Weight Loss #7/Yoga and the Weight Watchers Diet

My daughter and I were both drawn to yoga at an early age. I learned yoga positions as a teenager and she joined an after school yoga club in junior high. Yet, it wasn’t until we were living in Nicaragua that we started to practice Ashtanga yoga on a regular basis. While in Nicaragua we met a young man from Austria, a nurse and yoga teacher, who gave us private lessons. It was very difficult for me and I was upset about how out of shape I was. I didn’t even make it through my first lesson. My daughter took to it as though she had been practicing yoga all of her life. Our friend said she was a “natural”. He soon had to return to Austria and my daughter continued to practice yoga on her own. While in Nicaragua she made friends with a family from California that also studied Ashtanga yoga and then traveled to California herself to study at a yoga studio that taught Mysore style Ashtanga yoga. She learned a lot from these teachers and she loved it! From there she decided to go to Mysore, India to study with the Ashtanga Master himself. My daughter lived in India for a while and studied Ashtanga yoga and then went on to travel through India and Morocco before coming back to Nicaragua. When she returned she started to teach me yoga with an infinite amount of patience and encouragement. We practiced every day and I did really well. Our friend from California spent a month with us. He started classes for travelers looking for a place to do their yoga practice. My daughter also started helping people in class and when our friend left she took over. A year later, I could assist with classes and lead some of them myself. I grew strong and very flexible. My muscles looked leaner and longer and I lost weight. Yet by far, the best result of my practice, was how I felt. Yoga brought me a sense of calm, clarity, and focus that I had not had before. My daughter and I opened a vegetarian breakfast cafe and yoga studio in Nicaragua and we lived there for almost 2 years. We drove our old Jeep back to the U. S. as it was time for my daughter to begin her University studies. When we got back we both taught yoga at a small studio in Connecticut for a while before moving to California where she would be going to college.

My daughter has continued to practice yoga at the California yoga studio although it’s been difficult for her to find the time with all of her studies. Moving to California for me was a huge transition. I’d grown used to the slower pace of life in Nicaragua and it was amazing how quickly I fell right back into the fast-paced stressful American lifestyle. I got a job in the school system and had to get there really early in the mornings. By the time I got home in the evenings I was exhausted and didn’t have the energy to do my hour long yoga practice. So I let my yoga practice go by the wayside when I needed it the most! I made a big mistake by thinking that if I couldn’t do my entire one-to-two-hour practice, I wouldn’t do ANY yoga at all.
I should have continued to do a 10 minute practice every day. The “Sun Salutations” alone are enough to keep your body in tune. That would have been enough to keep me strong and flexible.

Finally, that brings me to where I am today. Before starting my blog about the ‘Weight Watcher’s Diet’  I was about to begin, I thought I would be writing one entry to catch up on my weight loss history. Instead, I find that it took 7 entries to get to where I am today on this journey. A little over a month ago, when I started this weight loss blog, my sister and I decided to try the Weight Watchers Diet together. Her daughter,  is getting married in June and the wedding is good incentive for us. We both need to lose about 30 pounds. I’m STILL not doing any exercise or yoga. We both started out with a LOT of enthusiasm. We went to our first meeting about 6 weeks ago on a Saturday morning. After the meeting we stayed for a “diet introduction session” where it was all explained to us at length. The Weight Watchers Diet has a “Points” system that is fairly easy to follow. All foods are assigned a certain amount of points depending on calories, fat, and fiber content. There is roughly about 1 point to every 50 calories, but that is only an estimate, and all foods should be checked for point value. Since our first meeting, my sister has lost 10 pounds, and I have lost 3. I’m visiting here in Connecticut, so I’m home during the day and not working. My sister travels during the week and has to eat out a lot. Both of these scenarios are quite difficult when trying to stay on ANY diet. I will keep you posted on how we’re doing and my thoughts and experiences while on the Weight Watchers Diet.

A. zudro

The Journey

Weight Loss #6/ Injury, Recovery, and Don’t give up!

Low fat and exercise worked really great for me for almost 6 years. My dedication to a low-fat diet and my daily need to run kept me at a consistent weight. The running helped get me through a sad separation with my husband and two years later, a divorce. I also started biking and found that I loved that too. I’d never liked walking much but I loved the running, and the biking was even easier for me. Don’t get me wrong, I was definitely not a “natural”. I was afraid of bikes when I first started riding and I hadn’t ridden a bicycle since I was a kid. The Police department (where I worked) let me take their “Bike Patrol” course and I learned a lot and conquered some of my fears! About a year after taking the course I did the Boston to New York Charity ride (in 3 days), for Aids Research and raised $1500.00 (mostly from my police officer friends) for a great cause! I was in the BEST shape of my life!! I learned a lot of lessons from that difficult ride, but the most important thing I learned was that when you think you just can’t do it anymore, guess what? … YOU CAN!! Don’t give up!!

One day I was called out to help police officers evacuate an apartment building that was being condemned because of dangerous, rusted, and rotted iron stairs. I was working all day at the scene and I had been up and down those steps many times. Just when we thought the building was empty, we found there was someone left on the top floor. We climbed up safely enough but on the way back down, I twisted my right ankle on a bad step and went flying. When I hit the bottom my left leg and hip were wedged against an iron column. My right ankle hurt and started to swell. There was a police officer about three steps behind me who saw the fall and wanted me to go to the E.R. immediately, but we weren’t finished with the job, so I waited. About an hour later, the officer came over and insisted that I go to the hospital and get checked out. I was limping on both feet by that time so I went. The doctor said I had sprained BOTH ankles and my left wrist and hip. The next day I felt like I’d been hit by a car and it was another three days before I could walk around. About three weeks later, I tried to run and although the ankles felt a lot better, my hip hurt like crazy! I laid off of it for another week and then tried again. Short distances were all I could manage. My doctor started me on physical therapy 4 times a week. About 5 months later he told me that if I didn’t stop running for at least a few months, my hip would probably NEVER heal. It hurt so much (especially at night) that I had trouble sleeping. No running for 3 MONTHS!! It was very difficult for me at first, but a couple of months later, my hip felt better! I waited another month and tried running again, and the hip pain came right back. The doctor said I’d have to give it another 2 months! I was frustrated and depressed and I didn’t know what to do with myself. I started eating things I hadn’t eaten in years! The hip didn’t seem to be getting any better although I was still going to physical therapy 3 times a week. Six months after the fall, I had gained 10 pounds, my hip still hurt, and I was depressed. I didn’t FEEL like running anymore. Still, it took another 6 months before my body went back to it’s original slow metabolism. A year and a half after the fall, with no exercise, and back to my old way of eating to relieve stress, I had gained 24 pounds!

Five years later, I had gained another 5 pounds and my hip still hurt. My life was about to change drastically. The city, where I had worked for the Police department for 18 years, had to lay off 65 Social Workers due to huge budget problems, and I was one of them. My daughter was just graduating from high school and had planned a year-long trip to “see the world” and learn the Spanish language. So, I sold my house and went with her. We had many wonderful adventures together. We ended up driving from Connecticut to Nicaragua where I lived for almost 2 years. She lived with me in Nicaragua for a year before traveling on to India and Morocco and living in Mysore, India where she studied Yoga. My daughter would come back to Nicaragua, and become my yoga teacher. Later, we would open a yoga studio in Nicaragua. Stay tuned for my next entry on what an impact Ashtanga Yoga has had on my life.

Weight Loss #5 / Low Fat and Exercise

After the birth of my child, I was 43 pounds overweight. The baby kept me REALLY busy! For the first 5 years, I was more focused on motherhood than I was on my obsession with weight loss, although it was always there lingering in the back of my mind. During those years, I tried a couple of “weekly-weigh-in” programs that counseled me to eat the “right” foods in the right amounts, but it was very time consuming. With a child, and working a full day again, I had very little time for anything else. Still, I would lose about 15 pounds on these programs before I gave up. I’d soon gain it back, and return to lose it again. This happened a few times before my body finally settled itself back to my original 20-30 pounds of excess weight.

My daughter started kindergarten and I started thinking about what my life would be like once she was in school full time! How about when she went off to college?!! I was a wreck! The obsession was back in full force. I HAD to lose weight!! Of course, looking back now, I can see that my relationship with my husband had reached a point where I was thinking about a separation. Focusing completely on my daughter had been my way of not dealing with that issue. Now, all of a sudden, with the thought of her leaving (even though she had only just started school) I had to face some difficult decisions. So instead, I reverted right back to doing what I’d always done in order to avoid emotional issues, I focused on my weight problem! I blamed everything on the weight. If I was thin, I would be a happier person. My relationship with my husband would be better. My life would be easier. Everything would be perfect. Wouldn’t it?

One day I was standing on a grocery check-out line and I saw a little book called the “T-Factor” Diet, on the magazine rack. It said, LOW FAT WEIGHT LOSS. Of course, that attracted my attention right off, especially the WEIGHT LOSS part. It was one of those little books that only cost a couple of dollars, so I looked at it quickly and threw it in with the rest of my groceries. At the end of the day I picked it up and read about the concept of eating only low-fat and no-fat foods. I thought I’d tried all of the known diets by then, but this was new to me, I was interested. The book went on to explain that the diet consisted of eating very little fat, especially saturated fat and cholesterol. It said that it was important to get some fat in the diet for good health but not much was needed. I think the number was about 20 grams of fat, per day, for women and 40 grams of fat for men. The rest of the book was a list of foods with their fat and calorie values. It seemed easy enough, but the thing that appealed to me the most was that it said there was no need to count calories. I could lose weight by just counting grams of fat and I could eat as much of the low-fat foods as I wanted. Depriving myself of food has always been a diet-breaker for me and I knew that the diets that worked best for me in the past, were the ones that didn’t limit my food intake. So, this low-fat, no food limit idea really appealed to me. I looked up some of the fat values of the things I liked to eat, and started the diet right away. I found that bread was very low in fat. I could eat an entire loaf of Italian or French bread if I was really hungry. At least that was MY interpretation of the diet. If it was a low-fat or no-fat food, I could eat as much of it as I wanted. Of course that really isn’t the way it’s supposed to work. You’re supposed to keep an eye on the calories too, but I just followed it in my own way and ate as much as I wanted of anything low in fat. And it worked! I lost 20 pounds in 4 months!! I ate a lot of food at first, and then I didn’t want as much, as I learned to eat a more balanced low-fat diet. In other words, I only ate an entire loaf of Italian bread a couple of times before I realized that I didn’t need a whole loaf to make me feel satisfied.

Looking better made me feel better about myself. I also had a lot of energy and felt healthier. I started thinking about doing some kind of exercise to go with the new weight loss. I hadn’t exercised in YEARS! I remembered that in highschool I used to like to run. I never liked walking much, but I loved to run when I was younger. So I decided to give running a try. I asked the guys at work what I would need to get started. These guys were cops and some of them were in great shape and ran every day and worked out in the gym. They all told me the same thing. Get the best running shoes I could get, and that was it. I went out and bought expensive well-fitted running shoes and set out early one morning for what I thought would be a nice long jog. I got as far as the stop sign down the street, which was probably about 200 yards away, and was so out of breath that I had to stop and lean on it to try to keep from falling over. I was standing there, bent over at the waist, trying to breath, when a car stopped and the driver asked if I was alright and could he help me or call someone for me. I couldn’t even answer. I tried to smile and shook my head and waved him on. I couldn’t believe how out of shape I was. I walked slowly back home, trying to breath and feeling embarrassed and defeated. I felt bad about myself for the rest of the day, but I didn’t let that stop me from getting back out there the next day. It was hard the next day too, but at least I knew what to expect. I ran to the stop sign and this time I didn’t stop, I just started walking back and when I caught my breath I ran the rest of the way home. It took me 2 weeks of this running and walking to be able to run to that stop sign and back without stopping. Then, I measured a half mile distance with my car and did the same thing with that. I would run a ways and then walk until I caught my breath and run again. I did this for another 2 weeks and when I could finally do it without walking, I measured out a mile. After less than 2 months, I was running a mile out and a mile back and I wasn’t walking anymore. I did this at a slow steady pace, but I was really proud of myself! I was running six days a week and Sunday was my day off. It was October and Thanksgiving was less than a month away. In my home town there is a five-mile road race that has become the traditional way to start Thanksgiving Day. Everyone in town either runs the 5 mile race, or goes to watch and tailgate. It’s a fun race. Some people dress up as Pilgrims or Indians or turkeys or anything else they can think of. I had run it once in highschool, but now I always joined my family’s big tailgate party to cheer on friends that were running. I started to wonder if I could run 5 miles. It was a scary thought. Two miles was still a long way for me. I didn’t tell anyone that I was thinking about running, but I thought a lot about it myself. One day I ran 3 miles and I had no problem with that, so I kept running 3 miles a day, and two weeks before the race, I announced to everyone that I would be running and that I expected them to be out there to cheer me on. My obsession with weight loss was gone. My running became my stress reliever. I cherished the time to myself. It was my time to think and be alone. I lost another 10 pounds and ran for the next six years. During that time I weighed 120 pounds. I ran 5 to 6 days a week all year round and sometimes I would run a road race on the weekends. I continued to eat a low-fat diet and had a body-fat index of 15%. The guys at work (yep, those same guys that had given me advice in the beginning) often came to me for advice on diet and exercise and people would always ask me the same thing, “How do you keep motivated?” “How do you do it every day?” My answer was always the same. “Just do it”! Don’t think about it, “just do it”!!

A. zudro

Weight Loss #4 /Diet Pills? Think Again!

When I was in my 20’s it was easy for me to lose weight. Keeping it off was always a problem, but losing it wasn’t difficult. I remember times when I lost 8 to 10 pounds in one week. As I think back now, the diets all seem to meld into one another. I was obsessed with my body image and used my obsession as a “distraction technique” for not dealing with emotional issues in my life. There was always a diet going on. As I reached my 30’s, it became a little harder to lose the weight. Through the years there was always at least 15 pounds that I needed to shed. Sometimes it was more like 20 pounds, and when I hit my 30’s, it occasionally crept up to almost 30 pounds of excess weight! I was on every “FAD” diet there ever was, at one time or another. There was the ‘Army’ diet, that was popular in the 1970’s and had absolutely nothing to do with the Army. One specific type of food was allowed per day but nothing else. Bananas one day, salads the next, etc., etc. The ‘Cabbage Soup’ diet allowed for as much cabbage soup as you could eat, and once again, only one food item on each consecutive day. The ‘Zone Diet’, dealt with “meal ratios” and followed a formula of 40% carbs, 30% proteins and 30% fats at every meal. The ‘South Beach Diet’ reminded me of a loose variation of the ‘Atkins Diet’. Then there were the ‘diet workshops’ and the ‘diet centers’ that included a weekly “weigh-in” and mini “counseling session” and charged a hefty weekly rate. But the easiest weight loss of all, and the most dangerous, was my experience with ‘diet pills’. This weight loss method would also turn out to be the hardest to let go of. A co-worker referred me to a doctor she knew of who would evaluate my weight loss “problem” and I, innocently enough, made an appointment to see what he would suggest. His suggestion? Pills. Amphetamines. Speed. I didn’t really know what that was at the time. I quickly suspected something was making a “big” change in my body when I was no longer hungry and actually had to try to remember to eat something during the day. That had never happened to me before in my life.  But I was happy at first.        I had a NEW life, where food wasn’t the focus. I also had a tremendous amount of energy, even though I couldn’t get to sleep at night. The doctor had seemed professional enough. He had asked me all of the right questions. What did I eat? What were my “problem” foods? How much weight did I want to lose? He seemed sympathetic and even went over a nutritional ‘hand-out’ that was given to all of his patients on their first visit. Then, he handed me what would become the only reason for me to come back to him month after month. That little piece of paper…my prescription for “legal” drugs. As I look back now, I realize that although I was getting my pills from a “doctor”, I was hooked on “drugs” and my insurance was paying for them! It probably took about a year before I realized, and admitted to myself, what was really happening.       I had shed my 20 pounds of excess weight and more. But my personal life was falling apart and I was exhausted and felt ill most of the time. One day I went to fill my newest prescription at the local pharmacy and the pharmacist took me aside and told me that he had heard of my doctor and that he had a “bad reputation”. He told me the drugs I was taking were bad for me and that I should stop going to this “quack”. That was the beginning of the end of my diet pill experience. I knew this had to stop. It was difficult to let go of this weight loss “crutch”  and I fell off the wagon a couple of times and went back for more pills over the next year. But finally, I was able to kick this dangerous “habit”. A year later, the 20 pounds were back.

When I was 31 years old, I woke up one morning violently ill, running to the bathroom every 15 minutes to throw up. I was so ill I couldn’t even drive myself to the E.R.. Certain that I had food poisoning, I had a friend drive me to the hospital, where tests were done, and I was given medications and sent home to rest while the results came in. Hours later, a nurse from the E.R called to tell me to stop the meds. immediately. I was PREGNANT! My husband and I had tried for 10 years to get pregnant. We had gone through all of the infertility craziness and had finally given up. I was in shock, and I was ecstatic! Nine months later, I had put on 38 pounds of pregnancy weight on top of the 20 pounds of extra weight I’d always carried. I delivered a BEAUTIFUL baby girl, that weighed 7lbs. 1oz., and immediately shed 15 pounds at the delivery. The other 23 pounds of pregnancy weight would stay with me for a LONG time! Now I was 43 pounds overweight!

Weight Loss #3 / How About the Atkins Diet?

The problem with weight loss through dieting, as I see it, is that we look to diets that have worked for others assuming that if they worked for someone else they should also work for us. But weight loss is uniquely individual to each human being. Our bodies, though mechanically set up the same, are individually fine-tuned and balanced chemically, and hormonally. It makes a big difference if we are men or women. Our hormones are balanced differently. Also, our genes have given us a unique set of “predisposed indicators”. Predisposition does not mean we will actually develop the issues we may be predisposed to, but they are all different for every individual, even those in the same family. Then there’s the biggest difference, and what makes us “human beings”, we all think differently. Every individual has their own preferences, likes and dislikes, for EVERYTHING, including food. Food tastes may run the same in families and cultures, depending on what you grew up on, but if you think for a moment about your own family and what each individual likes to eat, you will see that even in the same family, tastes can run completely different from one to another. Not only does it depend on taste, but the most important thing of all is our individual psychology. “How” we think, and “What” we think, about any subject, makes us who we are individually. So, it’s a miracle that any given “diet” works for a “group” of people. Every weight loss diet out there still needs to be individually tailored to the particular human being trying to use it. Each individual must look at a diet and know their own “weight loss psychology”, to make it work for them. I think one of the biggest problems is that too many people don’t do that. They don’t trust themselves because they figure that whatever they are doing is what got them to this point in the first place. So, they make, in my opinion, the biggest diet mistake of all, they follow the diet EXACTLY the way it is supposed to work. And you know what? It works!! They lose weight! But for most, it is VERY hard WORK. They are miserable. I know, because I’ve been there. Diets that make me feel “deprived”, make me irritable, angry, and rebellious. I may lose weight, but I am an unhappy, grouchy, person. How long can a person be on a diet if it is hard “work”? Long enough to “tough it out” and lose a good amount of weight before they decide they just can’t do it anymore and QUIT! And, we all know what happens after that. We go back to our old way of eating. Back to our old comfortable habits that require no work and no thinking and we gain the weight back. Most of the time, we gain a few more pounds than when we started. This is nothing new. As “weight loss experts”, we already know this, because most of us, at one time or another, have been there. If you hadn’t, you probably wouldn’t be reading this, unless you’re one of my friends or relatives that I’ve forced to read it…or else! I think that most of you also know that there is more to our OLD ways than just “comfort”. Our old way of eating and “being” in this world is serving us in some way. We are getting something out of it, whether we are aware of it or not, and most of the time, what we’re getting out of it is just a way of distracting ourselves from the other things in life that we don’t want to think about or deal with. So ask yourself, “Is that second helping of dessert you’re having, at 8:00 p.m., what you’re really craving? Or are you bored? Or lonely? Or angry? Or totally stressed out from work, school or family?”

So, when am I going to talk about the Atkins diet? Right now! I started working at the state university hospital clinics in the mid-1970’s. From my employee physical, I discovered that my current weight loss technique, ‘fasting’, was literally “killing” me. I looked around to see if there was something else I could try. That “something else” turned out to be the newly introduced “Atkins” diet that made it’s debut in 1972, with the book, ‘Dr. Atkins’ Diet Revolution’, by Dr. Robert Atkins. Dr. Atkins developed his diet after reading an article in the ‘Journal of the American Medical Association’. The article included a diet that he used for his own overweight condition and it worked for him, so he developed it into what came to be known as the “Atkins’ Diet”. Of course, I didn’t know or care much about the technical stuff back then. I bought the book and was seduced by the idea that I could basically eat “as much as I wanted” of the foods allowed. I already knew that my “problem foods” were the carbohydrates. I loved the mashed potatoes and the French fries (my favorite)! And the staple food of my Spanish heritage, RICE! I also LOVE bread! The romantic in me, that led me to study ‘French’ in highschool, fostered dreams of traveling through Europe eating only bread, cheese and wine. Could I give up all of my favorite foods? Why is it that the things we love the most are often the things we are asked to give up? Well, that should have given me a clue right there. We DON’T have to give up the things we love. We have to learn to think differently and live a balanced life. But, I’m jumping ahead of myself. At the time, I thought the Atkins’ Diet, that forbid me to eat all of my favorite foods and didn’t allow for a piece of fresh fruit, was going to be the “easy, miracle diet”, that I’d been looking for.

Yes, I lost weight on the Atkins’ Diet. And through the years, I went back to this diet more often than to any other because I didn’t feel deprived and because it was easy to follow. Also, my mother, a diabetic, has followed a loose variation of the Atkins’ Diet for many years, and by eating low carb, she has been able to control her insulin levels so she doesn’t need to take any medications. In some cases, this kind of a diet may be helpful. But in the end, for me, the Atkins’ Diet turns out to be, once again, about restriction, and about forcing the body into the state of Ketosis. In the long run, both of these two things are negatives and what we must find for a balanced life are the POSITIVES.

A. zudro

Weight Loss #2 / Past Successes?

I was in my mid-twenties in the late 1970’s. It was “FAD” everything in those days. Disco was BIG! People were dancing the “Bump” to Donna Summers. You’d bump your butt against you’re partners, slowly and sensually, (alright, you had to be there). This was the “old fashioned” prelude to the “bump and grind” that the kids do today (which is just as bad!). Diets were “in.” Everyone wanted to look like that twig-thin English model, “Twiggy” (very appropriate name). Goldie Hawn was on the “Laugh-In” show every week in her teenie-weenie bikini. She was really cute and skinny and danced around gyrating her body long enough for every girl in the country to want to do the same. But of course, you couldn’t go around gyrating your body in a teenie-weenie bikini, unless, you had a body like hers! Every young woman I knew back then was trying to get a body they could show off in a bikini. It hasn’t changed much since then. If anything, it’s gotten worse. Today, the young women wanting to show off their bodies, are no longer just in their mid-twenties. Not even, in their early 20’s. Now they start thinking about this at age 11 or 12 and some start even earlier than that.

In my early 20’s, I was reading a book about meditation and I came across a chapter on “fasting”. This would be my first experience with weight loss. The book suggested a week-long “juice only” fast for the purpose of “cleansing” the body. I think it talked about giving your digestive system a “break” from solid foods. I knew very little about nutrition and body needs and processes at the time. This “break” idea made sense to me. So began my journey into fasting. I would eat nothing solid for 3 days out of every week. Monday through Wednesday, I drank only light juices like apple juice. On Thursday and Friday, I ate very light foods, like toast, and gelatin, and mashed potatoes, introducing a little protein here and there. The weekends were free. I could eat anything I wanted until starting my fast again on Monday. Of course, anything I ate went right through me, since the body couldn’t handle these regular meals after fasting. It seemed easy to me at the time. It must have been the age. I couldn’t go now for an entire day without eating anything (I recently tried it and failed). What I found was, that as time went by, I didn’t even want any juice. I started drinking only water and diet soda. I was never really hungry. My fasts started getting longer and longer. First four days in a row, then five days, and finally, I would go for six days with nothing to eat. I would eat a lot on the seventh day. I did this for months. I am 5 feet 2 inches tall, and I weighed 102 at the time. If you look at those height/weight charts, the minimum weight for 5′ 2″ has always been between 102lbs. and 105lbs. I’ll tell you right now, that is WAY too low. It started to scare me a little. I’d lost about 22 pounds and I felt tired all of the time. I started working at a hospital clinic that required an employee physical. I’d been working there for about a week, when one of the clinic doctors came out to my desk and asked if he could speak to me privately. He had the results of my employee physical in his hands and he hadn’t even waited for an appointment to talk to me about it. He asked me if I was on a diet. I told him I was always on a diet. He said that my body was in “Ketosis” and that I was burning body fat at a very quick rate. I remember laughing and thinking that this had to be a “good” thing. Then he got really serious. He said whatever I was doing, I needed to stop, because I was physically at a very dangerous level. He said that what I was doing to myself could kill me. I thought he was kidding and I jokingly asked him how long I had to live. He remained serious and said that If I kept it up, I would die very soon! I couldn’t believe it! That was the end of my fasting experience. About that time, the Atkins Diet had “hit the scene” and everyone was talking about it! I figured it couldn’t be as bad for me as the fasting had been. I bought the book, and dove right in!

A. zudro

Weight Loss #1 / The Journey

I am an expert on weight loss! How did I become an expert? I have spent most of my life thinking about, reading about, learning about, and personally trying out every diet and nutritional bit of diet information that I’ve ever come across. Sound familiar? Yes, you’re probably one of my diet-expert “colleagues”, as are so many other people (mostly women), that have this same goal in common…losing weight.

As a middle-aged woman, I can now look back and say that I was not a “fat” child, or a “fat” teenager or a “fat” young adult. I can’t tell you the exact moment that I started to see myself as someone who took up too much space. To define myself as a “fat” person. I have a clue from one of my childhood memories. When I was about twelve years old, my family played a game in which we chose animals that would represent us. We picked each animal for it’s characteristics that reminded us of that person. For our dad, we picked a Giraffe, because he had a way of walking very upright and rigidly when he was in a hurry. Watching him walk just brought to mind the stiff, long-necked, giraffe. Our mother was a bear because she was cuddly and protective. My Brother, a mule, because he had big teeth and was very stubborn. Little brother, a mouse, because of his very small and cute face. He was about six years old at the time. And my sister, who is only a year younger than I, was the Ostrich. She was so skinny when we were growing up that people often asked if she was ill. She had long and pitifully skinny legs and definitely reminded us of an ostrich. Then there was me. The animal that I chose to represent me was the Hippo. I don’t know why I chose the hippo. I think I just saw myself as a big, fat, ugly, lumbering animal (sorry hippos, nothing personal). The odd thing is that I don’t remember anyone putting up an argument. I think everyone just accepted the fact that I was to be the hippo. I can honestly say now that I wasn’t fat and I wasn’t ugly. I was afraid. I was afraid of not fitting in. As the oldest daughter of Venezuelan immigrants, I felt different. Growing up in a small “white” town in Connecticut, I felt “white”, but I LOOKED different. My hair was black and so were my eyes. My olive skin, a little darker than any of the other girls. I was acutely aware of my differences. I don’t know how it happened, but “different”, soon translated into “ugly”, and ugly, somehow, came to mean “fat”.

So, I danced. I danced ballet every night in the dark, with only the glow from the kitchen lights shining on the living room walls so I could see my shadow. I could see the shape of my body. Those are my first memories of my lifelong obsession with changing my body so I wouldn’t be “fat.”

Through the years I have read countless books on nutrition and diet. On vitamins and exercise. I have tried hundreds of ways to lose weight. And you know what? Most of them worked! But not for long. I did what I’ve heard so many other women say they have done. I lost a lot of weight and gained it all back. My life has been a weight “see-saw” of up and down and up and down. My mother was a wonderful cook who couldn’t say “I love you” in any other way than to serve her family and cook huge delicious meals. She wasn’t happy unless everyone ate a second heaping plateful of anything she made.

The sad thing is that I ALWAYS felt fat. I look at pictures now and know that I wasn’t fat back then. I look back and think to myself, “If I could only look like that now”. So I wasted so much time and so much energy on “feeling” fat. I am certain that thinking about losing weight has always given me something to distract myself from the other fears in my life. I didn’t have to deal with these issues as long as I was focused on my “fat”. Now I am middle-aged and I have reached a weight that is no longer healthy for me. Now I am more interested in health than I am in looks. WAIT!! That’s a lie! I still want to look good. Yes, I need to lose weight so I can be healthier, but the main reasons for my wanting to lose weight are still the same as they have always been. I want to feel more in control of my life. I want to feel prettier. I want to feel more attractive. I want to be noticed. I don’t want to be invisible! Yes I know, these are all internal issues that probably have more to do with self-confidence than with weight, but knowing this still doesn’t change the way I feel. I am about to embark on a new journey of weight loss and I invite you to join me. I hope this is the last time I will ever have to do this!! But before I start, I want to discuss a little bit of my weight-loss history and some of the successes I have had. Please stay with me. Knowing that there are others out there struggling with the same issues will help me on my journey.

A. zudro