willpower – that’s a tree. But if you get outside the food culture, you will see that many people don’t eat enough vegetables, in fact, you may observe some people who never seem to eat vegetables at all. Then you can begin to understand how your eating habits have been influenced by the environment around you – that’s the forest. It might seem like an obvious distinction, but believe me, when you’re in the middle of a fight to the death between your mouth and a brownie, it can be a life vest.

The food culture is a sneaky thing. At times it can seem like a fifty-foot monster, but I think that’s the way it wants to be seen. After all, if a huge beast threatens you, you can marshal all of your defenses for a head-on attack. What’s more dangerous is what you don’t see, don’t expect, don’t anticipate. To me, the food culture is more like an odorless vapor that seeps its way unnoticed into every crack and crevice. It’s the little voice that never stops cooing, “chocolate, chocolate, chocolate.” It’s that persistent craving for cookie dough ice cream at midnight. It’s the soothing song playing over and over in your head, telling you that you deserve something greasy and gooey and m-m-good. If you’re not aware that this is the way the food culture speaks to you, you might think it’s your voice. And as hard as it is to maintain a large weight loss, it’s even harder to constantly argue with yourself. Maybe you can do battle with yourself for a few months, but eventually you begin to feel wounded, and that’s when the weight starts coming back.

Maintaining a large weight loss didn’t become easy just because I managed to get outside the food culture, but in my opinion that’s when it became possible. I feel a bit discombobulated, because now nothing is automatic – I have to think about everything. Is it any wonder that I feel unnatural and awkward and anti-social so much of the time? But it’s better now than it was five years ago, or even one year ago. Now, instead of seeing the food culture the way I used to see it, as just the way it is, I see it for what it really is, a fat-inducing fog that I’ve been getting lost in for most of my life.

But not anymore.

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

I got a lot of feedback on my last post, in which I discussed the darker side of losing weight. While I’m encouraged at the upbeat support offered by friends and family, I have to say that I already knew most of what they said. Yes, I have done a really good thing. It probably will get easier as time goes on. It’s true, I just need to hang in there and focus on the positive. Please understand that I didn’t intend to portray myself as wallowing in self-pity. The reason for talking about the hard part is simple: it’s reality.

When a person who’s lost a lot of weight is presented in the popular media, the emphasis is always on the happy stuff. How much better they must feel. How proud they must be of their big accomplishment. Life after weight loss is often portrayed as a perpetual party, an emotional high that never winds down.

Except that’s not the whole story. For all of the truly good things that come to those who lose, there are also many difficulties. I think it’s a lot like marriage – so many of us focus on the joy of the wedding and the hope for unending happily ever after. But then one day you realize that you’re stuck with this really annoying person, who hogs the blankets, leaves the toilet seat up, and watches the same World War II documentaries over and over and over again. That’s when marriage really starts, in my opinion, on the day when you no longer feel giddy at the sight of your beloved. And that’s when life after fat really starts too, on the day when you think you’ll go insane if you have to eat one more salad with grilled chicken. Or explain one more time to your cookie-crazed co-worker why you won’t be trying one of their famous chocolate chip creations, thank you very much.

So imagine you are an unsuspecting previously pudgy person, embarking on a new thin life, expecting all things bright and beautiful, and doncha know you start hitting post-fat speed bumps. What are you to think? You’ve been told that life after losing weight is a non-stop joyfest, yet you are feeling something distinctly other than joy. You might think that it has something to do with you, maybe you’re to blame, or you’re deficient in some way. Perhaps you’ll start to feel discouraged, wonder if you just aren’t up to the challenge of keeping the weight off. You’ve certainly heard how everyone regains the weight they lost eventually, so why not you too?

That’s why I talk about the dark side. Because it exists. Because pretending it doesn’t exist makes it even more powerful. And forewarned is forearmed. If you know there will be moments when you will wonder whether you were nuts to ever think you could do something this audacious, when you will fear that you just may not be up to the task, then perhaps that knowledge will be the tipping point that gives you the strength to weather the storm for one more day, one more minute, or one more cookie.

We formerly fat folk need all the help we can get. Platitudes need not apply.

For Whom The Bell Tolls

A friend said to me yesterday that he was looking for the shortcut to losing weight. I could have laughed and said, aren’t we all? But I didn’t. What I said was: There isn’t a shortcut and that sucks, but too bad, that’s the way it is. Maybe that sounds harsh. I suppose, but that’s really how I feel.

Losing a lot of weight and keeping it off for a long period of time is a difficult enterprise and it takes a toll. Every day I have to pay attention to what I eat, morsel by morsel. Every day I have to find time to exercise, preferably for an hour if I can manage it. It doesn’t matter if it’s a holiday, or a birthday, or a long day at work, I still have to do these things. If I don’t, if on a particular day I say oh to heck with it, I pay the price, which generally means gaining back a few pounds. There is no vacation from this and that fact has done a number on my sense of humor. It’s had an even bigger effect on my ability to conform to the social etiquette, which dictates that you don’t speak the blunt truth about things like weight.

So I guess you could say that long-term weight maintenance takes a toll on your relationships too. I was never the most outgoing person in the world, but I could go to a party, make small talk and generally enjoy myself. Now, social gatherings feel like a minefield. First, there will be all kinds of things to eat that I should not eat. Then, people will offer those things to me and I’ll have to find a way to say no without offending anyone. Or say yes and beat myself up later. Inevitably, someone will make a funny comment about how all the calories in the munchies will be cancelled out as long as we don’t sit down; since I know from bitter experience that this is not true, at least not for me, my choice will be to laugh politely and feel like a schmuck, or be the jerk who can’t take a joke. Or just stay home.

We all want to fit in. When I was fat, I dreamed that if I could ever lose the weight and be slender for good, I would finally be a normal person and fit in. But sometimes I think the opposite has happened. Many days, I feel more like the odd woman out than I ever did when I was obese. It’s not quite what I expected, yet as someone once said, that sucks, but too bad, that’s the way it is.

Why do I persist with this then? Well, I feel pretty damn good physically, better than I ever felt when I was heavy. I also think keeping my weight low will make getting older easier, and I’ve realized that I don’t fear dying nearly as much as I fear being disabled in my golden years. I guess I also still have a tiny bit of optimism left inside me, a mini-hope that someday this will all get easier.

Keep your fingers crossed.

The Body Knows

In a piece I posted about a week ago, one commenter suggested that listening to your body could be a way to find the path towards health. While I have no quarrel with this as a concept, I have to admit that I’m afraid to listen to my body. For so many years, my body said things like “eat more ice cream,” which lead eventually to the day when I tipped the scales at 250 pounds. So is it any surprise that I’ve come to regard my body as a less than trustworthy source of advice?

One of the reasons I lost weight and have managed to keep it off so far is that I’ve stopped listening to my body. I listen to my doctor, I listen to my nutritionist, I listen to other people who have been successful at maintaining a large weight loss. If I listen to myself, I just hear a lot of whining. “Oh woe is me, this is soooooo hard!” “But I don’t wanna stop eating after dinner!” “This is not fair! Not fair at all!”

Still, I like the idea of listening to my body and, in ways unrelated to food, I do. When I feel tired, I go to sleep. When I’m cold, I put on a sweater. When I get really grouchy, I know it’s time to kick back and have some fun. But when I’m hungry? Whole different story.

The thing is, how do I know I’m really hungry? I think there’s a big difference between being hungry and having an appetite for something. We blur that line an awful lot (at least I did), eating not because our body actually needs nourishment, but because we’re seduced by the anticipation of a flavor that we’ve become addicted to. Or because we’re in the habit of eating something sweet after dinner. Or because it’s a family tradition. Or because whatever. Yada yada yada. There are a million reasons why we eat; hunger is just one.

And let’s be honest. I know for a fact that chocolate causes cravings, as does ice cream, and cheddar cheese, and heaping bowls of macaroni. But does anyone really crave broccoli? Cauliflower? Brussels sprouts? I like those vegetables and I’m glad when I eat them. But I don’t lay awake at night having cruciferous dreams. So to say that my body would somehow tell me to eat those foods because they’re super-nutritious doesn’t jive with my experience – it’s my head that tells me to eat those foods. Decades of being extremely overweight have severed any connection between what my body really needs and what it tells me it wants.

This is the real tragedy of obesity, this disconnection of our minds, our spirits, our souls, from our bodies. As I can no longer trust myself, I have to trust others, which is good if they are telling me to do something that is healthy, not so good if they are selling a scam. I often feel quite self-righteous about my resistance to dietary mumbo-jumbo since, after all, I’m following the advice of a doctor, but then I remember that doctors used to think letting blood was an acceptable treatment. Who’s to say that a hundred years from now, people won’t laugh at what passes for standard medical advice now?

So, should you listen to your body? When I have an answer, I’ll be sure to let you know.