Why Didn't I just DO IT?

A couple of great weight loss bloggers and achievers posted some comments yesterday urging us heavies to stop trying and JUST DO IT! (ie lose weight, amongst other things).

Unfortunately, it's just not that easy to get started on a new lifetime weight loss program, at least it wasn't for me. Looking back, these are some of the things that kept me from making a sustained effort to lose weight:

1. Portion Size - Be Real!

Years ago, the first time a doctor ever spoke to me about losing weight, he sat down with me with a little pamphlet that looked like a Dick & Jane reader, and explained to me that I should eat 3oz of chicken for dinner. I'm sure he said other things, but when he said I was supposed to eat 3oz chicken, he lost me. That was the most ridiculous thing I had ever heard. If I ate chicken, I ate a chicken, you know, the whole thing! I changed doctors.

2. I Have to Give Up EVERYTHING, FOREVER

It's been said that you can loose weight on a diet of doughnuts, and you probably could. But as a practical matter, high calorie foods with little actual nutritional value have to go, so I always felt like I would be giving up "everything" I liked for the rest of my life. But lost in that fear were two realities I seldom considered: 1) I actually might WANT to give up some of these foods as time went by, and 2) I might discover new foods just as rewarding as the ones I gave up. As it turned out, I didn't have to give up anything altogether anyway, unless I wanted to.

3. I'll Have to be HUNGRY for the REST OF MY LIFE

This was my number one concern - I don't know how many times I said: "I am NOT ging to be hungry for the rest of my life.", or "I guess I'll just have to STARVE for the rest of my life, that's all there is to it", whenever the topic of a diet came up. But the simple and plain fact is - I am not any more hungry on a healthy diet that provides the right number of calories than anyone else is. So yes, sometimes I get hungry, people do get hungry, but most times I'm not - I would have to say this hungry thing is the greatest myth there is in the weight loss racket.

4. I wasn't really scared.

I'm 60 years old. I have been fat since maybe the late 20's and obese since I was 43. I had just two doctors sit down and give me the what for on being fat - there was Dr 3oz Chicken, and a really great doctor who really did scare me, but who I didn't see again. The rest of my doctors were in the "you really should lose weight camp" - and of course I really should have lost weight, but that was hardly enough to get me going.

I knew the risks of eating high fat foods - everyday I saw articles in the papers, signs in the doctors offices' and the results of my blood tests that pound home the cause and the risks of high cholesterol. So I fixed that, since 2000 I have been a poster boy for good blood tests. But where were the signs and articles and tests for sleep apnea, pulmonary hypertension, heart failure... things that are a direct result of obesity and can kill me just as well as blocked arteries.[ I blew off sleep apena tests for years because I thought that the only problem was snoring] The only place I saw this stuff was at the cardiologists, by which time I already had the problem! [ I think the media and the doctors have to get it together and get beyond bemoaning the high rate of obesity, and start hammering home the facts. ]


So HOW DID I DO IT?

Let's face it, I knew that Twinkies weren't good for me. I knew that having a liter of COKE a day (or Pepsi or Dr Pepper) wasn't good for me. I am not an idiot, I can read. But what I didn't have was a good way to go about replacing a bad diet with a good diet. I didn't have a way to just DO IT.

When I considered a new diet, the scope was awsome: I had to give up foods I had eaten all my life, I had to eat stuff like salmon I didn't really like, I had to "exercise", I had to pay attention to calories, I had to pay attention to portion size [there's that 3oz chicken, again!], I had to have "will power". Whatever I did, I had to eat less today than I did yesterday and I had to do it forever. No matter how much I wanted to lose weight, it was like some force was out there ready to smother me and make my life miserable.

Take for example, this "fact" from About.Com (a site that I normally think has a really great weight loss section):
15 Facts for Weight Loss "Newbies"!
Fact 3: Get Ready for Big Changes
To lose weight effectively, you will have to permanently change four aspects of your life: 1.) what you eat. 2.) how you eat 3.) your behavior and 4.) your activity level. Losing weight is hard work. Keeping it off is just as hard ... if not harder.

I don't know about you, but I hardly found this kind of exhortation motivating!

As I said earlier, I was able to get a start on the diet thing by slowly eliminating all the junk food from my life, so that by the time I had my "medical event", all I really had left to do was count calories, and that has turned out to be surprisingly easy.

I had only a few days to come up with a plan that had eluded me for years, but it turns out that fear is the mother of invention, and the whole thing came together by breaking it down into small little peices.
{to be continued}