Author: bmagnus

If you have been reading ShortWoman for some years, you have already read some of what follows. Yesterday, I explained why I probably know more about successful dieting than many people. That being said, I am neither a doctor nor a nutritionist nor any sort of personal trainer.

Most diets fail because we have unrealistic expectations. We think that if only we lost x pounds our lives would change; it’s not so. We think that we can deprive ourselves for a period of weeks or months and then go back to the way we’ve always eaten (or worse yet, reward ourselves with a big pig-out); the truth is that not only will our body hoard calories, we will go back to our old weight if we eat the old way — that is why most people who lose weight gain it back. We think our workout entitles us to a little treat; a little treat completely negates the average workout. We think a brisk walk around the mall is a workout; but what we actually do is a slow amble around the mall while sucking down a 600 calorie mocha. We think that we will magically lose weight by purchasing and eating chemistry experiments with labels that proclaim “low fat” or “low carb” or “lite”; the only thing that gets skinnier is our wallets. We think this weight loss plan will be the one that is different, the one that works; we ignore the small type about “results not typical” or “when combined with a reduced calorie diet and exercise.” We don’t stop to wonder how long Jared had to eat Subway Sandwiches 3 meals a day to lose all that weight; any doctor will tell you that 1-3 pounds lost a week is healthy — so losing 100 pounds should take 8-24 months. In short, we think there is such a thing as a magic pill.

Another major reason diets fail is that they are unsustainable. This needless to say overlaps with our unrealistic expectations. Do you really want to drink your lunch for the rest of your life? Because if you listen carefully to the ads on the TV, you will see that is their plan for you! Can you live on 1200 calories a day? Sure, for a while, but sooner or later hunger will catch up with you unless you have some sort of metabolic ace-in-the-hole. Since we have already established that losing a lot of weight takes time, sustainability is a huge factor. A diet that you can’t stand to keep doing for months — whether because of hunger or boredom — just won’t work. A sign of a good diet is that there is actual discussion of various stages of diet and a transition into a way of eating that will help us maintain a healthy weight.

The third major reason diets fail is lack of support. We have friends who say “Oh come on, just one cookie won’t hurt you!” (and we wonder if they say “Oh come on, just one drink won’t hurt you!” to recovering alcoholics). Or maybe we have friends who think they are being helpful by telling us what we can and cannot eat. Maybe we have husbands who tell the kids “Mom’s not having any pizza, she’s on one of her crazy diets again.” Even if our families, friends, and coworkers are supportive, we frequently find ourselves in a position where it is clear that we are eating diet food while everyone else is eating “normal” food. When we find that we have no supply of food that conforms to our diet, we do not engender the sympathy of those around us. At least Jared’s sandwich looked like a normal meal to everyone else. Even professional support groups like Weight Watchers have practices that are somewhat less than motivational.

The truth about fitness is that it isn’t easy. The human body was not designed to sit behind a desk all day. It is built to walk, to run, to carry things, to throw things, to swim, to climb, to move. And it is designed to do that all day, every day. Well guess what, most of us don’t have that ancient lifestyle. No, we sit at desks or on sofas, we ride in cars and buses and airplanes, we spend a lot of time on our butts. Even those of us who work on our feet generally walk no more than a few yards at one time. So we have to actually work out. And no, it isn’t fun. It isn’t supposed to be fun. Our ancestors didn’t hunt game and gather fruit because it was fun; they did it because it was food. Our ancestors didn’t run from predators because it was fun; they did it so they could live another day. Our ancestors didn’t haul wood back to the campsite because it was fun; they did it so there would be fire for heat and light and cooking. I do not work out because it is fun; I work out because I like the way my body looks when I do it regularly.

I am a freak of nature. I lost over 20% of my body weight almost a decade ago. I am my college weight, and in much better shape than I was then. There’s plenty in the archives, of course, but more of what I think about sustainable weight loss can be found in these 5 posts: one, two, three, four, five.

In closing: the market for liberty; lots of plastic bins are a symptom of a clutter problem, not a cure for it; USA Today reports on legal voters purged from voter registration lists; FedEx and the IRS are arguing about whether the delivery guy is an employee or a contractor (FedEx is going to lose); I like Hello Kitty and I think this is a bad idea; planes to nowhere; and remember the Massachusetts health plan? It turns out the fines for not having health insurance “could total as much as $912 for individuals and $1,824 for couples by the end of 2008….” Friendly reminder, the fine for a business not providing health insurance is $295. So much for Massachusetts being nigh unto socialists.

Let me tell you a little about myself.

I was never an athletic child by any stretch of the imagination. Being short compared to my classmates, I usually scored poorly on any physical fitness test that measured my cohort by age as opposed to height: my legs were shorter so I couldn’t run as fast; my arms were shorter so I couldn’t climb as well. I was in 5th grade before it dawned on our Phys Ed teacher that setting the chin-up bar for “average height for xth grader” skewed his results for anyone on my side of the bell curve. He added one of those folding gym mats to make up for the difference, and suddenly 6 girls could do the flex arm hang that never could before! He probably took credit for improving our strength too.

Through Junior High and the first year of High School, I did bike a lot. There were actually places I could go on my bike, such as the library, park district, a grocery store, several friends’ houses, and a small shopping center. This was no longer true when we moved to Texas. My physical activity was largely limited to walking around the school. Nonetheless, my BMI on graduation day was 21.2* — well within normal range.

I went to college, and had a bigger campus to walk around. I also had to take a few PE classes, which is where I met the first truly competent coach I ever personally encountered. At the time, she was the head Women’s Volleyball coach, and she took the time to point out what I was doing wrong, and more importantly how I could do better. I was still not very athletic, but at least I wasn’t a hazard in the gym. However, like most other college students, my diet was not what anyone would consider spectacular. Somehow, I managed the 4 years only gaining 5 pounds, for a BMI of 22.2. This is, by the way, my current weight and BMI.

A year later — in the middle of grad school — I got married. By then my BMI was up to 23.6 — still normal, but I was still getting heavier. Then one night, I got home from choir practice to find my new husband watching one of those talk shows, and I became familiar with the work of Joyce Vedral. She’s looking pretty good for a senior citizen, isn’t she? Trust me, she looked terrific then too. Within days, I bought one of her books, the one she wrote with Jean Claude VanDamme’s wife. Well, I started weightlifting. And because we had a number of activities, we ate more fast food than was really good for us. I bulked up, but not in a good way. I moved on to one of Dr. Vedral’s other workouts, but not before my BMI was up to 25.4. I was able to delude myself that a lot of it was muscle. And hey, BMI is a crock, right? Right? Besides, I’ve got one of those relatively wide Eastern-European frames and will never ever be model-skinny. Right?

I got out of school and started working full time. I ended up in one of those apartment offices that always has some sort of food thing going on: cookies for guests; popcorn with the manager in the afternoons; lunch with “the girls”; stopping for a snack on the way to make bank deposits. Oh, and then we’d all decide to diet together — which usually meant a trip to Sam’s Club where we would buy a big salad bag and a monster sized bottle of reduced fat ranch dressing. By the time the lettuce got brown and disgusting, we had usually given up anyway. I still walked some, and we had fencing class once a week. We probably had fast food of one flavor or another 4 days a week for dinner. During this time, my BMI fluctuated between 26.3 and 28.1. I looked like a little sausage, especially in that “modular clothing” that places like “Units” used to sell. I had become convinced that diets were a waste of time. And then I got pregnant.

My official post-pregnancy weight is only 3 pounds more than my official pre-pregnancy weight. That sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, my BMI was still way too high at 28.7! Like Scarlett O’Hara and many other women, I resigned myself to the idea that most women don’t get their old bodies back after having a baby. I bought size 12 jeans and decided to live with it. For most practical purposes, I had stopped working out except for an occasional walk around the block pushing the stroller — weather permitting.

One fine morning, my husband arrived home from work — he was by then working in an Emergency Room — and announced we were going on a diet. He had been keeping track of the progress made by the head of the local Nephrology residency (a kidney specialist) on one of those low-carbohydrate diets. Here’s my husband’s results. Frankly, he looks even better now. I got back down to college weight, and we did not do any kind of exercise at all.

We didn’t add exercise to our routine until several years later in 2001, when we bought a decent stationary bike. Although I was skeptical at the time, it has more than paid for itself since we didn’t have to buy a gym membership (or two). I started doing Joyce Vedral’s Fat Burning Workout and some flexibility training while he biked. I have since switched to a military workout, and experimented with the shovelglove. I tend to develop some less-than-feminine-looking muscles, so back to the military workout for me. He uses weights while I bike. We both watch CNBC while we work out.

I lost the weight, and I kept it off long enough to make me (according to a prominent “fat acceptance” blogger) “literally a freak of nature.” Although my BMI did creep back up to 24 for a bit — still “normal”, still lookin good, just not as firm as I’d like — I’m now back down to college weight and in better shape than I have ever been. Because I have much better muscle tone than I did in college, I wear a size 2 jean now. Frankly, I don’t think I have ever worn a size two before, even in Junior High! And we’re about to step up the workout routine; maybe I’ll get back to High School weight.

Next time, I hope to talk about being a freak of nature, the truth about fitness, and why most diets fail.

In the meantime, a little background reading in lieu of “in closing”: Children who sleep less weigh more; inexpensive recipes for the New Year; I hate to say it but Kate’s right about Weight Watchers and Jill has some insights of her own to add, too; BlogHer on the diet rabbit-hole; and heck, she’s still big but she looks like she lost 20 pounds just by getting a bra that fit! Thanks, Carson!

* I realize BMI is a controversial measurement. I am using it to avoid this kind of reaction. By expressing my weight as a ratio with my height, you can start to think of it in terms of what you would weigh at these levels instead of focusing on my relative lightness.