four-word friday : how to lose weight and change the world
I need to lose weight. You?
Not because I need to fit into those jeans (those are the very ones, above. I'm the girl to the right with the white collared shirt, stuffing my tiny hands into my tiny pockets), or because I just busted a seam on a pair of jeans last week, but because I want to be healthier, weller, fitter, better able to chase a frisbee on the beach when we go to Tybee Island.
When I was a teenager, my father died. He was 53, his heart shot from several heart attacks at a time when even angioplasty hadn't been invented. His doctor had told him a few months before that fateful day that he needed to lose weight, though, truthfully, he wasn't a very rotund man. His heart would have given out at any weight.
At the time, Daddy told the doctor, "But I don't eat much." And the doctor responded, "Hell, no, Melvin, fat people never eat." That story is a legend in our family, only second to the fact that the day before Daddy died, he wished for a piece of strawberry pie from the Shoney's that was right across from the hospital, and then decided no, that the doctor had told him he needed to watch his weight. And so he died the next day without that piece of pie. To this day, 30 years later, that saddens me.
In early October, I had a health scare. I left my gynecologist's office convinced that I had ovarian cancer, the signs all pointing to it. I drove straight to the Chocolate Fetish and bought a nine-pack of Chocolate Sea-Salt Caramels and ate them all in the car, sobbing. When I found out the test was negative two weeks later, I did exactly the same thing, sobs and all.
I told a personal trainer that story and said, "I think I'm an emotional eater, y'think?"
"Well," he said slowly, carefully choosing his words. "If you had only done it when you thought you were dying, maybe not. But I think the fact that you did it both times might point to emotional eating." I laughed. Yes, yes. Consolation and celebration, anxiety and tribulation, all equally doused with chocolate, caramel, and sea-salt. Do you ever do that?
I've been thinking a lot about those chocolate caramels and what they mean.
I've been noticing when I offer food as a reward to Emma and Tess, and stopping myself from doing it.
I've been noticing when I'm on a business trip and give myself permission to eat poorly because I am in airports and far from home.
I had a weight loss goal for this 50th year and I have gone in the opposite direction. I could blame it on health issues, and that is in part to blame, but that gets me nowhere. I don't feel well. I don't have energy. I don't fit in my clothes. I can't get myself back on track. It's a vicious little circle that started with that nine-pack of caramels.
Enough.
So I've created a checklist for myself, a simple one to look at every morning, fourteen related ways I'm going to reclaim wellness. Often wellness for me looks like me as a more active, thinner self, and makes me believe I can leap buildings in a single bound, hence the title of this post (also the title of one of the best books about weight loss that I've read because it was written by a philosopher and makes me laugh out loud.) There's no rocket science here, just a re-re-re-re-iteration. Wellness may have a different meaning for you.
Perhaps these four-word tips are as meaningful for how to live life as they are for losing weight. You can be the judge of that.
1. Eat less, move more. This isn't true of everyone, but it is true of many of us: the secret to weight loss, boiled down to its essence, is often to eat less (or eat better) and move more. A thousand diet books that all say the same thing, basically: eat less, move more. Simple, but hard to do, evidently. Frankly, as I age, I see the wisdom in the "move it or lose it" school of thought, too. I do best on this plan of eating less and moving more when I have allies who can hold me accountable. Are you with me? Lighten your load for the rest of your life.
2. Really taste your food. When a waiter asks you if you want freshly ground salt and pepper on your meal, do you say "yes" automatically, or do you taste your food first? Adorn less, taste more.
3. Eat vegan on Tuesdays. The San Francisco city council recently declared Mondays meat-free days in their fair city, encouraging restaurants and citizens to eat meat-free once a week. How about vegetarian on Monday and totally cruelty free vegan dining on Tuesdays by using no animal products that day? You'll feel better and so will a lot of sweet little cows. Perhaps all that grain that feeds cows so you can eat them will be diverted to people who are starving. I've been vegetarian since 1976, thereby effectively dispelling the myth that vegetarians are all skinny little starving things. For the past three years, I've moved toward veganism. While I'm unsure I'll ever be 100% vegan, I do know that eating raw fruits and vegetables and reducing processed foods makes for amazing discoveries of flavors: a red pepper? joyous sweet joy. Simplify so others can live.
4. Always eat sitting down. It's easy to eat standing up on the go in this culture, so fast-paced we are, pacing in the kitchen whilst snarfing down a burrito. What about making every meal a sit-down affair (and not in the car, either). Imagine. Eating at a real table. Sit down, eat slower. Savor the hours of your days.
5. Use smaller dinner plates. My god, the size of our portions in the U.S. is obscene. Belonging to Weight Watchers taught me that. Use a smaller dinner plate. Use food as fuel. Leave something for others.
6. Eat only when hungry. Was I hungry after the second or third chocolate covered caramel with sea salt? No. When putting a piece of food near my mouth, I am going to ask if I'm hungry, or bored, or anxious, or delirious with happiness instead of hungry. Regardless of the answer, I'm going to drink a whole glass of water before eating, and then ask myself again. Be mindful of how you feel, not just intellectually, but physically.
7. Write what you eat. I lost 50 pounds on Weight Watchers once (just in time to get pregnant and gain it all back) and the single greatest thing that helped was keeping a thorough food journal, noting when I ate, what, how much, with whom, and how I felt. Write everything down. Everything. Sometimes the shame of writing down 9 caramels will limit the damage. Be honest. Not being honest hurts no one but you. Notice what you notice, without judgment.
8. Drink lots of water. To refresh my system and fill me up before meals, I'm going to return to my earlier habit of filling up a large water bottle and keeping it next to me while I work, refilling it at least three times each day. Find the simplest, most natural way to quench your thirst.
9. Make carrots your friend. In addition to making each meal a cornucopia of colors, find a raw vegetable you enjoy (carrots, celery, red pepper) and eat one or two or five or them before each meal. Eat things in their natural state as often as possible: raw. Seek diversity in all things.
10. Walk for 10 minutes. I might not make it to the gym every day, but I can move every day for at least 10 minutes. I have a tiny problem with perfectionism. I set high fitness goals for myself and when I can't possibly meet them, I ditch the whole effort. Settle for some rather than plan for all and do none.
11. Stop weighing so much. Or weigh only what is relative. Measure how you feel, instead. Is it easier to run to catch a bus? Can you walk without much effort to the nearest Citgo gas station to pick up the new issue of GQ magazine with Johnny Depp on the cover? Measure in how you feel, not in pounds. More energy? Less winded? Listen to your body. Pay attention to how your body feels.
12. Give up the ideal. Will I regain the body I had when I was 18, as in that photograph? No, I never will. I may never have the Tracy Chapman buff arms I long for. But believing I could has sabotaged many an effort to be fitter. It looks something like this: If I can't reach that goal, I might as well have chocolate lava cake. Create a healthy, reasonable goal for yourself, one that takes into account where you are now in your life, what you want now in your life, how you live now in your life. This is not the bikini era in my life. And that's okay. Know who you are now, not who you once were.
13. Make slow steady progress. Well doesn't this fly in the face of our immediate gratification culture? Want to be 50 pounds thinner by this summer? It's too late. Get real. You should have started sooner. You'll look great next summer. *Poof*, it will be here before you know it. Life is incremental.
14. Be a mindful eater. A lot of these steps lead toward greater mindfulness, a stopping, a recognition before eating. Mindfulness is not only important for your own health, but for the well-being of a planet on which many, many people go hungry each day. Keep them in mind. Stop before you are full. Give thanks for the plenty you have. Provide food for someone who is hungry. Give some of your portion to others less fortunate.
I created a wellness vision for myself in (gulp) 2008. Rather than beat myself up over the fact that I've not reached that vision, I'm starting over with renewed focus.
I'm going to focus on these 14 steps for 37 days as a start. I'll let you know how it goes. You?
