Wednesday, March 1, 2023


Let’s talk about diets. Because honest, they crack me up.

When I was a kid, my family teased me about how SMALL I was. They called me Lilli, short for Lilliputian. My mom took pictures of me in boot boxes. I can still remember at 14, my brother called me fat pig, as evil brothers are wont to do. I was horrified and immediately weighed myself. 73 lbs. Ah, the good old days…

I'm planning to get back to this weight.

But I’ve struggled with my weight ever since. I can look back and clearly see the gradual pileup that started not long after those early waif days. I first got pregnant at 20 and gained an amazing amount of weight—it was the brief period in history when “natural” pregnancy meant you don’t track or worry about your weight. Just eat your bulgur and black beans (and Hostess cupcakes, Butterfingers, backalley McDonald’s fries, Goodrich Butterscotch malts, etc.) whenever baby makes you hungry. Then, I had two more pregnancies, each adding to the packing-on.

My eventual divorce added more. A rough perimenopause and depression diagnosis in my 40s added more. A stroke at 56 meant a smorgasbord of meds for the first time, and—you guessed it—med-induced poundage. The stroke impaired my mobility for a few years, so little or no exercise, and yep, more weight. Then came the inevitable Type 2 diabetes diagnosis after 10 years of being “pre-diabetic.” And yes, I’m an emotional eater and will admit I have eaten my way through it all.

Too bad this ideal body type didn't stick
.
It wasn’t all just foraging, stuffing, binging, and reckless eating, though. Starting in my 30s, I’ve also tried every diet, “lifestyle choice,” and “eating plan” known to humankind: KETO, WW, cabbage soup, Mediterranean, Atkins, macrobiotic (sprouts and brown rice for a month), Eat Like a Bear (fast all day, bigass salad for dinner), Whole 30, Medifast, Profile, vegetarian, clean, dirty, Paleo, and plain old fasting (which I like to call starvation).

I’ve tried the prescription weight loss/diabetes meds. At one point, I consulted a bariatric surgeon, fully ready to go under the knife and hack my stomach into a tiny shrunken ball, but he said I wasn’t fat enough…yet. I could come back in 6 months and try again. I’m telling you, my diet ladder has been a comical Escher painting, where I just keep ending up back where I started.

Sometimes I worked out, sometimes I didn’t. I walked. I did yoga. I rode bikes. I swam. Sometimes I took supplements, sometimes I didn’t. I’ve counted points, calories, carbs, sugars, I’ve eaten “green” foods and avoided “red.” I’ve jabbed myself daily to check my ketones. I currently jab myself weekly with a new wonder drug for diabetes that’s supposed to also be a trendy weight-loss drug. I’ve lost a pound. But it IS keeping my glucose under 110.

I’ve been to an endocrinologist, I’ve done metabolism testing, I’ve had acupuncture, I’ve practiced using the law of expectation (The Secret), meditation, visualization. I’ve used food journals, wall charts, self-rewards, kitchen scales to measure portions. I’ve plastered my house with weight-positive affirmations. I’ve cleaned out my pantry, fridge, and freezer so many times and given away so much food, my kids are probably stocked up for life. I haven’t tried hypnosis, but my friend did and found it unhelpful—just before her bariatric surgery.

Throughout this decades-long obsession with what goes in my mouth, well-intentioned friends, family, and others seem unperturbed by what comes OUT of theirs. Like the total stranger in Walmart who accosted me recently in the Slim Fast aisle with her “just eat less and exercise more” dribble. Gosh, I’ve never thought of that before, thanks!

“Just be mindful and think about what you eat,” someone else told me. So, I just need to think MORE about my weight and eating habits than the 24/7/365 I already spend thinking about it? Gee, thanks! Most of these do-gooders have never struggled with weight. Most of them will go home and eat 6 slices of toast piled with gooey, sugar-laden jelly. O gawd, the carbs! Dear, dear skinny people: We fat people think about our fat all the time, whether we’ll admit it or not. Every time we eat, pass a mirror, go to the doctor and have to step on a scale, try on clothes. ALL. THE. FECKING. TIME.

One of my theories about my weight dilemma is genetics. It’s no coincidence, I believe, that at 50, I was shaped exactly like my mother at 50, or my maternal grandmother at 50. I was positively svelte compared to my paternal grandmother at 50. My mother used to joke that the women in my family are “keepers,” which meant we like to hold on tight to our fat.

This HAS to work, right?

Here’s an interesting one: a psychic once told me I was being influenced in this life by a past life in ancient China where, as a man, I gave away everything I had in order to care for the poor in my village, and I eventually starved to death. So maybe my present-life self has just been saying, nope, never again.

Another theory of mine is that my body decided long ago, probably at birth or before, what it wanted for its ideal adult weight, then it got me there. No matter what I did, my body took a straight and steady path to its ideal weight. And by gum, it’s determined to stay there.

I’ve been at roughly the same weight now for about the last 7 or 8 years, during which I’ve dieted, taken up kayaking, tried a program of daily, long “good old Irish walks” (if you ask Irish folks for directions, they’ll say, aw, it’s just a 10-minute walk, no matter how far the destination), and put in miles and many stairs just doing daily laundry and housework.

I’m currently back on the KETO wagon for a number of reasons, and I feel so carnivorous, I think I might be growing fangs and fur. But I’m doing it again because the science makes sense to me—your body will burn carbs if it can. If you don’t give your body any carbs, it will burn fat (including the fat you’re already storing on your lovely, ample butt and hips). If you give it both, it will burn the carbs and store every bit of fat you eat (for later, when you might have to run from a saber tooth tiger). So, you can’t SORT OF do KETO. You either kick the carbs or you don’t.

Also, I get some pretty instant gratification. It only takes about a month on KETO for me to see lower A1C and glucose, better cholesterol numbers, a fabulous drop in triglycerides, and more energy. Unlike many KETO fans, though, I don’t lose much weight, although my daily calories seldom go over 1200.

Spring is coming. Ray heard robins this week, which he says means one more snow, then green grass! I will sashay my fat arse out there soon and resume my good old Irish walks. We’ll haul out the kayaks. I’ll pack buttered turkey legs, grassfed beef jerky, and cream cheese dip (you need to eat LOTS of fat on KETO) in my backpack. I’ll go to the beach in a swimsuit. I’ll cherish and admire and respect my fat family and friends. I won’t tell them how great they’ll feel if they lose weight. I won’t tell the ones who do lose weight how beautiful/handsome/fit they look (with its unspoken you looked like total sheit before). And I will keep trying to love this wonderful, lumpy, magical, very large body I’m in.

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