What hasn’t worked

What hasn’t worked is “willpower”. What hasn’t worked is self denegation, self hatred, ongoing self chastisement for lack of. Shame, occasionally meted out by others hasn’t worked. Pep talks, “commitments”, resolutions – no go.

I have a long and sordid history in this regard.

One of my earliest memories as a child was taking 16 cookies as a snack to my Brownie Scout meeting for snacks. I dutifully passed out one to each girl and sat under the table and consumed the remaining 8 myself. I still shudder at that one.

By Junior High School I had moved into dieting including several efforts with the popular “Metrical” which was a bad tasting Slim Fast. You could replace the “milkshake” with metrical Biscuits. Nine square biscuits that had the consistency of dog treats and came in two flavors – chalky chocolate and gritty cinnamon (adjectives, mine). This stuff was my only food for various periods of time. My, but what a desperate 12 year old will do in search of goddess-hood.

Interestingly, as I look back on it, I was not overweight in high school. I weighed between 110 and 130, which, for a 5’2” frame, is not exactly twiggy. But I think was actually pretty close to appropriate and healthy weight for my body type. My desperation to evolve into a Miss America type figure (unlikely in the best of circumstances) had me constantly dieting and forever miserable with my body and with who I was.

So determined was I to become the thin lovely thing of my dreams (and thereby receive membership to the club of the eternal happy) that I chose to major in “Nutrition and Dietetics” when I entered University.

Convinced that enough knowledge about nutrition was really the cure, I continued to graduate school and earned a masters degree in Public Health Nutrition. I became a hospital dietitian, who, among other things, had the special privilege of telling other people how to eat and acting self-righteous when they didn’t toe the line. (Yeah, a bit of a disconnect here). I went on to teach nutrition at a community college for a time.

Education didn’t work. Professional self-righteousness didn’t either.

In my freshman year of college I became Bulimic. Of course at that time there was no name to put on the condition, and, as far as I knew, I was the only one in the world caught in the terrible grip of that behavior pattern. That didn’t work, and neither did the overwhelming sense of shame that dominated my life until my forties when I was finally able to recover from it.

Bulimia didn’t work either.

I prayed, I promised, I promised (and really meant it this time), I dieted. I swam, I tried to run. I got up early and walked

The net result was a gain of weight from about 125 when I was in high school to about 246 five years ago. I am currently down from my high – about 226 right now. That small loss came not from something I did, but from not doing anything. I gave up, stopped obsessing, And the weight came off over about a year. And then I plateaued. Been here about 4 years.

I’m truly an expert in what doesn’t work. What I really want to know is what does work.

Parking Lot Wisdom

I think the guy must have been having a bad day; perhaps he was just a grouch.
“Eat less and get off your butt!” he shouted at my daughter and me as we loaded purchases into our car at our local Costco. We were discussing some latest diet fad. We certainly hadn’t requested his input.

He trudged by us with no further acknowledgement of our presence despite our open-mouthed stares.

I suspect he was not directing his comments toward my marathon running, thin, athletic daughter. Rather, his suggestions were probably aimed at me, carrying an extra hundred pounds and unlikely to be mistaken for anything resembling hyperactive.

He was, of course, rude, inappropriate, a jerk and – alas – right. Ever so right. Upon recovering from the indignity of an unacceptably honest stranger, I was forced to acknowledge the accuracy of his sentiments.

There is no question that the route to weight loss, as well as avoidance or reduction in other modern chronic ailments including diabetes, heart disease, cancers, arthritis, and Alzheimer’s (my personal favorite), is eating less and moving more.

There is no magic, no secret. There most certainly is not a government conspiracy waiting to be revealed in Roswell New Mexico. One doesn’t need a college degree. The answer is as available to us dummies as to anyone else. It is simplicity in itself.

In my heart of hearts, I have known this all along. Others may express frustration and sometimes anger with me – because the answer is so simple. My worst detractor is none other than myself – because the answer is so simple. My self-hatred, my tears, and my disappointments run my life and can put me in a continual state of emotional pain - because it is so simple.

I can be forgiven for searching for more complicate mysteries, but there are none. The fact that I have spent the better part of 6 decades in a search that at my core I've known is doomed to failure, is wrenching - but is also very human.

But how does one change this mindset? How does one finally seek reality when systematically rejecting it for so long? Its trite but true that all great journeys begin with one step. What is that step?

I am an expert in what doesn't work. To find something that does work I am looking to those who have been studying the mind for thousands of years. I am looking to the suggestions of Siddhartha Gautama based on his life and his enlightenment. Specifically, I am looking to those teachings as interpreted by modern Tibetan Buddhists. Siddhartha, taught that one must try out his teachings, as see if they apply. That is what I intend to do.