No More Diets

O.k., I have to admit, I spent so many of my teen years exercising and the last two decades caring or trying not to care about my weight that I find myself about as ill-informed about nutrition, exercise and health as I am about anything. I actually know more about attachment theory, trauma recovery, sea glass collections and financial planning as I do about what to ingest and how often to move mass which houses me.

 

I have a friend who has told me about Body for Life for years. Exercise ONLY 20 minutes in some special way. I didn’t believe it. It had worked for her. I still didn’t believe it. I know someone who has lost more than 100 pounds on that plan. Still, strange, it just seemed strange.

 

I have another friend and she has sworn up and down about a series of workouts called The Firm. A little cardio fat blast, a little muscle building and she swears a new body shape transforms. She makes it sound so fast that you could change your body from the time you put on fresh underwear today til the very time you do the same in a few weeks.

 

Skeptical. Whatever. I was done with exercise tapes. It’s not that I don’t have the weights. I have weights to walk with, weights for watching t.v., weights in 5 and 7 and 10 and 15 and 20 lbs. pairs. O.k., some of them aren’t mine but they are in my house and my husband shares well. Still, I wasn’t going to actually use them often.

 

Get this… apparently, exercise is not optional for good health. Even skinny people with no body fat and not a sign of a roll or pudge are seen at my gym. I want to ask them, “Why are you here? If I were you I would not be here.” I do not believe, not really, that people actually enjoy exercise. O.k., I believe they believe it when they say it and there are certainly things I despise less than others. But even in yoga I’m practically panting, when not totally in the present moment, to get to the five minute corpse pose at the end of class where the teacher talks in soothing tones.

 

But, here I am today, wiping sweat off of my forehead, doing cardio which the book I’m reading can’t be bothered going into. The book, Get Stronger, Feel Younger by Wayne Westcott (who runs this program at the Y) is talking endlessly about weight lifting. Really, he makes it sound like magic, as though with two work-outs a week, you can be firm, tone and have a higher metabolism and a lower body fat percentage in just ten weeks. He’s pretty convincing. I’m on day one of week three and I’ll keep you posted. My focus is on building muscle and eating while awake. No more before-bed dips into the peanut butter jar, no second serving of a snarfed down meal while at the keyboard. When I found it time-saving to eat breakfast while showering one morning I knew I hit bottom and that more than multi-tasking was at work.

 

I’m done with diets. The book I’m reading makes diets seem like an evil fat-producing system that actually slows the metabolism so that when one returns to normal eating they gain weight. I still don’t know the science behind Body for Life and Get Stronger, Feel Younger. I’m willing to try new things, to focus on fitness and form instead of counting calories and pounds. I’m skeptical though. I just am. Call me a little unenthusiastic because I’m just not willing to wage war with my body, to have the dinner plate be a battle ground and to feel bad about half of what I put in my mouth. I only want to wonder, “Is this nutritious?” and lose the, “I’m being so good (or bad)” and just maybe have eating be about eating.  Wouldn’t that be a long overdue relief.

 

My daughter asked if our cat was fat yesterday morning. She’s put on some weight. The cat I mean. But this emphasis on weight and not health is not good for anyone, not a grown woman and certainly not a little girl. I’m gonna be all about the fitness, the form and maybe the Firm workouts. I’m going to that place I’ve heard of where people are grateful for the mobility, the flexibility, the feet that carry our bodies and the arms that hug and hold. I am strong, the type of woman you ask to help move furniture, who can carry four grocery bags in and still manage the keys. I am blessed. Big and strong and mobile. No more complaining about lumps, flab or fat.