Unsafe at Any Size

A great article in the Contra Costa Times about fat acceptance.  The article discusses women who appreciate themselves the way they are and who don’t feel they need to lose weight.  I especially liked that they cited a doctor who evaluated his fat patient’s overall health, and didn’t look at fat alone as requiring intervention.

So why is a woman who lost over 100 lbs digging an article about women who have no plans to lose weight?  It’s all about being happy and comfortable in the skin you’re in.  I got a lot of support and help from the fat acceptance movement back in the day.  It said it was ok to be who I was.  It was ok to look after my health, and to exercise.  It was ok to be social, to have dates, and to have self-respect.  It said I didn’t have to apologize for who I was, or make excuses.

When I did start losing weight, it was from a place of self-respect and love, not hatred and shame.  Making major life changes is hard, and it’s even harder if there’s a lot of emotional baggage around what you “should” be doing.

Truth is, most of us never look like we want to look.  And it’s a lot easier to take care of ourselves if we actually care for ourselves, first.  Whatever our size.

Losing weight is easy, right?  Eat less, move more, and you’ll lose weight.  But most of us have absolutely no idea what a portion size is.  I know I didn’t.   My husband and I had to reeducate our selves what a real portion looked like.  To do that, we used a few tools:

1. Pictures of portion sizes.  In the first Weight Watchers book, they show graphically what different portion sizes are.  For example, a tennis ball is about half a cup.  A deck of cards is four ounces.  I ripped those pictures out of the book and taped them to the refrigerator as a constant reminder of what different sizes are, right where I was preparing food.
2. Measuring cups.  You can’t just eyeball food amounts; the best way to know until you get used to it is to use a measuring cup. We would measure the food and then see what it looked like in the bowl or plate.
3. Smaller plates and bowls.  Reasonable servings looked rather lost on our plates, which we had bought with our penchant for large servings in mind. We put away our larger dinner plates and started eating meals on the smaller salad plates.  Our cereal bowls easily held 4 or more cups, so we bought and used smaller bowls.
4. A scale.  It’s hard to measure some foods, like chips.  A scale takes the guesswork out of it, and the temptation to round out the cup a bit… or add a little more after measuring out a cup.

Yes, this all sounds hard.  It WAS hard.  But it’s a lot easier now that I’ve done that work.  And it worked!  The first week, I lost over 6 lbs.

Finding a meeting to join wasn’t hard.  I already knew where the closest Weight Watchers was–right upstairs from the Trader Joe’s, and near the Gymboree.  I could find the times online, which was convenient.

So, one Saturday AM, I simply told my husband to watch the kids… I’m going!

Entering the location the first time was unsettling.  I felt exposed and indignant.  But I went to the counter and chose my subscription option.  I chose to do the autopay, which means you don’t pay for every meeting individually and can use the online tools.  I felt this option was best for me because if I had to pay every time, I’d feel resentful about it, whereas if it was prepaid I’d be “wasting” it if I didn’t go.  They also reassured me that it was easy to discontinue it if desired, though I didn’t get to test that.

The first weigh-in was surprisingly matter-of-fact; no shaming, no humiliation.  It was a number, nothing more.  I received a packet of materials and sat in the meeting room.

I don’t remember the first meeting in particular, but in general they are not salesy, or preachy.  The emphasis was on member-supplied strategies around a program-suggested theme.  Above all, the environment was respectful.

After the meeting, there was an orientation for new members that explained the whole point thing.  For the non-WW crowd, points are the way Weight Watchers measures calories, skewed toward encouraging more fiber and discouraging fat.  Two foods could have the same number of calories but different point values if one had more fiber or less fat than the other.

All of a sudden, it made sense-points weren’t just some gimmicky way of counting calories copyright Weight Watchers, but as a mechanism for subtly encouraging different eating behavior.  You can pick to eat anything you want, but you’re less likely to be hungry if you pick healthier foods.  Let’s say you get 25 points per day.  You can eat a large fries for 13 points (500 calories), or a large baked potato for 4 (275 calories).  Do you want to burn more than half your points for one serving of fries?  Or if you’re dying for the fries, go for the small-at 5 points (230 calories), you’ve got a lot of room left for other food.  It’s not just then the amount of calories, but the quality and variety of sources.

The emphasis is not only on the numeric value of the points, but also on what’s called “healthy checks.”  You are encouraged to not only check points, but check off servings of vegetables, lean protein, healthy oils, etc.-again to encourage a varied diet.  We all know we should be eating more fruits and veggies, but for some reason I was more prone to eat them when I could check off I’d done so.

Armed with lots of literature and way too much information, I launched into my first week.

This post is part of a series on how I got where I am, which is a good place.

In my last retrospective Sunday, I discussed how I decided while I wanted to lose weight and get into better shape, I didn’t want to try weight loss surgery… yet.  I wanted to see if I could reduce the food I ate without that.

I’m pretty surprised I tried Weight Watchers.  I’m not a joiner, and heck, I know how to lose weight!  Why, I’ve been doing it all my life!  The whole weigh-in procedure seemed humiliating, and then a meeting with a bunch of fat people talking about not eating… what could be more boring?  And how would I find the time?!?  I am a full-time working mother whose twin boys were then 4, and I felt guilty for every second I spent away from them.

Here are some of the reasons why I decided to go:

1. I had tried doing the online program alone a few years before.  It worked for a little while, but
2. My doctor recommended the program.  All of you doctors out there who talk to  your patients and feel like they never listen, at least one of us did listen.  My doctor said he went on the program to lose weight himself, and that was a big endorsement, since if anyone knows everything there is to know about weighloss, it’s doctors, right?
3. My husband kept saying he wanted to go.  Why he kept telling me and didn’t go himself, I don’t know.  But I knew it was something he wanted to do, and maybe if I did it he would come along, too.
4. My husband said he’d watch the kids for the hour it took on a Saturday morning.  You’d better believe I took him up on that offer!
5. Weight Watchers did not  have annoying, fat-hating ads.  No humiliating before and afters.  No celebrities.
6. Weight Watchers was relatively low-obligation.  No food you had to buy.  That’s not to say it’s not low commitment; if anything, it is higher commitment than other programs precisely because you do have to think and plan for yourself.
7. The program is based on science, not celebrity testimonials or diet flavors of the week.
8. The program lets you make your own choices.  If you want to do vegetarian Weight Watchers, or high-protein, go for it.
9. Online tools and articles help you educate yourself and receive support.  The online tracker makes it easier to track your food.

It was a big step for me, to go to that first meeting.  I was making a public commitment, not just dieting in secret with the hope I’d surprise everyone (including myself) but not having to deal with failure if I didn’t do it.

I’d be interested in hearing about how others picked the system/diet/whatever they use!

Next Week: Tracking

Once I decided I wanted to lose weight, the next question was, HOW?  I consider myself a reasonably intelligent person, and fairly well-read on all things diet.  One could even consider me a diet expert, given the number of times I’d been on one.

Granted, the peanut butter diet I tried when I was twelve was not terribly effective.  (The idea: One big spoon of peanut butter a day.  I was supposed to just lick at it all day long).  Fat camp was not fun, and they don’t make fat camps for 40 year olds anyway (do they?).  Hiding food from me or bribing me to lose weight didn’t work out, as my parents discovered.

And as I had read, diets don’t work.  Even the super supervised diets, people only lost a few pounds.  People tended to gain it all back, and then some, after a year or two.

So, I started to think about gastric bypass.  It seemed the easier way out (though I hadn’t at the time read about the horror stories)  I had gotten a small inheritence from my grandmother, who was obsessed with weight her entire life, and it seemed like something she would more than approve of.

So why didn’t I?  Five reasons:

1. I didn’t consider my weight to be life threatening.  Sure, according to the charts, I was “morbidly obese” (don’t you love that term?  It’s like I could expire at any moment!).  But I didn’t have diabetes, high blood pressure, heart issues.
2. Surgery is life threatening.  Even the most benign surgery could have a “negative outcome”.  I had too much to live for–a husband and two kids who needed me.
3. Do I really need to chop up my body to stop eating?  Eating is ultimately something I could control.  I could, if I really tried, stop pushing food into my mouth.
4. What would the long term effects be?  I hadn’t done the research, to be honest, but malabsorbtion of food seemed a real possibility.  What if it came undone?
5. Even with surgery, I’d still have to eat less.  Surgery might make it easier to do so, or it might just make it more inconvenient.  If I didn’t learn life skills, I could see myself as one of those people drinking milkshakes or eating frosting out of the can to get my fix.

It’s not that I had ruled out gastric bypass or banding or another surgical option; it just didn’t seem like the most sensible Plan A.  For me, it would be an attempt at a shortcut.

Now, I don’t doubt that weight loss surgery is the right route for many people.  I know those who have WLS work plenty hard, so no flames, please!   But most try other solutions first.  For me, it was just wishing for something magical that didn’t require any work, and I don’t  believe in magic.

Next week: How I chose Weight Watchers