In Deference to Indifference

After I lost my weight, I didn’t worry about backsliding or even about keeping my weight down. I didn’t expect that I’d ever struggle again, but I figured that I could summon back my Loss Mode any time I needed it. I could grab an apple, look over my size 4-ish body, and then get back to the business of being thin. I had crossed the threshold. I had seized the sword. I had defeated the Fat Lady, and I had won.

My God. What a dumbass I am.

My weight loss was relatively easy, in large part because I had a WW cook in the house. I refused to eat anything I hadn’t cooked (OK, that Howard hadn’t cooked), and though I had a sweet tooth, I knew every substitute for dessert, every method for thinking myself out of temptation. And I had my Lifetime WW Membership. What else could I want?

Well, some sense would have helped. And just a few minutes of remembering how I got fat in the first place—by not paying attention to the stomach that sits inside my brain. You know, the one that says, ‘hey chocolate is neutral-colored, and so therefore has no calories!’. I had no counter-attack, no way to retreat and regroup, and no disaster recovery plan. Everything went well until it didn’t, and then it was as if I’d never learned how to get the weight off, much less keep it at bay.

It’s sometimes hard to take this as seriously as I need to, since I have not slid down into Lard-O-Land. My diet is still very reasonable. I have whole weeks where I’m the veritable Bodhisattva of portions and choices. I’ll have that pure sensation of high fiber and lean protein in my body, where all my cells are signing and every breath is its own treat. But then I’ll eat some not-quite-a -salad for lunch and my ‘Bodhi’ turns into Buddha; some fat guy lying around whose clearly had more than his share of the honeyed locusts.

So what now? I can’t be the Drill Sergeant anymore, and the Standard WW Program will not work for me. I cannot be someone who indulges every once in a while. There is no such time increment for me. I must be fully in control, because otherwise, I am completely out. When I am off program, the only difference between Me Now and The Fat Lady is time. Given enough weeks in the ‘oh, I can change back any time I want’, and I’ll be squeezing into my size 20s all over again.

I started taking yoga this spring, and it has really helped me to keep myself focused on the present—to remove myself from expectations or worries, at least for the hour I’m in class, and to appreciate whatever limits my body has for me that night. It has also done an amazing amount of sawing away at my General Nervousness, a piece of my personality that was so deeply ingrained that I thought I was strung tighter than a high wire. So that has helped to calm me, both in the moments when I’m tempted to choose poorly, and then in the aftermath, when I’m ready to do the Scarlet Letter thing and flog myself until I burn off all the calories I’ve eaten.

I’ve also really tried to care more about food, thinking if I find some things I really love, that I won’t want the decadent variety any more. I hear Howard talking about some amazing meal he had while traveling, or my friends at WW recount The Great Chicago BBQ of 2008, and I wonder if perhaps this is the way In. These people really seem to enjoy their special foods, and they seem to succeed at transferring their Love of Lays over into Baked Cheetos or even carrot sticks (advanced technique only-don’t try this at home).

I’ve thought about this a lot, and for a while, I wondered if I was deficient somehow, because I have not learned to salivate over steamed broccoli and grilled turkey breast. Frankly, it is sometimes hard for others to understand how I got heavy, since there are so many fatty foods that I don’t like. Can’t stand steak. Ditto salmon, Orange Roughy and all the ‘marbled’ meats. Even the word ‘marbled’ paired with meat turns my stomach.

I am not a starch hound. I shrug away offers of potatoes, pasta, and rice, and I can’t even bear the smell of French fries. I like cheese all right, but never enough to load up on rounds of Brie with crackers. I don’t drink, I haven’t had a fully sugared soda since the 1970s, and I loathe all forms of mayo-based “salad” (tuna, chicken, potato, macaroni). What’s left?

Well, lots of things actually, especially if you’re flexible about what constitutes ‘food’. I hate to cook, so my ‘diet’ before consisted of whatever I could heat and/or eat in a single pan/bowl/dish, or with my hands. Egg rolls. Cereal. Pop-Tarts. Ice cream. Fried chicken. Pie. Brownies. Even cake, though you really, really have to want the one-pan deal.

So there it was. I got fat because I was lazy. I ate what was hand-y. If it could fit in my hand or be prepared and/or consumed with a single utensil, I was in.

And that’s kind of what happened this year. I see something tempting, and if it’s easy to pick up, I will. I don’t have favorite foods I can stash at my desk to distract myself because I have no favorite foods. I like everything that Howard and I eat, but I don’t love anything. I don’t look forward to any particular meal. When Howard offers to make whatever I want, I let him choose. I have a few ‘favorite’ restaurants, but only because I know I can eat there, and not necessarily because I like what’s served.

Maybe it’s better that I don’t care about food. Maybe I should be glad, or even grateful, that it doesn’t matter to me what I eat. After all, if eating the treats doesn’t satisfy me (it doesn’t), then I don’t have to prohibit myself from eating them. I simply have to acknowledge, and remember, that they do nothing for me.

And yeah, clearly it’s going to be much harder than just writing it down. I still crave double-cheese pepperoni pizza sometimes, even though I gave it up several years before I went on WW. The grease made me sick, even at 251 pounds, and that is saying something. I did finally acknowledge that it was the food—the consistently greasy, over-fatted, fermented sausage/oily cheese that did me in, but sometimes when I drive by ‘Hut’, the desire appears.

So I’ll need time and trials before this truly sinks in. I’ll doubtless still have some wobbly moments, but each time I remember that I don’t really like bad foods, the memory will get a little more traction.

Jewel once wrote that ‘nature has a funny way of breaking what does not bend.’ I didn’t want to be flexible—I thought that was the path toward ruin. It turns out the opposite is true. I must bend or I will break. I did break. I’m tired of it. I’m tired of being disappointed and I’m tired of trying to force myself to love chicken and hate Cherry Garcia.

Flexibility for me isn’t cookies at the mall ‘sometimes’ or relaxing the program ‘just this week’ while on vacation. But it is allowing myself to sway, and giving myself the time to discover the difference between a bend and a break.

I’m freeing myself from the guilt of eating badly. And I’m putting myself in a place where the temptation lives no longer.

But I should keep going to yoga class, just in case. Believe me, I can use all the flexibility I can get.

A the B(ending So I Don’t Break)