Update 2004

Let me preface this by saying my next book is going to be titled, “I’m So Tired of Skinny.” And I’m not talking about physical skinny because I know any number of people who just cannot gain weight. I’m referring to the mental obsession of this society on “thin” being the only virtue. We have been brainwashed to believe that unless and until we are at an acceptable weight, as defined by fashion, we have no value.

Now, here’s the Cliff Notes version of my story.

I was always thin, even scrawny as a child, knobby-kneed and gangly because I reached my full 5’6” by the time I was thirteen. But as I aged, and after I started spitting out kids, I found my metabolism changing. Looking back I could see that for every decade I added ten pounds. Thus at twenty I weighed in at 120, at thirty I was 130. But by the time I hit fifty I was spiraling out of control. Who knew a metabolism had an expiration date? By age fifty-two I weighed 199.

I was no longer able to buy my clothes in the “normal” stores. I was forced to shop at the “big girl” stores. Doncha love that euphemism? But the day that a size 18 was tight on me and I had to move up to the 20 was day I knew I had to do something about my weight.

Once I chose low-carb as my diet, I dived in whole-heartedly, as I do with everything. It took me five months and five days to lose the 35 pounds I had set as my goal. I was being conservative because had I set 50 pounds as my goal I would have been defeated by the enormity of the task looming ahead of me.

Once I had reached my first goal, I had established good habits and I was ready to carry on. I didn’t go on maintenance until four months later because I was afraid to add carbs back in so I did lose a few more pounds. I kept off the weight for ten months and then life threw me a curve. I was invited to go to Jamaica to my son’s wedding. All inclusive resort for four days. Know what that means? Food everywhere – all day, all night. Just walk up and get it. It was a trip of a life-time so I let my guard down and enjoyed every morsel I put into my mouth. I gained 6 pounds. I went home, climbed back on the horse and lost 4 pounds in a week. I thought to myself, “No harm, no foul.”

Yeah, right.

The harm was there, but it was hidden. What I had done, in those four glorious days, was reactivate my cravings. The monster was unleashed. I spent the summer justifying the hot dogs and the homemade ice cream and the pizza. “Oh, I can eat this because I can always lose it again.”

My bad.

By the following summer I had regained about 15 pounds and one day, trudging up the hill to get my mail, I had an epiphany. In a blinding flash of painful truth, I realized I was going backwards and all the progress I had made was for nothing. It was only a matter of time before I’d be huffing and puffing again just to get my mail.

I went back to 30 carbs a day and lost 8 pounds. But it took longer, waaaaaay longer to lose that 8 pounds and from that point on, even at 30 a day, I had to come to grips with the fact that my body had settled in. I went through a small depression over, more than anything else, my stupidity for having allowed myself to slip into the old habits. I had answered the siren call of “come on, eat what you want, you can lose later,” and I lost alright, I lost my self esteem.

Then something else happened. I spent seven months writing my book, 101 Low-Carb & Sugarfree Dessert Recipes. I found that, in spite of the fact that I am not runway model thin, I still have value. I still can offer positive contributions to society and my family. At that point, I did a serious step-back and took a squint-eyed look at why I wanted to lose weight in the first place. I told myself it was my health but really I was ashamed of who I was, based on my looks. I felt as though I had nothing valid to say or do because of the way I looked. All of my education, all of my experience, all of my creative energy meant nothing in a world where people are judged by the size clothing they wear.

That’s when I changed my attitude and my outlook. I am faithful to low-carb now for my health. Health is more important than appearance. I am energetic. I can walk up the hill to get my mail and not breath heavy. I can buy my size 14-16 and not feel ashamed because I know I have value for who I am, not what I look like. I will never be a size 10 again, not unless I get terribly sick and who wants that?

Oh, the irony! Based on doctors' charts, which are designed by insurance companies, I am still over-weight. But I am not over-weight based on my own renewed perceptions about weight. You see, for me, as long as I am healthy and can function on all eight cylinders all day, I’m just right. And staying low-carb or if you prefer, “controlled carb” my weight hasn’t varied up and down more than 2 pounds in over a year. Sometimes I am really busy and I drop 3-4 pounds without trying and then those pounds sneak back in when I am sitting at the computer too long. Obviously the message here is “exercise.”

Here’s the bottom line – we all need to get a grip on why we diet and why we get depressed when we don’t lose weight. If it’s based on perceptions about what we “should” look like instead of just being healthy we sabotage ourselves from the beginning because our foundation is in sand not bedrock.

I say it’s time to look at who and what we really are and thumb our noses at fashion and insurance charts. The only thing we need to focus on is being healthy. That is a goal I can really get my energy behind. If I am healthy, at my size and weight, I don’t care what the world thinks.

I have a core value, which is not effected by the veneer of what I look like.

Meema at 172 lbs

May 2004

and holding...