Carrot cake to carrot sticks

My bathroom scale and I had a fight this morning. I put up a good defense, even insulted its mother, but in the end I knew it was right. Especially in the end, judging by my shadow. I’ve gained weight. Thanks to a few seasons of unbearable weather, the blessing of steady work and the occasional absence of automotive transportation, my original 100-lb weight loss is now more like a 60-lb loss.

But hey, that’s ok. I took it off once, I can do it again. I’ll also do it more sensibly, and not make really stupid decisions like last time. On my second go-round, I’ve learned a few things:

Good Lord, ignore the commercials. “Follow my simple plan of cookies/bars/shakes and you’ll lose weight!” Yeah, and how does that re-enforce healthy eating habits? Or help me deal with stress eating?

“I’m not this person anymore!” *tears up photo* Honey, lean over here so I can slap the taste out of your mouth. You’re the same person, you just weigh less. If you hate yourself when you’re fat, there’s a good chance you won’t love yourself when you’re skinny.

Don’t diet. This was a major breakthrough for me. Dieting forces you to obsess about food. If you only eat certain things five times a day, you’re always thinking about food. After a couple of weeks, I would dream about food. Just sidle up sideways to better eating by making healthier choices. Occasionally try carrot sticks instead of carrot cake. A few baked chips instead of a bag of regular Ruffles. Don’t think about it, just say “Hey, it’s no big deal. I’ll have a salad just for today.” Keep making changes until your eating plan would make Michelle Obama cry like Miss America.

Realize this is a long-term commitment. Say this out loud to yourself: “There are no easy fixes.” Because there are none. You can get lap band surgery, but if you don’t follow the eating plan, you’ll be right back where you started. You can cut calories, but if you cut too much, your body will kick into survival mode.

Sure, you may fall off the horse, or horse may just buck your big butt off occasionally. Don’t get discouraged. It takes time to slim down, learn better habits and love exercise. In this instant, gotta-have-it-now world, people are so obsessed with losing weight fast. It’s not good for your body, and you don’t get the unbelievable pleasure from every accomplishment along the way. Don’t cheat yourself and miss out on the journey.

See you there.

Photo credit: Flickr.com/puamelia

Book Review: The End of Overeating

It should come as no surprise that Americans overeat, but learning all the reasons behind those size 24 pants may startle you. In 'The End of Overeating:Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite' by David A. Kessler, M.D., you'll go on a calorie-packed ride through the haunted house of food and fault.

The first forty pages are heavy with animal study evidence, where scientists stuffed rats with Froot Loops, Cheetos, and fat-laced sugar water, then did things like shock them to see if the newly-rotund rodents would continue to seek out snacks. (I guarantee this is an unrealistic data model, because if they tried that on me, I’d be eating a Twinkie with one hand, and holding up a geek by his throat up against the wall with my other hand, electrodes blasting his balls every few minutes while I ask him “Do you feel like frying fatties now? ZAP! How about now? ZAP!”) I started feeling bad for the literal furballs, and wondered if anyone called Jenny CritterCraig for them.

Eventually Dr. Kessler does add in more human anecdotes, and explores the Harry Potter-worthy arcane art of food science (It’s a pile of chemicals! Poof! It tastes like chocolate!) along with breaking down the menu items of places like Chili’s and Outback with the ‘How Many Times Has It Been Fried?’ game. I learned a lot, and I’ll never touch a Chicken Tender again, not even if it asks for it while dressed in sexy Ranch sauce.

The children’s consumption studies he cites are truly frightening; every parent should be required to read those pages before stepping into a fast food restaurant. I don’t even have kids, but my ovaries cinched up just learning about how food habits have changed across the generations. Of course, when I was a kid, if someone had a nugget, it was because they’d struck gold.

At the end of the book is a section called ‘Food Rehab,’ and I agree with most of his suggestions. Through years of trial and error, I’ve stumbled into many of them on my own, and found success. While ‘eat what you enjoy’ sounds like a no-brainer, once you step into the funhouse-mirror world of dieting and food cravings, especially with trendy diets pushing butter and meat while forbidding carrots, common sense goes out the window. I do disagree with the idea of flipping the switch, as it were, and creating negative emotions with food to break the conditioned hyper-eater’s reward system. Eating without attaching emotion to the experience is what worked for me, and I’m seventy-five pounds lighter. So there, nyah.

‘The End of Overeating’ is an eye-opening read; even if you don’t have hips that could knock out turnstiles and bruise toddlers, peruse this book to see what happens to your food before it goes into your pie-hole. You’ll be surprised, and maybe a little healthier.