Blessings from the path of compulsive eating

Oh please will someone come to my house and bop me on the head. I'll even hand you the big plastic bat. My gosh.

I just bought a shiny, new diet book.

But I heard it on NPR, it must be good! (can you hear the whining?)

It all started yesterday when I was getting ready for the day, listening to NPR, making a tofu-pepper-onion-scramble with sliced bananas and blueberries on the side. There was this report on Morning Edition "Diet Books: Fat on Profits, Skinny on Results?" I started thinking back over the different books and programs I've done and which ones worked and for how long.

There was Weight Watchers last year when I thought I was fixed from the big food problems and was now a normal person. I saw that what normal people did when they wanted to loose a few pounds was to go to Weight Watchers. Now I know many people love ww, by best friend for one, who is now a size six for the first time since childhood. Good, glad it's a good fit. Thrilled for you! But for me all that focus on food was exactly NOT the thing I needed. It re-energized the food compulsions, granted I was compulsive about points and low points and managing it, and the scale. But still, compulsion. I lost 20 some pounds and while they didn't all come back, the compulsion is still not calmed down. It was not good, I am not a "normal" person when it comes to food.


Six years before ww there was "Body for Life" and this was good, I learned a lot about exercise. What I remember most was the 12 week program with six days a week of high intensity working out. You alternate strength training arm days and leg days with core work every day, and interval cardio. Lots of cardio. I didn't miss a work out the whole 12 weeks, but then my husband was in the throes of getting ready to leave me, so I might have had some outside push there. Oh and the free day! One day a week--FREE! No exercise and you eat anything. That was nice to fit in things like real peanut butter. I lost 20 pounds--the last bit left from the big loss and was down to a solid size 6-8 after this one--for five years holding onto a size 8-10.

About three years before that I lost the most weight and it's stayed off. I read "Love Yourself Thin" by Victoria Moran, which I think she's about to re-release. I became a vegetarian and began to know the spiritual connection between the food we put in our mouth and the food that becomes our blood and skin and brain cells. I lost about 40 pounds. I had self defined "clean days" not her word but mine, when I ate only food that really still looked the way it had looked when it grew. This was good stuff. The current recovery from Weight Watchers has brought back the biggest piece I learned with "Love Yourself Thin" I wake every morning and pray "thank you for helping me let go of compulsive eating", because even though it's been bad, it's never been as bad as it used to be.

Sometime before that was "Thin for Life" which taught me about low fat substitutes. That's about all. I lost 20 pounds and gained it right back.

Before that I had stabs of weight loss--one week sprints of eating almost nothing and losing 10 pounds. Yes, I still wish for those moments sometimes, but like you might wish for the revisiting of a night with a man that is really bad for you, I know it's not good. In high school I took diet pills and drank tons of diet coke, but I was never thin or healthy.

I remember being put on a diet as a small child. Maybe age 5 or 6? I know my mother was trying to save me from the pain of being a fat child, but to be served yogurt and carrots when all the other kids at daycare were eating cheesy noodles was humiliating. I still sometimes play that scene when I'm feeling really low.

When I look back over the hills and valleys I can see it has been a long and fascinating journey. I'm lucky that I don't weigh 300 pounds. I'm lucky that I don't weigh 200 pounds. I'm lucky that I can shop at regular stores on the regular size racks. I'm lucky to have beautiful friends and a fabulous family. I've been very lucky. I feel deeply blessed.

So why? Why buy yet another diet book? Well, I wasn't going to certainly. I was going to look at the link on NPR's website and link to it here in my blog in this history of diet books and programs. But I read a little of Julia Cameron's introduction to her book. She's the woman who wrote "The Artist's Way" and along with "TAKE A YOGA CLASS" orders from God, I've been hearing "WRITE MORNING PAGES" orders being whispered--Julia Cameron's plan in "The Artist's Way" and as it turns out, this new book. Maybe it's my inner spirit, or my subconscious. But I don't think that's any different than God. So I bought it.

We'll see how it goes. I don't want to be on TV in a bikini (have you seen Valerie Bertanelli?) I just want my back to hurt a little less. I want to move a little easier. I want to be a little more fit. And I want to let go of using food for anything other than you know, feeding myself.

May it be so.