I have tried many weight loss plans over the last 40 something years, and they have worked for a while, but somehow, I always managed to stop losing weight and ended up putting the weight back on. As a young, overweight teen in the 1970s, my mom and I went to a place called Gloria Stevens, a fitness center where I wrapped a vibrating belt around my butt and stood there while it supposedly vibrated me to thinness, then I would crouch, legs spread, over a machine where bumpy, wooden, rotating dowels thrummed over my inner thighs. Luckily there were other exercises involving dumbbells as well as pilates-like exercise classes. We also had official weigh-ins which held me accountable. I’ve also been a member of Weight Watchers a few times and went to meetings for weigh-ins.
That worked really well, until I stopped losing weight and stopped going, and then gained it back. I did the Atkins diet back in the 1990s, complete with checking my urine to see if I was in ketosis, while eating all the bacon and yummy beefy protein I wanted. I took a lot of flak for that diet as many thought it was unhealthy. I did lose weight on it but eventually decided it wasn’t a long-term solution either. So, my life has basically been a cycle of losing weight, gaining it back, staying overweight until some triggering event motivated me enough to start another weight lost regime.
I know that people repeat unhealthy behaviors if they get rewarded in some way, which may be in some subtle, subconscious manner. So, in contemplating why I was consuming more food than I needed, I considered what ‘reward’ I was looking for in food. I’m not sure that is even the right word but for this weight loss attempt, I tried really hard to think about what I’m trying to accomplish when I eat. Not the noble platitudes type of accomplishments that we should focus on (nutrition, good health, nurturing my body, etc.) but what my eating habit does for me physically, emotionally and psychologically. Along with that, I tried to think about how I would feel if my eating habit changed. Focusing on this helped me to understand my own relationship with food. I think one of the goals of successful weight loss requires us to understand the complexity of our relationship with food. I think everyone’s relationship with food is very unique, because we’ve all lived as children and adults with different experiences with respect to food.
For me, I know my eating habits have nothing to do with the taste or craving for sugar, fats or carbs, nor do I experience a “high” when tasting a certain type of food. I simply want to feel full and satisfied. Having figured that out, the follow up question was: what would happen if I didn’t have enough to eat to feel that? I was honestly surprised to realize that question produced immediate anxiety and fear. This still makes me uneasy as I truly do not understand why I feel this way. It makes no sense to me because at no time in my life have I ever gone without food, been denied food or was threatened with starvation, that I can recall.
We had all manner of food in my childhood home, healthy and unhealthy. In fact, my grandmother stuffed me with all kinds of deserts as a child, kept bowls of Hershey Kisses and Kraft caramels around the house and let me eat what I wanted, to my detriment. I also had unlimited access to food at home. I have yet to unpack this discovery and not sure if I ever will. Maybe it has to do with how safe I felt and how loved I felt at those times I was being stuffed full of food. Maybe I was threatened with no meal at some point as a child and that resonated and stuck with me. Knowing where those feelings come from doesn’t really help if I can’t adjust my eating habits.
According to the CDC website, obesity prevalence in the US was 41.7% in 2017 Adult Obesity Facts | Overweight & Obesity | CDC . This was pre-pandemic. It is unlikely that number decreased during the pandemic, and most likely, increased with the pandemic. The CDC estimated the annual medical cost of obesity in the US is $173 billion in 2019 dollars. We have been told that obesity is a public health crisis - US News and World Report, Obesity in America: A Public Health Crisis, September 19, 2019 Obesity in America: A Guide to the Public Health Crisis (usnews.com) - that we are a nation of fat people. Given these facts about obesity, why do medical professionals avoid discussing obesity with people who are obese?
Yes, it’s a sensitive and emotional topic. But so are cancer and other chronic health issues but those health issues are discussed. Obesity just doesn’t have the same type of urgency, I would guess. If you search the internet for “doctors not talking to patients about obesity” you will find articles offering advice about how to discuss obesity with patients as well as articles talking about the fact that medical professionals avoid talking about it. This silence is still going on today. It needs to stop, and our obesity needs to be discussed in a medical setting.
It’s a hard conversation to have, and unless you are ready to deal with the fact that you are overweight, maybe even obese, and start the work to reverse it, don’t have it. Instead, spend time getting ready to have this conversation and get healthier. Spend time thinking about your eating habits and try to get some clarity about your relationship with food, even if it means that you have to face some painful baggage. Your health is important to more people than you realize.
If this were easy and painless, we’d be a nation of thin people.
(Photo courtesy of Leeloo The First on Pexels)
