Erma Bombeck once said, “With all the weight I’ve lost over the years, I should be hanging from a charm bracelet.” Boy howdy, do I ever understand THAT statement.
Sigh.
I would venture to guess that 90% of the human female species has been, or will BE, on a diet at one time or another. Males too, of course, but the percentage can’t possibly be as staggering as it is for females.
Let’s face it, we girls have been trained from a very young age to hate our bodies. We’re trained to think we should look like walking sticks & eat like birds. The magazines we read portray attractive women as slim……even emaciated……..and so our opinion of beauty is determined by the media.
We’re never satisfied with how we look, apparently, so the diet industry is THE #1 money maker in this country for that very reason.
At the same time we’re hating our bodies, we’re being told it’s OK to eat McDonald’s for breakfast, lunch, dinner & snacks. Until we watched Supersize Me. At that point, we either forced that knowledge out of our minds & continued eating high-fat fast food, or, we changed our ways & stuck to broiled, grilled or steamed instead of fried. Until THAT got too boring & we reverted back to our old ways.
Not surprisingly, I am no stranger to diets myself. My mother signed me up for Weight Watchers at 12, and I would yo-yo around for the next 40 years trying to manage my weight, unsuccessfully, for the most part.
I remember trying all sorts of crazy, crash diets over the years. After I failed at Weight Watchers, primarily due to the liver requirement (back in the day when the experts felt that organ meat WAS healthy), I graduated to more extreme methods of weight loss.
The grapefruit diet, the cookie diet, the hamburger diet, the cabbage soup diet, the all carb diet/the all protein diet, the Suzanne Somers diet, the Spirolina diet, the Slim-fast diet, Herbalife, to name a few. Then there was the gym memberships, the exercise equipment (now known as Clothing Racks), the bicycles (stationary & outdoor), the trampolines, the stair-steppers, the ellipticals, the ab machines, the Nautilus, circuit training, and water aerobics. I can’t forget the acupuncture, although I’d very much LIKE to, where my ear was stapled with a metal clip which I was to turn when I felt hungry. I all but pulled my ear OFF and still, the excess weight would not release itself from my thighs.
I tried a full liquid fast where all I could ‘eat’ was 3 chocolate shakes per day for a total of 270 calories. I stayed on that nightmare diet for 6 full months & dropped 87 lbs which I managed to pick back UP as soon as the fast was over with. Fasting taught me how delicious food really tastes & how sorely I’d missed it for 6 long months of starvation.
Sigh.
I’ve lost my hair, I’ve lost my monthly cycles, I’ve lost my sanity & I’ve lost plenty of hard-earned money over the years in my quest to be slim, but somehow, I never managed to lose the WEIGHT. All that fat was evidently quite happy living on my hips, thighs & stomach, and had NO intention of leaving.
But still I pressed forward with my endless attempts to win the battle of the bulge. I bought diet pills, supplements, lotions, potions & brews…….I signed up with a quack diet doctor & lined up in front of his office, outside in the cold, for hours on end waiting for my 2-week-supply-of-little-pills-guaranteed-to-work, but all I took from that experience was sleeplessness. The little pills turned out to be amphetamines masquerading as diet aids. The doctor turned out to be a criminal & his doors were eventually closed by the Feds. But not before he caused a lot of harm to an awful lot of women who relied on him to ‘help’ them.
I tried the Depends diets also…..you know, the diets which have you drinking SO much water you need to wear a diaper? Or, the diets, like Alli, that prevent your body from absorbing fat from the foods you eat………..and instead, release that fat through ‘anal leakage’? Yet another terrific reason to wear Depends. When my family doctor tried to prescribe Xenical for me, he did warn me about staying close to home for that very reason…………anal leakage is just one of many unpleasant side-effects associated with that ‘diet aid’.
Frankly, I would rather chop off my left leg for a quick 40 lb loss than put myself through one of the Diaper Diets.
But hey, at one time, I’d have sold my SOUL to be slim.
But no matter WHAT Dr. Atkins & Dr. Pritikin recommended, I STILL wasn’t able to lose weight & keep it off for any length of time.
My husband likes to say that everyone is selling snake oil. Hmmmmm……snake oil seems to be the ONE thing I never tried for weight loss!
Nowadays, human growth hormones, or HGH, is being touted as THE answer to weight loss. It’s available in sub-lingual drops or injection form. Does it matter that the dieter may grow to be a giant? At least she will be a THIN giant, right?
For those dieters who want to PREVENT themselves from being ABLE to eat, there is gastric bypass surgery available, stomach stapling, and lapband surgery. Back in the 70’s, it was popular to have your jaw WIRED shut. A friend of mine had that procedure……….and I found it amazing to see how many calories she could suck down through the little straw that she conveniently slipped through the wires. Chocolate milkshakes went down quite smoothly as it turned out.
Another friend of mine had the gastric bypass surgery. Now, she is ‘unable’ to eat any healthy foods like vegetables or fruit, because they’re too high in roughage…………and she’s ‘forced’ to eat only sugary foods to keep up her strength.
She is suffering from malnutrition thanks to her new diet plan, AND she’s gained back ½ of what she’s lost. So far. The other half is waiting in the wings to make an encore appearance.
So, 40 years after going on my first diet, what have I learned?
That there IS no magic diet out there; there IS no pill to fix what ails me, it’s pretty much ALL snake oil and no, snake oil does NOT melt fat away……………….
Sigh.
So, I hope I can save you a ton of time, a ton of headaches, a ton of money & a ton of embarrassment by letting you in on the secret to permanent weight loss FOREVER:
The secret is really quite simple, as it turns out. Put down your knife & fork & say No Thank You. Avoid the junk food aisles in the grocery store, avoid the fast food drive-thru’s, and jog over to Sunflower Market instead. Keep your nose OUT of the magazines that tell you anorexia is desirable, and cut out ALL of the size tags on your jeans. The only place that size really DOES matter is in your bank account.
Love yourself as you are, be kind to yourself no matter WHAT, and stop falling for everything everybody tells you.
Please always remember and never forget, it’s ALL a crock of cabbage soup in the end.
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