Taking in the Shame Suit

I've been eating pretty well this week. I live most of my life in service of food, but every so often something inside me switches and I take control back. It doesn't take much for that switch to reverse again, but there are things I can do to keep that from happening, or at least postpone it.

I've lost about ten pounds so far, which feels like a bigger deal than it is. Because the numbers on the scale are finally going down it's surprisingly easy to forget that thinner isn't the same as thin and I have to stop myself from trying on the clothes I have in the guest bedroom closet--the ones I save for a skinny day.

But here's the thing: all the things I've said before about being overweight being like alcoholism remain true. The first time I lost weight--in the summer of '83, I believe--I realized that food occupied an enormous amount of brain space. I thought about food about as often as most teenagers think about sex. But when I lost weight, that didn't change, the target for that expenditure of energy changed. Instead of thinking about eating, I thought about NOT eating. Constantly. If that sounds sustainable to you, think about which one is more fun: deprivation of satisfaction of desire.

I'll admit that there aren't many more fulfilling things in this world than losing weight. It's so powerful that it sometimes overpowers the need to eat and allows you to control unhealthy desires. But there's a reason weight loss has a rate of recidivism over 90 percent: losing is really different from maintaining. Once you've caught your prey, after months of relentless chasing, now what?

Our nation's weight problem, or "the obesity epidemic," as the media have hyperbolically dubbed it, is a really hot topic right now. Some shows push for acceptance--See, we're just like you!--while others demonize it and publicly humiliate people who need help. The latter shows, like "The Biggest Loser," all treat weight loss as a journey with a specific destination. They do talk about lifestyle changes and all that, but these people are put into completely artificial situations in which weight loss is THE focus of their lives. It's all they work toward, it's all they're allowed to think about. No work, no home life, nothing but personal trainers screaming at you and pressure to lose weight on national television. Of course these people lose weight--lots of it. And then the credits roll and they have to go back to their lives and somehow apply those new behaviors in a completely different environment. I'd be very surprised if most of them weren't right back where they started in five years. Emotionally, that transition from losing to maintaining is a bitch.

The first time I lost weight, I did it the worst possible way: by starving myself and then by eating only the things you're supposed to cut out of your diet. The second time I did it the right way, by eating right and exercising. Both efforts ended the same way.

So here we are at Serious Attempt #3. I don't know how long this will last or how much weight I'll lose, but this feels real, and I intend to keep it going as long as I can. Because, at the end of the day, I would love nothing more than for my weight to be a non-issue in my life. It has defined me for so long and I like my life so much better when it doesn't.

-Doug