Okay, this weight loss thing? Not happening. Needs to happen. Now. Right now this minute now, no dessert for you, young lady, you have to show some restraint.
How does it happen? How do you switch the "I mean it!" switch on and how can you be so passionate, so dedicated about it one day and so disinterested the next?
I think, as I've said before, that there are times in your life you can devote attention to the job of losing weight and getting healthy and other times you just don't have room in your brain for it. But then there are times – like the past couple of months for me -- when you do have room in your brain (albeit perhaps not so much in your schedule) but you keep climbing on that train only to climb off the moment it slows around the first curve. Why? If you know it works, if you know the only way to get to your destination is to stay on that damned train tootling along the track, if you've got proof from mere months back that this train does in fact chug along quite nicely once it gets going, why jump off and on and off and on? How can you stay on? What's this gravitational pull to the heavy ground?
My mother and I were talking about this a few days ago (sadly, she's gone now, her plane left yesterday morning, back to Nova Scotia and a real autumn). I was describing how sometimes I just have to put things in my mouth. It's not hunger, it's not even an obvious attempt to stuff down feelings, though it may be that under the surface. It feels more like a need. And I don't know how to stop it. Nor do I truly understand where it comes from. She said she thinks for me it's a combination of rebellion and a desire for comfort. That sounds exactly right.
When someone – or some group – says "Do this, do it this way, conform to my plan for you, be who I want you to be," I say "Fuck you." I'm not so good with authority. This got me into trouble in the editing room early in that career; I didn't have the proper subservience. I don't cotton to control from outside. So when I have to follow a diet plan, to account for everything I eat and don't eat, have to do this but not that, fall into line with the groupthink, I don't. Weight Watchers worked for me for a while because the flexpoints system allowed me to choose my own food, it simply gave me a way to measure when I was overdoing it and stop myself. But I'm reluctant to go back even though the Core Plan intrigues me. Because it's ultimately a corporate entity keeping an eye on me, tsking when the scale goes up or even doesn’t go down, monitoring me and judging me. Not so good. My attitude isn't "Better do better next week!" or even the unhealthy but natural "Oh, I’m a desperate failure," it's "Fuck off, I'm going to go stuff myself, take that, scale bitch!" Rebellion. Teenage, unbecoming and self-destructive, yes, but there it is. I have to do this for myself or I'm not going to do it at all.
The other aspect, the desire for comfort, that may be easier to understand. More universal, anyway. When I get stressed, food serves to fill me up emotionally. For a few minutes, anyway. Then I want more. Because the good feeling, the buttery mouthfeel of pudding, the sweet tang of chocolate or the crisp edge/soft interior of a good French fry, that lasts for the moment you chew, the moment you swallow, the fleeting aftertaste, and then it leaves you with a longing for more and more and more because that moment, it felt good. Vestigial memory of nursing, that warm milky feeling that you were wholly enclosed, safe and protected in a nest of arms and everything was right with the world? Who knows. But it's there, and it goes deep. And when I'm not thinking or even when I am but I lack a solid alternative or an emotionally powerful reason to stop myself, I go for the cupboard to find something soothing to eat. In the moment it feels good but of course it's not a solution, not long term.
So what's the answer? My rebellious streak, I think, can be answered simply. I am no longer that teenager, nor that young adult. I don't have to prove I'm anyone's equal. I know I am. And I can choose my health-and-diet plan. I may go back on Weight Watchers, though this time online. I may do it on my own. I don't know yet. I'll experiment. But this is in my control and I do this for myself. I do it because I want my clothes to fit better, I want to look better in photographs and in the mirror and I want to feel healthier, the way I do when I'm eating better and working my muscles. The way I did last fall. If it's about me, there's a much bigger chance I'll stick to it.
The turning-to-food-for-comfort dilemma is harder. I don't have room in my life for a satisfying substitute. I can't go for long walks or take long baths or work my body hard every time I feel the urge to stuff my face. There's a small person's dictatorial ways and scheduling needs to consider. I have little enough time as it is. I want to write – no, I need to write, I have a novel to finish, after all – but today when Damian was at school, I did 25 minutes on the Nordic track, ate lunch, and paid bills. Then it was time to pick him up. No writing time for me. Long walk, long talk, long bath? A long time from now.
So what then? I'm still not sure. Exercise is key, though. This I know. The endorphin rush helps my metabolism which means I crash less. It gives me a kind of emotional equilibrium, too, therefore I need less of a snack boost. The rest I'll figure out as I go.
That ground rushing by under the train tracks may become appealing in a week or a month, I know that. I might want to jump off and eat a few dozen acres of bucolic landscape. So I make no promises, not even to myself. It feels shitty to break a promise and I have no plans to feel shitty. But I do plan to work on this. Because it feels good to do it. This initial switch from inertia to momentum is hardest. Well, and later on when it stalls out, the train slows around a dangerous curve. That too. But right now I’m in the first flush of "I'm eating right, I’m so hungry but I feel so good!" and I plan to savor it. Grumpy comes later. I'll deal.
Posted by Tamar at October 4, 2004 09:02 PMWhat's important to feel good about: that you're starting now. By doing it, by stemming the damage, you're avoiding the yo-yo that could make it all worse.
It's an unfortunate truism that successful weight loss, the ability to stick to a plan, doesn't demystify food for us: in some ways it makes it worse. I've never stopped having that oral reflex and I think (it;s been a long time now) I actually thought _less_ about food when I was heavier. Dieting doesn't solve eating disorders: it may create them.
For the oral part, that's kind of why I'm always drinking something (though I know you object to artificial sweeteners) and why sugarless gum is as important to me as to an ex-smoker. Can hot tea comfort you too? A workout certainly can, though it requires that precious commodity, time. Still I do think it's key.
As for rebellion, there's always rock and roll?
This is what I'm loving about the Core plan. Eat until you're satisfied. Yeah, it's a smaller-than-I'd-like list of foods, but they're good foods, satisfying foods even. And when the cravign for McDonald's french fries hits? Five points for a small bag, baybee, and you get 35 points for a week.
I'm a rebel too, by the way, and so what I did was stick online long enough to get the Core plan down, and now I'm going it on my own, doing what i want when I want and not listening to anyone say I'm doing it wrong.
Posted by: Tiny Coconut at October 5, 2004 05:31 PM