Raise your rhetorical hand if, once again, on December 31st, you were one of those people that has made that ridiculous vow to lose 20 pounds or more. Has anyone else out there, like me, had a rough couple of weeks filled with cheating, self doubt and self condemnation? Are you feeling guilty knowing you’ve used up your total points for the day and it’s only 0830 in the morning? Have you told yourself, at least once, that tomorrow I’ll be good….I’ll definitely start that diet for real…on Monday?
I remember my first diet, I think I was 12 years old and there has been a whole laundry list of them since then: starvation, water, Adkins, South Beach, tuna fish and diet mountain dew, weight watchers, curves, basic training, not to mention the several purchases of exercise equipment/laundry dryers that have found their way back out of my house and into happier homes where their owner pays closer attention to them. You name it, I’ve tried it. Out of all of them; the only one that worked, really worked, was being constantly reminded that I would lose my job and be asked to leave the military with a dishonorable discharge. For being too fat!!! Can you imagine the shame? That is the extent or extreme motivation required for me to actually follow through with this New Year’s resolution!
I’m finally realizing, as I go through this same scenario over and over and over again, that I don’t see my dieting as a commitment but rather as a sort of “hobby”. Therein lies the problem quite possibly. Not something I do every day or even very often at all, and not something that I take so much pleasure in that I can’t live without it. However it is something that I’ve appreciated in the past. I’ve invested so much money, time, and effort toward this hobby, over the years, so it’s not something that I can just drop completely. I have to admit that I have enjoyed the outcome of my efforts at least twice, though only for short periods of time. I pick it up again every now and then, relearn all of the steps, work with it for awhile, leave it laying out in the living room for a few weeks with the intention of taking a stab at it a little every day, ignore it for days at a time and, eventually, I just put it all back in the closet until I get the urge to begin again….like that quilt I’ve been stitching away at for the past 5 years.
I have to say, I recently quit a nationally popular weight program after three grueling years…week after week… facing that woman with that horrifying scale and paying her $12 to chastise me about my inadequacies in a subtle effort to somehow motivate me! My excuses each week were starting to sound repetitive and so much less creative than I am capable of….my heart just wasn’t in it. A new friend of mine, I’ll call her Helen, told me that at her last weigh in…and a HUGE gain of two tenths of a pound showed up on the tiny window of one of the “scales-from-hell in her life…her counselor asked her if she was writing everything down and she told her; “Well, no…you wouldn’t want me to get writer’s cramp would you…it’s the holiday season?” I got a chuckle from that and I’ve put that little gem away to be used later, because I’m sure I’ll join up again and subject myself to that superior, judgmental gaze, putting my wares on display at some public weigh-in, somewhere in my future. That particular comment will be killer!
Don’t get me wrong…those poor folks are simply doing their job. Of course you have to have reached and maintained your goal weight to be able to obtain their career positions so I’m sure their perspective is completely opposite of say…mine. Think of the uphill battle though, it’s hard enough to lose your own weight…but to measure your success and be responsible for someone else’s weight? I would feel a bit more empathetic if I believed that the diet industry actually measured their success by their clients’ weight loss. Yes… “ouch!”
As for my own personal journey; I’d love to be able to say genetics has had something to do with it but unfortunately I have two skinny sisters so that excuse works only up until they come into the picture. I’d like to say it’s because I’m busy but I see so many other people who have so much more on their plate than I, and they are thin and healthy. I’d like to blame America…why not? Tempting me with all of that fantastic junk food at every turn. We’ve managed to foster a system whereby the stuff that’s fattening and salty and full of sugar is cheaper and you don’t even have to haul your carcass out of the car to get to it…what a deal?!?! Over the past few years I’ve been blaming Mexico as well, partly because I tote myself as an equal opportunity type gal, but also, having been exposed to the cuisine at work, first Texas then Schuyler; I have found that I absolutely love spicy, hot, cheesy enchiladas, pupusas, quesadillas, and nachos! Since I mentioned work: having discounted access to the best quality red meat of any variety, hasn’t helped curb my carnal desire for a perfectly grilled, medium-rare, end cut either. Let’s not forget the cuisine of my mother land. I could never pass on roast pork and duck, sour kraut with caraway, stick-to-the-roof-of-your-mouth, old-fashioned dumplings, horn rolls, and don’t forget the kolaches.
So there you have it. Gluttony personified, that’s me. Yet, annually, I sit here and wonder why these darn diets never work for me. It’s my view that a lot of us do. We tend to experience and enjoy life by tasting it, and then we suffer the consequences. We hear it all the time: “Everything in moderation” . I guess that’s the simple key. In addition to my annual self evaluation of my reckless food intake over the past couple of months, I had a surprise visit from a friend of mine. Someone who has known me for a couple of decades and even he asked me if I was “at least walking”. I’ll take that as a hint that I may be crossing over the line of “fat and happy” on into “you’d-better-do-something-quick-or-you-soon-won’t-fit-through-the-door”. In response to his inquiry, I’ve signed up for, yet another, nutrition/diet type seminar….who knows, maybe this will be the one! I hope they don’t make me give it all up….should I be forced to imagine a life without poppyseed kolaches… seriously folks, what would be the point?
Good luck with your resolutions, whatever they may be and if you ever find yourself in need of a walking partner, give me a call. Until then…keep your chin up; it gives you an air of confidence and it also makes one of those extra chins magically disappear.