Okay, actually it’s 14 pounds in 16 weeks, but let’s be honest, this title sounds better. I’m a writer; what do you expect?
I keep seeing these ads scroll up my Facebook page and hearing about celebrities that lose weight for a part (and wow! they lose it so fast!) and listening to friends and family members talk about losing weight for the summer.
Here’s my disclaimer: I have never tried actually dieting as a verb.
If you’re looking for a “diet” plan, you’ve come to the wrong place.
If you’re interested in how I began the move toward a healthy lifestyle and a healthier weight, please read on.
I have always been active. Thank the gods for that because if that were not the case, I easily would have ballooned well up over 200 pounds and into the 250 range considering my past relationship with food.
I did not love food. I abused it. As a teenager and a young woman in my twenties I would have seconds for dinner on a regular basis and then polish off a bowl of ice cream or a piece of cake. As I got further into my twenties, this lifestyle caught up to me; my metabolism slowed down and my weight went up. But because of my build, I tend to gain weight everywhere gradually, I convinced myself that I was, as Winnie the Pooh says, “short, fat, and proud of that.”
I have never really had body issues. I never thin shamed people, or fat shamed people. I have never really been “unhappy” with my weight. I simply always knew I was heavier than it was healthy to be for my height, and I simply ate my way around that knowledge. I never looked for a way to lose weight fast. But I have tried different life long approaches to food when I have been able to acknowledge my sick relationship with food.
Once, right before moving back to the San Francisco Bay Area from Humboldt County (an area quite proud of its large, well cushioned women) I tried out the Atkins Diet, thinking I could make that a lifestyle change. I read Dr. Atkins book. He convinced me that high fat, lots of meat, no carbs was the way to go, for life. I lived that way for about a year. It did help me drop from pushing 200 pounds down closer to the 150 range. And I loved the lifestyle! I exercised, walking on a daily basis. I ate salami and cream cheese for breakfast. I drank lots of water.
And I smelled bad.
There’s something about the high meat diet that releases ketones from your system, and you always smell like a warm ham sandwich. Without the bread of course.
Not sexy.
Then one day I walked into Whole Foods and asked an associate where I could find the Atkins bars I was so dependent on to get me through the day. The nice girl kindly explained to me that Atkins bars were not made from whole food. They were loaded with processed, synthesized gods-know-what, so Whole Foods did not carry them.
I realized then that what I was doing to my body was fundamentally unhealthy, and more than losing weight what I was looking for was living healthily.
A few years later I was trying to get pregnant and not having much success. I was about 40 pounds overweight BMI-wise, and I kept reading that weight could be an issue. This time I was going to lose weight the healthy way, and keep it off.
I joined Weight Watchers and lost the weight. They teach the basics that every person should know. Eat fewer calories. Make most of your calories come from plants, grains, and lean meats. Exercise regularly.
At 32 I was in the best shape of my life and I felt great. I smelled great too!
It worked.
Then I got pregnant. And relapsed. I ate all the Jack in the Box, all the Taco Bell, all the Coldstone, all the chips and dips and fries and fritters I could get my hands on.
I gained 75 pounds. I tipped the scale the day I gave birth at 213 pounds. I’m 5’2″.
My baby came out looking like a swollen, sumo wrestling panda.
After Celaya was born I wanted so desperately to breast feed successfully for a year that I didn’t bother to even think about trying to take the weight off. I lost 45 pounds in the first months after she was born and then hovered for two years at about 165.
As her second birthday approached I realized that I was not modeling the life I wanted her to live. Sure, we ate healthy. I walked every day. But I was still eating way more than I needed (going to bed stuffed at night most nights) and my “walking” was usually down to the park two blocks away.
Armed with what I had learned at Weight Watchers, but knowing that I had no time or patience for calculating the points of every bite or step I took, I slowly moved our entire household toward a healthier food and exercise lifestyle.
And here I sit. Down from 166.4 to 152.4 in 16 weeks. I get on the scale every Monday to check in with myself and write the number on a pad on my fridge. I know that the number is arbitrary. I know that 152 for me is different than 152 for someone else. I know that muscle is denser than fat. I know that the fit of my clothes and the energy I now have to climb the five flights of stairs to my apartment is a far better measure of success than the number change on a scale. I know all this. I also know that scientifically, medically, being dramatically overweight, or obese, is detrimental to my health. I know that more children are born diabetic (mine could have been one of them). I know that more children get diabetes at a younger age. I know that an increasing number of people in the world, and particularly this country, is getting fatter and fatter in a really unhealthy way.
I know that I do not want my child to be one of those people. I want her relationship to food and exercise to be about fuel and energy, about love and life. And treats!
Here’s what I’ve come up with:
Fruit should be the regular sweet in life.
Sugar should be a treat, i.e. let’s go get an ice cream!
Vegetables should be a constant, at every meal.
Fat should be a condiment, not the main course.
Whole grains and nuts should be daily staples.
Exercise should be an every day matter of life. Whatever it is you love to do physically, do that an hour a day most days of the week, on average. For example, my brother golfs a couple times a week, which takes three to four hours at a time, so there’s his average.
And enjoy food, do not abuse it.
Those are the rules I have lived by for the last four months. And I feel truly healthy down to my bones. And I am having a love affair (as opposed to an abusive relationship) with food and drink. I drink wine every night I’m home, but only two glasses. I have dark chocolate (85% cocoa dark) and greek yogurt for dessert every single night. I eat grains and protein for breakfast every morning (dry honey wheat toast and a fried egg and grapes, or almond butter on bread with an apple, or oatmeal with slivered almonds and a banana). I have a salad for lunch every day, a delicious, sinful salad with spinach and avocado and black olives and tomatoes and cucumbers and anything else I happen to feel like throwing in their that is a plant with an awesome full fat red wine vinegar and olive oil dressing from Trader Joe’s. And for dinner I eat whatever we have that night. My husband cooks one night (usually Mexican), my brother cooks one night (usually something with sauce or gravy) and I cook four nights (it varies from Mexican to American to Italian, to Greek, to Chinese). Nothing is off limits. We eat beef one night, pork one night, we eat a vegetarian meal one night, and chicken, turkey, or fish the other nights. I always use real butter, olive oil, canola oil. I put bacon in my refried beans. I put full fat sour cream on my fajitas. We eat a lot of cheese. A lot! The big trick for me is variety. I don’t make two heavy meals two nights in a row. The heavier the meal, i.e. beef stroganoff, the smaller portion I eat. And I try never to eat until I’m stuffed. I stop when I’m satisfied, reminding myself that I still want to drink one more glass of wine, and that I’ve got dark chocolate and greek yogurt waiting for me around the corner.
I also run 5 miles a day 5 days a week. Because of that level of intensity, I never feel bad for a heavy meal, I never worry about counting points or calories, and I never question how quickly or slowly I’m losing weight.
To be clear, if you do not want to exercise that much, and I understand some people consider themselves allergic to strenuous physical exertion, you must eat less. As my mother said to me yesterday morning, “You and Breezy [my sister] run 5 miles so you can enjoy your food, Tammy [my other sister] and I watch carefully what we eat and eat way less so we can enjoy not exercising.”
This way works for me because I do love food, but I also love running. I am by nature an anxious person and running helps me control my anxiety quite a bit as well.
I plan to live this way for the rest of my life. If it takes me another 16 weeks to lose the last 14 pounds to get me into a healthy BMI, fine. If my body decides this is my new set weight, fine.
I feel healthy. And my daughter sees me living a healthy life. I’m happy to move forward this way with very few changes.
Though I will likely need a double jogging stroller at some point.