When I was in middle school, known then as junior high school, I was the brunt of many jokes about being too skinny. “Vicki, if you turn sideways and swallowed a P, you would look pregnant!” This was embarrassing on a few levels. Since my older sister had gotten pregnant at 17, dropped out of high school, got married and then divorced, the idea of my having a baby was not at all funny to me.
These jokes, though my definition of a joke now is that it’s only a joke if nobody has to pay for it and certainly I paid for these “jokes”, made me feel rgly and sexless. I feared I would never be attractive to the opposite sex, I would never have a boyfriend, and I would grow old and alone. Every time I heard one of these comments I was mortified. Mortified. I wanted to die, be invisible, or at minimum be someone else.
The summer after my freshman year however, a 6 foot four graduated senior, all-star athlete and winner of the athlete of the year award from our high school, asked me to dance at a party and then we started going out. He had his own car and so much hair on his chest, which was sexy then, that it sprouted out the top of his T-shirt.
After being chosen by the God of Maleness, I let myself believe I was attractive, that my skinniness would not prevent me from being loved. From that time on I have always felt attractive enough. Not beautiful, not alluring, and not even sexy, but attractive enough. From that time on I have never had any problem having a man in my life if I wanted one.
In college skinny filled out to slender and I stayed that way until I hit menopause. When I was forced to make a choice, I could continue to be slender or feel homicidal and crazy. I chose to risk the weight gain for a gain in sanity.
When I met my husband Murray, I weighed less than he did. Since then, I gained 50 pounds. 50 pounds! I have the personality of a slender person, whatever that means–I think of myself as a slender person, and I could carry all this extra weight better than some women could. But when I saw a video of myself with the bones of my face hidden because of my weight gain, I no longer recognized myself. I desperately wanted to go back to the time when I recognized myself and was healthier to boot.
I did not like the way I looked, I did not like how much energy it took for me to get up off the couch, and I did not like this feeling of frumpiness that was starting to define me.
Many of my friends are still slender, and I felt more and more like an outsider in my own life–an outsider to my own history.
No Diets for Me
I was slender all my life without much effort. If I gained a few pounds, I just took a little bit more care about what I ate, and the pounds went away. I have never been on a diet. I can’t do deprivation and suffering. Setting a goal out of self-hate contaminates the goal. And many diets are physically harmful, and I wasn’t interested in harming my body to alleviate my discomfort.
Because I had gained so much weight, almost overnight it seemed, I felt discouraged about how to take this all on. I’m legally blind, I don’t drive, I don’t do the grocery shopping, and I don’t do the cooking, so having to make specialized meals didn’t feel like an option that would be fun. And I’m all about having fun.
I’ve tried various strategies, various healthy strategies, to lose weight such as Acai Berry, gluten-free diet, and drinking Body Balance, which helped two of my friends lose a lot of weight. Nothing worked.
Take Shape for Life
Last July while I was in Portland staying with my friend Sue and teaching a class for teachers, I tagged along with Sue and her husband to a meeting with a health coach who was working with a friend of ours. This friend had lost 25 pounds in 2 1/2 months, and my interest was peaked.
He described a program which was developed twenty years ago by doctors. You eat five of their meals a day, one meal every 2 to 3 hours, and one meal you prepare which is called Lean and Green. The program felt sane and doable and self-loving to me, so I went home and did some research. The program has been studied at Johns Hopkins and is healthy and effective. I decided to give it a try.
That was at the beginning of August. I was wearing a size 16 then and just the other day I bought a pair of size 8 jeans. La Dee Dah!
A Typical Day of No Suffering or Deprivation
Here’s a typical day of eating for me: wake up and within a half an hour I have coffee mixed with a cappuccino meal. My meal is delicious, high in protein, sugar free and it’s only 110 calories. Two hours later, I have oatmeal. For lunch I can eat stew, chicken noodle soup, tomato soup, or lots of other choices. For my fourth meal of the day I usually have cheese puffs. Granted, they aren’t as good as Cheetoes, but I like them just fine.
For dinner my beloved husband cooks us a very delicious Lean and Green meal. I get a big helping of chicken, fish, shrimp, or beef. Add to that a cup and a half of vegetables, flavored with Brag, an amino acid soy sauce substitute, and I’m eating well.
For my last meal in the evening, I have a chocolate bar, chocolate shake, chocolate pudding, or soft serve chocolate mint ice cream. (You might have noticed a chocolate theme here.)
I’ve been losing about 2 pounds a week, which is healthy and steady. Sometimes I want to lose more weight, faster, I want to push the river, and that gives me plenty of material to take up with my Angel Committee.
I feel great, look great, and can drink one of my little chocolate shakes and watch people eat a full meal and not feel pangs of envy or loss. Yahoo!
I’ve lost weight and gained many insights in this process, and I will share them next week in Part Two of my Time Traveling.
Meanwhile, love yourself just as you are today. If you need to listen to ‘Off the Hook‘, which I sent out in last week’s newsletter, feel free to do that. I’ve also included my song Love Me Just as I Am with this article to help you keep your sense of humor about life and its mysteries.