Milking It

I have never been a big milk drinker.  We drank iced tea with our dinner at my house and it always seemed weird to me when I was offered milk with a meal.  Milk is mostly a breakfast item for me.  I use it on my cereal and like a glass of milk if I am having pancakes. 

I have grown up under the major assumption that milk “does a body good.”  It is a source of calcium and our bones need calcium to stay strong.  These are things we were taught.  If its good for babies it must be good for adults.  But I have recently been reading a lot of nutrition studies that point out the fact that cow’s milk is the perfect food for just one type of baby; it is called a calf.   It is the perfect food for a baby that is expected to grow to at least 1300 pounds.

So, I have been looking into the alternatives.  I am currently experimenting with using almond milk on my cereal and that half glass that I use to take my vitamin.  I don’t mind the taste and on my cereal I don’t really notice a difference.  A cup of almond milk has almost half the calories of the 1% milk that we usually stock in the fridge and the same amount of calcium and vitamins A and D. 

All that being said, I do have one major issue with almond milk.  It just isn’t milk.  Milk comes from a breast or teat, not from a nut.  I don’t know what the process is for manufacturing this stuff but I know that no one is “milking” an almond tree.  I suppose it is a marketing thing.  People are not going to be comfortable with substituting their milk for almond juice.  And they will not line up to buy something labeled almond milk-like substance.  In reality, almond milk consists of almonds and water so the term should probably be almond water.  Water on your cereal?  No way!  That is a job for milk.

Eat Me

Each time in my life that I have lost a significant amount of weight, I have encountered similar reactions from the people around me.  One typical reaction is that people tell you how great you look.  This is supposed to be a compliment.  Except for me, it always made me feel like there was a whole lot they were not saying before I lost weight.  It always comes out more like; you look so much better than before.  And inevitably, when I gained the weight back, I always felt that sentiment floating out there.

The second comment that often followed the weight loss was how did you do it?  I always think that people are hoping you will tell them that you woke up and found a little bottle on the bedside table with a note saying, “Eat Me.”  My answer to this question the first time it happened was that I had quit my job, gone to culinary school, moved to California for an internship and virtually changed every aspect of my life.  I wondered if people were ready for that particular diet.

Every time I have lost weight it has revolved around some major life decisions but in reality, the answer to the question of how I did it is, exercise and a sensible diet.  That seems a little anticlimactic doesn’t it?  It is just what every doctor and nutritionist would tell you.  And, surprise, it works.

Lately I have been doing a lot of research on eating with a whole food approach.  This involves eating less processed foods and more fruits and vegetables.  I have been choosing more whole grains and lower-fat meats and cheeses.  There is compelling research that a plant based diet will not only help you lose weight but also fight chronic illness.  I am moving in that direction but admit that it is hard to fight against the inner dialogues that tell me things like, “milk, it does the body good” and myths that insist we need meat for protein.  All that and oh, yes, I like meat and cheese.   Guess what?  They taste good.

So I continue, daily, just to try to make better choices than the day or week or month before.  It is a balance between what tastes good and what is good for me.  It is a work in progress and so am I.

Fat, Dumb and Happy?

I have lost and gained a couple of me by now.  But I have also lost and gained some other things along the way, mostly knowledge. 

Around the time that I lost weight the first time, during culinary school, was coincidentally the same time that I first found my way onto the World Wide Web.  Growing up, I had learned to believe that guys did not date fat girls.  And I erected a pretty big wall around myself to protect against that kind of rejection.  The internet taught me that this was not the way of the world, at least not the world of the BBW (big beautiful woman).  Ironically I was that big at the time.  But I did learn that there are many men out there that are not only willing to date a woman who is above average weight but many of them who prefer a pleasingly plump figure.

When I gained that weight back, I discovered that I had also gained a sense of self-esteem that had nothing to do with what I weighed.  I knew that I was the same person inside no matter what was going on outside.  And I deserved to be loved for all of it.

When I was engaged and looking forward to my wedding, I worked incredibly hard to lose weight.  I counted calories and exercised daily.  I joined a gym and worked with machines to help tone my shape.  I was successful but I felt deprived all the time.  I would see a commercial for a new kind of candy bar and feel sad that it was something I couldn’t have on my diet.  After the wedding pictures were all taken and placed carefully in an album that I could truly be proud of, my motivation waned and my waistline waxed.  It became unfortunate that one of the last things I remember my grandmother saying to me before she passed away was, “I see you are gaining back the weight.”

What I learned from this trip around the failure track was two fold.  First, if your motivation comes from a single event or goal, once that event passes so will your motivation.  Secondly, if you feel deprived all the time, you are not going to stick with it.  One more lesson learned from both of my previous attempts at a thinner me was to never say never.  As in, I will never be so stupid as to gain all this weight back again.  I learned this lesson so well that I had to prove it one more time when I again lost weight during my divorce and gained it back after.

So now we come to the big question.  What is different this time?  Yes, I am in transition again.  But I won’t call it a diet.  And there is quite a lot that I am doing differently although I still won’t say, “never again.” 

First, I am not trying to lose weight.  I am trying to make healthier decisions.  I can honestly say I don’t even know what my current weight is and I am pretty sure there isn’t a whole lot of women in America who can claim that.  We are obsessed with weight.  And women of all sizes are wishing they weighed just a little less or had a smaller this or bigger that.  I haven’t been on a scale since I started making changes and I plan to keep it that way.  I know I have lost weight.  My clothes fit better, my feet hurt less and people have noticed at work.  But knowing that number won’t do me any good.

I am trying to develop a lifestyle that I can live with and if that means that I live a little longer and healthier, then that is all the better.  I am back on the bike for half an hour a day and I realize that every time I have regained weight it started with slacking off on exercise.  I am choosing whole grains over refined ones and low-fat dairy products over full-fat.  I am cooking most of what I eat in order to know what is going in and avoiding overly processed foods.  I eat when I am hungry but snack on way more fruits and veggies.  And if I feel deprived, I give myself a break.  

With any luck and lots of hard work, I plan to be a little less fat, a little less dumb and a whole lot more happy.

Ghosts of Diets Past

If you need some dieting advice, ask a fat girl.  They may not have figured out how to successfully manage their weight but I guarantee they have tried more diets than their slim counterparts.  They can probably even tell you which ones worked best in the short term.  It is mastering the long term that most people who diet have a hard time doing.  I speak from experience.

I have been a fat girl for most of my life.  I was chubby as a child and when a lot of the other kids had their growth spurts and became a little more long and lean, I did not.  As a teen, being anything other than average can be painful.  I was the girl in seventh grade with braces, glasses, acne and extra weight.  I never had the most trendy clothes and things like a weigh in during gym class were humiliating.

My mother took me to a nutritionist who taught me a system of tracking what I was eating and measuring my portions.  I think I lost ten pounds but at that age I resented having to put so much attention on everything I ate when the rest of the world seemed to be able to eat whatever they wanted.  I did a lot of closet eating back then.  I was determined not to be one of those yo-yo dieting girls, so instead of going on and off of diets, I just swore them off altogether.

I got teased in school.  With all the focus these days on bullying in schools, I can relate.  Fortunately, for me, it was a case of “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”  I would have liked to have had dates for school dances and all those normal teenage experiences but I like who I am today.  I credit myself with a great sense of humor and sense of resilience.  If I could go back and talk to my younger self, the only thing I would tell her is to love yourself no matter what.

I was in my late twenties when I went to culinary school.  While I was there, I found the motivation to eat better and do some daily exercise.  I continued this while I was on my internship in California.  It was actually pretty easy to eat healthy in California because there was so much fresh produce available.  Taking regular bike rides was easy there too since it was a rare day that it would rain and most of the roads were pretty flat.  I would tell you how much weight I lost, it is a pretty impressive number, but I gained it back after a year or two so it is not something I celebrate. 

I lost even more weight a little later in life when I was engaged.  I was determined not to have wedding photos that I hated and I got down to a size I was very proud of.  But I am not proud that I gained that weight back too.  And a few years later, when I started going through my divorce, I lost weight again.  Guess what?  Gained most of it back. 

It is no wonder that people give up trying.  (To be continued...)