Learning to Lose

            I refuse to use the word diet.  The term lifestyle changes suits me better.   Unfortunately, losing or gaining is always easier than maintaining.

            Gaining, of course, is the easiest course of all because it means multiple courses to each meal and sweet or savory snacks in between.   There is a certain mindlessness to gaining:  I don’t mind what I eat, just give me more.  And gaining is never fair, even though it plays by the rules (eat more calories than you burn and you’re sure to gain).  Despite what the experts say about new habits taking 21 days to learn, that never works for me.  After day 21 and after a few pounds have dropped off, I begin to feel immune to weight gain.  That cinnamon roll won’t hurt me.  One more scoop of ice cream and I’ll quit.  Though I need not mention where this supposed immunity leads, my skinny jeans are getting tighter by the second.

            Losing, of course, is not exactly easy because it involves retraining and refraining.  It’s taken about a year, but I now find that a bowl of fresh blueberries or a couple handfuls of sugar snap peas make a delicious, guilt-free snack when I get the munchies in the evening.  Often, as I prepare dinner, I munch on whatever raw vegetable I am chopping, a much better approach than sampling the casserole to make sure it’s seasoned right or hot enough or needs more cheese.  However, the refraining part, which starts in the grocery store, never gets easy.  I cannot buy anything chocolate or sweet in any quantity other than one single small serving at a time because I have zero willpower.  That, naturally, excuses my occasional lapses at Whidbey Coffee or church fellowship hour.  Learning to just say no to hunger is challenging even though it leads to fewer curves in the wrong places.  But when I am losing, there are delicious moments that make up for my growling stomach:  discovering that the smaller jeans now fit or watching the weight drop on the scales at the doctor’s office.

            The goal, I understand, is to reach an ideal weight and then maintain it.  I would settle for maintaining a less than ideal weight.  Maintenance requires mindfulness:  lots of continuing attention to detail.  It never comes naturally.  My most recent idea is to stretch instead of munch, or at least stretch first.  I could gradually extend the stretches and add in some isometrics.  Maybe eventually I could exercise.  That way, even if I am not successful at distracting myself from snacking, I’d at least be slightly more fit.   Weight maintenance reminds me of treading water—lots of effort to simply stay afloat.

            Writing this has made me feel a little better after yesterday’s lapse with a perfectly good vegetable—pumpkin.  (The bread was delicious and the custard even better.)  At least I know what I’m doing wrong.  However, I also need to remember that there is no vaccination against weight gain and that hollow, empty feeling in the pit of my stomach is my friend.  What I really want is to be a good loser.