 Reflections of a Yo-Yo Dieter
January 3, 2005
So, here I am again, trying to lose weight. What a totally tired issue. I wouldn't blame you if you left this site right now,
never to return. I mean, who wants to hear the ranting of another overweight American struggling to regain her health and find
balance with food and exercise? I'm not even sure I do. But, if you happen to be one of the other millions of people with whom
I share this challenge, you may be happy to know that you are not alone. If this is so, I hope you appreciate my honesty and
disclosure of this process I call clearing the food fog.
I have tried it all when it comes to weight loss, in the nearly fifteen years since I developed a weight "problem" in my mid-teens.
I have watched the scale fluctuate as much as eighty pounds up and down over those years, and my emotions have generally followed
those ups and downs.
Now in my early 30's, I'm finally realizing that there is no magic solution, or theory of nutrition that's going to make
this any easier. There is no time when it's going to be better to "start" eating better. The time is now, and the answer to how
to live more healthily in my body has always been there. I have just been ignoring it. I have always intuitively known that an
apple is a better food choice than a candy bar. But, if a diet plan called for three candy bars a day and had enough
apparent logic, in the past, I would substite that logic for my own intuition. My reasoning was that I couldn't possibly know
more about how my body works than the esteemed author of whatever diet book I was reading at the time. That is not to discount
much of the sound dietary advice given by many health professionals, but beyond the basics of good, whole foods nutriton,
there is a lot of room for personal adjustments to a lifestyle that one can sustain and ENJOY!
This time I am tapping into my own reservoir of knowledge about how I can create new healthy habits, readjust my tastebuds
to enjoy more nutritous foods, and incorporate exercise into my life in a way I will be able to sustain in the long run. Of course,
like any individual with a history of chronic dieting and eating disorders, I will have to keep my guard up, and learn to recognize
emotions or situations that trigger the use of food as a coping tool. I will have to find new tools, and sometimes, I just have
to deal with the emotions or feelings without any buffer. That's tough, but that's life.
I can relate to that sinking, hopeless feeling of being confined to a body weighed down by poor choices, bad habits, desperate emotions and addictive behaviors. Every day passes by with fruitless attempts at improving your diet and lifestyle. Months pass and you feel paralyzed and unable to move towards positive changes. Sometimes the scale moves downward temporarily and you think that this time will be different. But, sure enough, as soon as you start to feel "normal" the pounds creep back on; sometimes slowly, sometimes too quickly. Or maybe you've been overweight for so long, you have learned to ignore yourself from the neck down as a coping mechanism. Nonetheless, you have yo-yo dieted yourself to a place of hopelessness and real isolation because, even though weight loss is one of the biggest industries in the North America, we are often left on our own, without support to navigate the temptations and challenges of daily life.
Knowing that I am not alone in this struggle and the acknowledgement of those with the same challenge makes me feel not so alone. I'm making you (and myself) a promise; a difficult one. I'm at the end of the diet highway. I no longer have the hope of a new plan or program that's going to change my life and suddenly make my struggles with food any easier. I'm at a crossroads. I either continue to ignore the impact my weight has on my health, my relationships and overall well-being, or I try again to make some positive changes that will hopefully trickle down into all aspects of my life. Honestly, I often don't feel like I have the strength to go through this again. But, I will be honest and will try hard to conquer my old ways of thinking to finally learn a day-to-day approach to life that will help me start feeding my body what it needs to be healthy. There is a certain sense of mediocrity that hovers over my life when I neglect my health. Each day that I make better choices, making my health a priority, I regain a little strength, and this rekindles my hope of a healthy future.
I'll start with my list of truths. These are things that I've come to know to be true for myself. It does not mean they will be the same for you, but it's possible, and I'm sure you can at least relate.
- I cannot be fat and truly happy. I cannot feel real peace or comfort in a significantly overweight body. Being thin does not make me happy, but it gives me a place from which to explore myself beyond the recurrent issue of weight loss and poor health.
- Being significantly overweight impacts how I feel about everything I do in life and alters my self-perception, making it near impossible to be the person I really want to be.
- I avoid doing many things I would really like to do because of my weight.
- Being overweight feels bad. Everything takes more effort. I feel achy and tired most of the time.
- Consuming large amounts of processed and sugary foods makes me feel rundown and fearful of becoming ill with such things as diabetes, heart disease and cancer.
- Being really overweight is not conducive to feeling sexy.
- I think more clearly when I'm at a normal weight for my body and I'm consuming healthy foods in moderate amounts.
- Buying clothes in three different sizes every year or two gets expensive and results in not paying much attention to my appearance, beyond the basics of good hygiene and clothes without holes.
- The strength to change my dietary direction in life is going to be one of the hardest things I ever do. I feel like an addict.
- There is no master plan. I'm really going to have to take it one day at a time, focusing on my over-all well being and working towards a sense of balance in my life.
There it is. My reality. My perception of myself in my world. You may feel similar, or not. But, I encourage you to make your own list of truths. Start your own journal of self-discovery. Stop looking outside yourself for the answers. Nobody can give you a plan, or system of dietary logic that's going to change your life. You change your life.
So, when you feel alone, down in the depths of dietary despair, know that we share a connection. I'm here, struggling to find myself within my own food fog.
I can only share my experiences; the successes and failures, and maybe along the way
I can inspire you to reflect upon the fog that surrounds your own relationship with food. If this is the case, please
share your insights and wisdom with me.
January 3, 2007
Whoa! I actually did it! I lost a whole bunch of weight and feel completely different in my relationship with food. I honestly
don't know how I did it, especially getting started. I think I just tuned out for awhile, accepting the fact that I just
had to get really simple and controlled with food for the first few weeks to get the ball rolling. I'll be honest, for the
first couple months, I felt deprived a lot, and I still felt really fat, so there were lots of depressing moments.
But, as time went on, I gained stride and started to see a downward trend on the scale, and this gave me hope and the belief
that I could actually do this. I got religious about exercise. At 230 pounds, and coming from being completely inactive,
my options were limited. I knew the only thing I could commit to with no excuses would be walking. So 30 minutes a day
was my goal. And that's still my minimum requirement for myself every day. Sometimes I do a little extra or go to the gym,
but being so busy, I mostly just stick to the walking. Aside from being helpful physically, I've come to rely on it
as a sort of meditative alone time.
Aside from just revamping my diet and approach to activity, it's really just been a conscious choice to do better. I almost
don't feel like I could live with myself if I went back to binging on junk food and physically letting myself go again.
Just simple quality-of-life issues, such as going up the stairs without being winded, or playing with my kids without feeling
the need to sit down, are so precious to me that losing them by neglecting myself just isn't acceptable to me. I realize
that for a long time I lived for food. I love my family, but food was always the incentive for everying. In this sense,
I recognize it as an addiction; one of which I always have to be conscious. But, I definitely feel like I'm in a much
better place and can focus on other issues in my life besides just losing weight. This is what I expected as the the "fog"
cleared. Losing weight didn't make everything perfect and easy, but it gave me a better platform from which to
examine the rest of my life.
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