Guy Burdick
What’s the Point?
I can resist everything, except temptation.
OscarWilde
The women in my family have been living by a number systemfor the past several weeks, so the other day I decided to get in on the program, too. This program now assigns every edible item on the face of the earth a corresponding point value, and according to your present weight, you get a preset number of points (or food) that you can eat. Therefore, if you’re lucky, that means you can have three meals a day . . . as long as you don’t mind gum for one of them.
The points add up quickly. For example, a slice of bread is 2 points, an enchilada is 9 points, and a meal at McDonalds is 1,229,789—or better yet, your last meal on earth.
The night before my diet was set to start, I checked out the chart to see how many points I could eat each day. Based on my weight, I’m allowed twenty-five. Seeing as that wouldn’t work for me, I decided that because I’m a man, and therefore I have the role of hunter-gatherer in the family, I should have extra points. So I gave myself thirty points a day. In other words, I added up the equivalent of twenty-five points and realized that if I stuck to that meager plan, I wouldn’t be able to operate heavy machinery. But don’t think that extra seven points buys me a trip down the buffet line. There are only degrees of starvation.
Actually, I did think that the first day went fairly smooth—mostly, I guess, because the night before the diet, I binged as a farewell to my old eating habits and woke up the next day barely able to walk. Still, by evening, I was starving. So my wife asked me how many points I had left for dinner. I rolled my eyes.
“I have enough to enjoy a tablespoon of dirt,” I answered, “as long as there aren’t any bugs (five points) in it . . . or mulch (nine points).”
The diet has gone downhill from there. To be successful, you really have to learn how to space your points out evenly throughout the day. That way, by dinnertime, you still have enough so you don’t get a hunger headache, or your stomach doesn’t rumble and frighten small children.
There’s a discipline to the program, which, incidentally, my wife is really good at following. Just yesterday morning she was bragging about it.
“I banked three points yesterday,” she announced.
I looked up from licking the bottom of my cereal bowl. “What does that mean?”
“I didn’t use three points,” she exclaimed.
I wanted to cry. “I’ll give you ten dollars for them.”
“You can’t buy MY points,” she answered.
“Why not?” I argued, “You’re not using them.”
“Yes I am,” she retorted. “I can apply them to my points today. I’m going to have a latte with my lunch.”
“Yum,” I said. “I’ll give you five dollars just to smell your breath.”
I think I might have to up my daily points—like maybe by 1,229,789.
Ken Swarner
The Road to Self-Worth
One must eat to live, and not live to eat.
Molière
I am the behind-the-scenes writer of a column for a national health and fitnessmagazine that focuses on success stories about weight loss. For years I have written about other people and their journey to a healthy body, mind and spirit. But I’ve neverwrittenmy own success story. Sure, I’ve lost ninety-five pounds and have lowered my body fat from I don’t even know how high to healthy, and dropped dress sizes from24 to 10, but I always felt like thatwasn’t reallyme.
I wasn’t always overweight. Until age five, I was a healthy, active kid. It wasn’t until my parents started having problems that resulted in a divorce that I turned to food. I struggled with my weight all through my school years and into college, where I reached 260 pounds during my senior year. Today, more than a decade later, people don’t believe that I ever weighed that much. Even I have to pull out the before pictures to remember, and they are shocking because back then I never looked in mirrors. I never looked other people in the eye for fear of what they would say about me. I was shy. I was ashamed. I was depressed. I was scared.
Like most of the people I interview for stories, I tried all the fad diets. My parents put me on them when I was a kid, and I forced myself on them as a teen and young adult. What I didn’t realize was that the worst thing I could do was to use food as a form of punishment. It would never work. And it didn’t.
One dark night before graduation, I looked at my body and imagined myself at eighty-five years old. If I continued walking the path I was on, who would I be? What would I look like? I saw overweight. I saw health problems. I saw loneliness and unresolved emotional pain. I didn’t like what I saw. I remembered what an old college professor said to me when I asked her for advice. She merely shrugged and said, “You just have to choose.”
I got mad at her. What kind of advice is that? Choose what? How can I choose? Then it clicked. It was a mental trick. All I had to do was choose the picture of who I wanted to be at eighty-five. All I had to do was choose to allow the real me to come out of her cocoon by making small, little choices in support of my decision every single day. I would deny myself nothing. I would choose to become the best me possible. I would choose health over habit. I would choose action over inertia. I would choose love over self-loathing.
I read the health books. I got educated. I learned balance. I went for walks. I chose to eat healthy and to not completely deny myself the things I loved, but I chose to eat them less often. And I chose to see it not as a short-term, quick fix that would make me skinny tomorrow. I chose to see it as a lifelong journey to health.With the help of long walks and yoga, I learned how to listen to what my body wanted instead of the old tapes that made me crave sugar and junk food to numb out with.
It took a decade to lose that weight. I continue to lose a few pounds every year. I continue to listen to my body’s needs. I know it needs sleep and downtime and play and inspiring work. I know that it needs good friends and healthy foods to fuel the things it wants to do. I know it needs movement and plenty of time outside.
Most of all I know that it needs gentle kindness and love from me. Not brutality. Losing weight over such a long time was like the proverbial herding of cats. Very gently, calmly and lovingly I would bring myself back to my goal of a healthy life each time I turned down a side road. I continue to gently shepherd my mind, body and spirit down my path to health. It’s a road that I’ll walk my entire life with love and gratitude, because I am and have always been worthy.
Jacquelyn B. Fletcher
Sesame Crusted Chicken with Dipping Sauce
MAKES 4 SERVINGS EACH SERVING: 1.5 GRAMS SATURATED FAT
extra virgin olive oil cooking spray
1 piecewhole grain bread, broken into bite-sized pieces
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil plus 1 teaspoon
3 tablespoons sesame seeds
1 tablespoon wheat germ
teaspoon salt, plus more to taste
teaspoon cayenne pepper
½ teaspoon paprika, divided
1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts (pound thin)
¼ cup prepared hummus
2 tablespoons canola oil mayonnaise
1 teaspoon Tabasco (or other hot sauce)
1 tablespoon lemon juice
Preheat oven to 400° and coat a baking dish with cooking spray. In a food processor or blender, add the whole grain bread, 1 tablespoon of the olive oil, sesame seeds, wheat germ, teaspoon salt, cayenne pepper, and a ¼ teaspoon of paprika; pulse to make fine crumbs, about 1 minute. Transfer crumbs to a large Ziplock plastic bag.
In a medium-sized bowl, toss chicken in teaspoon of olive oil and season with salt to taste. Add chicken, one piece at a time, to the bag and coat both sides with the crumbs. Transfer chicken to the baking dish. Bake for 15–18 minutes, or until cooked through.
Whisk together the hummus,mayonnaise, Tabasco, lemon juice and remaining 1.4 teaspoon of paprika. Remove chicken from oven and transfer to a platter. S
erve immediately with dipping sauce on the side.
Reprinted from Fitter, Firmer, Faster. ©2006 Andrew Larson, M.D., Ivy Ingram Larson. Health Communications, Inc.
Stop Dieting, Start Living
Argue for your limitations and sure enough they’re yours.
Richard Bach
I was overweight by the time I was five—chubby, with red hair and freckles. It wasn’t anybody’s fault, just a series of circumstances that set me on a roller coaster.
As a child, I learned not to waste food. There were “starving children in Africa,” so I dutifully cleaned my plate. I had a skinny, athletic brother who ate anything that wasn’t nailed down, and I rushed to get my share first. From my grandmothers, who were both wonderful cooks, I learned that food was love.
At nine, my parents divorced, and I discovered security and comfort in eating. As a teenager, I dealt with boredom by baking—and eating—chocolate chip cookies and hanging out at fast-food joints with my friends. Over time, my faithful friendship with food became a love/hate relationship. I was caught in a free fall of eating to meet my emotional needs.
I first became aware that I was fat at six, when my dad teased me about swallowing a watermelon seed. By eleven, embarrassing shopping trips to find clothes confirmed that I needed to lose weight. My mother was slender and I never saw her eat a baked potato like the rest of us. I always knew that eventually, I wouldn’t get to have them anymore either. For the next twenty years, I rode that roller coaster of overeating and dieting.
It was never-ending: guilt when I ate what I wanted, deprivation when I ate what I was allowed to. I tried to be “good,” but it didn’t last. I used exercise to earn extra calories and pay penance when I was “bad.” As a result, whenever I quit dieting, I quit exercising too. I was ashamed of my body, my eating and my cheating. Dieting caused steeper climbs and deeper drops. I felt like I was careening out of control.
Despite my lack of success with dieting, I did well in college and medical school. During my residency, I delivered tiny babies in the middle of the night, resuscitated dying people in the emergency room and assisted in long operations with cranky attending surgeons. The only saving grace was the free food in the cafeteria. I deserved it.
At any time of the day or night, I found company in the doctors’ lounge and comfort in the special-of-the-day. It didn’t take me long to discover the double-dipped malted milk balls in the bulk bin. A wax paper sackful slipped into my white coat pocket would last me all night. Each little chocolate sphere was a consolation prize that gave me the confidence, energy, reward and pleasure I desperately needed. I gained a lot that first year—a whole new resilience and spirit—and at least ten pounds in malted milk balls.
When it was over, I started another round of self-denial. The clackety-clack up the hill felt good. “I’m finally back in control,” my little voice said. I weighed myself and calculated how long it would take to reach my goal. I cleaned out my refrigerator, kitchen cabinets and desk drawer. I threw away (or finished off) all the “bad” stuff, started eating celery sticks for snacks and drank my eight glasses of water every day. I read labels so I’d know what I could eat and stopped going out to dinner. I bought new walking shoes and got up early every morning. “You can do it this time!” my little voice said.
The weight started to come off. I lost four pounds that first week. Never mind that part of it was water or even muscle. I already felt thinner—and a little smug. I was near the top of the hill, watching everyone below scarfing down junk food.
Then one day I weighed in and I hadn’t lost as much as I thought. I vowed to try harder, and I did, for awhile.My little voice whispered, “This isn’t worth it.” I saw someone eating ice cream and I heard, “It’s not fair.” I woke up early for my walk, but it said, “This is too hard.” I went back to sleep.
Time stood still as I crested the hill. I bought a bag of Hershey’s Kisses and had it open before I left the parking lot. I was picking up speed. The little voice said, “You can walk extra tomorrow. Have another one.” I ate one more, then another, and before I knew it, half the bag was gone. My little voice repeated the familiar phrase, “You already blew it. You might as well eat the rest so you won’t be tempted when you go back on your diet tomorrow.” Besides, how was I going to explain half a bag of candy?
The exhilaration didn’t last long. By that evening,my little voice was taunting me, “You’re a loser!” I vowed to be good, but I knew I was just one piece of chocolate away from losing control again. It seemed I’d bought a lifetime ticket.
What was wrong with me? How could I practice medicine and raise a family, but fail at dieting? I knew most of my patients weren’t having much long-term success either. Maybe it wasn’t me.
My husband and children never dieted and never struggled with their weight. In fact, they ate whatever they wanted, but they rarely ate more than they needed.
Did they just have better metabolisms than I did? That was probably part of it. I knew mine was a mess after years of overeating and dieting. Did they have more willpower? No. I doubted they could stay on a diet for very long either. But there was something fundamentally different about the way they thought about food. In fact, they didn’t really think about food at all—unless they were hungry.
Could the answer really be that obvious? Could I use hunger again to guide my eating, instinctively? My only other choice was to strap myself in for another ride. My little voice screamed, “I want off!”
So I jumped. No more rules, no more deprivation, no more sneak eating.
It wasn’t easy at first. Years of ignoring hunger and fullness while I ate to meet my emotional needs or follow the latest diet rules made it hard to trust my body and my instincts. But I slowly discovered that when I took the time to tell the difference between body hunger and head hunger, I was able to better meet both my physical and emotional needs.
I gave my little voice a new mantra: “Eat when you’re hungry, stop when you’re satisfied.” Even now, it reminds me, “When you eat food your body didn’t ask for, it will store it,” and, “There will always be enough food, so there’s no reason to eat it all now.”
Instead of drastic ups and downs, I try to balance eating for health with eating for enjoyment. I use balance, variety and moderation to guide my eating instead of harsh, complicated rules. Now I can enjoy cooking, dining out and eating with friends. I feel my best when I’m nourishing my body and my soul.
I also love to hike and do yoga several times a week, not to control my weight but for the stamina, strength, flexibility and calm they give me. I’ve found peace, health and wholeness. I’ve also discovered a purpose for my life and a passion for helping others get off their roller coaster, too.
I knew my long ride was finally over when my husband gave me a sack of double-dipped malted milk balls and it took me a week to eat them. Even though I still love chocolate, it’s not my best friend anymore.
Michelle May, M.D.
One Newspaper at a Time
Imprisoned in every fat man a thin one is wildly signaling to be let out.
Cyril Connolly
One of the unfortunate side effects of being very overweight is constant back pain. Sitting, standing, lying down, carrying, lifting . . . no matter what the activity, my back is always in some state of pain.
Recently, I decided to do something about this. Not only did I want to relieve the back pain that carrying around an extra 150 pounds creates, I also wanted to head off all the other medical problems I knew were in my future. My biggest concern was exercise. How could I possibly move this bulk of mine around when I was already in pain? Stretching, jogging, lifting weights and all the other activities that I knew would help get the weight off just seemed impossible to do with my back always feeling like it was twisted in a knot.
So I started out slowly. I got a paper route, which to be honest was not a weight-loss strategy at first. However, after I signed up, I found out that I had to porch all of the papers. Th
is meant that I had to get out of my car (YIKES!) and physically walk the paper up the driveway and place it on the porch. This may not sound tough to many people, but to a 300-pound woman the thought of getting in and out of a car and walking up and down forty-seven driveways didn’t sound fun. And I just knew this would aggravate my back to the point that I wouldn’t be able to move at all.
Day one came and I got in and out of my car and I huffed and puffed up forty-seven driveways at two in the morning—and I sweat like I hadn’t in years. I hauled myself home, got in bed and went back to sleep. When I woke up several hours later, I sat up and realized that not only was my back not throbbing in pain, as I had thought it would, but it actually felt a little bit looser.
Each week I noticed my back pain getting progressively less. Well, I figured that if just walking a little every day could help, maybe adding in a little extra exercise would help even more. I took it easy, a little at a time, doing simple exercises and other activities like playing with my children instead of popping in yet another movie for them to watch. And here came another side effect. I started to lose a little weight. As the weight came off, the back pain lessened.
I had always thought that I couldn’t exercise because I was too large. The pain in my body, along with the sheer bulk of me, was simply too much to put through any kind of a workout routine. If I did manage to exercise, I just knew I would be in agonizing pain the next day. But just the opposite happened. This amazing human body began to function better the more I exercised. Logic had always told me that if I lost weight, my back wouldn’t hurt so much. After all, 300 pounds is a lot of weight for one back to carry. But the task of losing that weight just seemed too much to conquer.