How to Really Lose Weight: Part 2

(back to part one of how to really lose weight)

By high school I had discovered coffee and cigarettes, and I do not remember ingesting much else. Maybe chocolate. I was thin - not crazy thin, but weight was not a problem in my world. My parents made fun of me for being thin, said things like I was too skinny to go fly a kite, but I do not remember my peers paying much attention to me. My peers had skewered me in middle school for being really tall, and so the anger from that and some other stuff, combined with a naturally intense personality fueled by nearly illegal amounts of caffeine, nicotine, and techno thrash made me into not such a good target as in middle school. I ignored my parents, and my peers ignored me. I was thin, and I was able to eat pretty much whatever I wanted, which was not a lot.

I found a gym in my freshman year of college, and I liked it. I liked being strong. I had to take a hiatus from being strong after nearly bleeding to death from an ectopic pregnancy -- the recovery time was long and because I had lost so much blood (they skipped a blood transfusion to try to keep me from getting exposed to AIDS) I was frighteningly weak for a few months. I could only walk about 10 minutes at a time, so even getting to classes was hard. But I did recover, and I went back to the gym as soon as possible.

Over the next few years I practiced drinking more and more beer and working longer and longer hours, with occassional trips to the gym and into the woods. Eventually, around age 24, the gym and the woods fell away and there was nothing but drinking and work. By the end of age 26 beer and cigarettes had eclipsed even work, and was about to eclipse life, but I got lucky. I actually realized what was happening (which is unusual when you're that sick), and I let certain powers that be come to the rescue.

That's how I woke up one day about 73 pounds overweight. I had all the good excuses to not lose weight -- stress, no time, no energy, not a lot of money. But some better part of me looked at all that limitation and did not care.

At first I tried to eat better and eat less and walk more. I tried this -- really tried, really exercised restraint -- for 2 months and got NOWHERE. Maybe three pounds. My friends and others said "you may never get it off, you know. You're older now. Stress keeps us fat. Just do what's in front of you right now." But I had the memory of being strong, of being in the woods and being amazed my legs could just keep going, even when I thought I was exhausted and couldn't go any further. I still had this thin whisp of faith that my body could do more than I thought it could, and that it would do it if I could just stop telling myself to fail.

I went to my doctor. I was happy to learn she had been a nutritionist for weight loss issues before she went whole hog and did medical school. She was not terribly alarmed by my weight, but did say she'd like to see me forty pounds lighter. She also told me that if I got below a certain weight (I'll skip specific numbers), she would hospitalize me. I got a fairly stern talk about abusing my body through weight loss, and about how common eating disorders are and how easily I could fall into one. Great. Right out of the gate this woman takes shoots down extreme behavior. My favorite technique! She also told me that weight loss is quite hard, and that I would have to triple my better-eating habits and my exercise.

I started reading magazines like Shape and Self and I started trying to incorporate all the hundreds of weight loss tips they teach. Some of them stuck, some did not. I got a gym membership, and I started rowing and using the eliptical machine 3-4 times a week.

I kept at it. After a month or two of eliptical machine and rowing, I finally picked up a set of weights, and started appearing at body sculpting classes. I increased the intensity on the eliptical machine to the point at which I was actually sweating. I got on the big stair climber and huffed and puffed. I took my first spin class. I started actually eating vegetables, and, after some experimentation, learned I could enjoy them. If I did eat something really cheesy and fattening and wonderful, it was for lunch, not dinner.

After a few months of that I went to the woods again. And after a few hikes I was strong enough again to go out all day. To come home totally spent, blissfully happy and hopeful, and to eat a big meal without guilt (over 12 miles and you get to eat whatever you want), and sleep like a baby.

And that's how I lost the weight. I think it took about a year and a half. I just didn't give up. I just kept the pressure on, day after day after day. The real reason, I think, is the exercise. Because 90 or more minutes of robust workout fixes my head better than a pint of Haagen-Daaz ever will. I always think of exercise as a way to look cute in tight jeans, but really it is a way to feel good and be happy for me. When I'm relaxed and happy, I do not overeat as much. I get way less stressed, and so I get way less tired, and so I have more energy both to do more exercise and to do more life.

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