Do something now

I am once again inspired by Allan at Almost Gastric Bypass. He's on the 4th day of his plan to eat the post-op bypass diet without having had surgery. This morning, he wrote about the frustrating fact that everyone's got an opinion on weight loss and eating, especially when we're trying to do something about it. Why is that?

Allan: "Then there are the people that really piss me off. They read the plan, they read my blog and then they write that the Doctors are wrong and that there is a better way. Invariably, these are fat people. Not 350 and under, but the big folks. Out of fear of missing a meal, or of the trauma of not eating 10,000 calories a day, they attack the plan. Newsflash fatties, put the forks down, stop thinking about losing weight tomorrow and do something. If you believe in lo-fat, go lo-fat. If you believe in lo-cal or lo-carb, do that. If you want to be a Vegan do that. Do something, I approve and we will all support you. Dont bash what I am doing or what surgery patients have done, because you are scared or hungry. You don't need all the food and you will not drop dead from not eating for a couple of weeks."

Aside from the fact that I thought this was very cute ~ "these are fat people. Not 350 and under" ~ why do we try to discourage one another? Obesity, morbid obesity, they're life-threatening problems. One would think we'd all be excited and inspired by the prospects of someone else defeating this problem, but for the most part, we're not unless we're in a losing mode too. I think there may be a bit of "oh dear, if they can do it I can too and that means I'm going to have to put away this bag of chips and these donuts and take some action."

I remember with shame my own behavior with a very chubby woman living across the hall from me in my first apartment in Tulsa. On the rare occasions she'd get it together to eat right, I would make every effort to sabotage her. I was thin, but still food obsessed, still in the bulimic phase of this plague of food addiction. I wish I could take it back. At 23, I had no idea what was really going on or how my addiction would progress. My thought was that thinness = being okay. It took a while before I got it: that a life spent obsessing, planning, eating, trying to control, and dealing with the after-effects of food is no life at all.

I remember another epiphany/moment of clarity which occurred when I heard an acquaintance behind me at a meeting telling someone else that she'd lost 65 pounds. I turned to look at her and admire the results and to ask the eternal question of the compulsive eater: "how did you do it." Still waiting, of course, for the truth, the magic, the switch that will turn this off, the overnight shrinking fat-carving pill, drink, tape, book, class, whatever that will just make this go away. She said "oh, I went to a doctor and got these pills, phentermine." My heart sank and my first thought was "I can't do that." Instantly thereafter, my thought was "yes I can." I did, lost 80 pounds, did nothing beyond taking the pills and starving and then my husband got sick and I ate at the sorrow and the stress of it for two years.

For me, the only answer has been the intervention I took last July of a liquid diet which lasted for seven months and exercise and now paying attention to what I eat and making myself accountable by writing it down. I believe we'll each find our own plan if we want this thing ~ a healthy, fit lifestyle free of excess food and the obsession that comes along with eating and weight gain and wanting to be thinner and still eating. I refuse to criticize the plan of another whether it's Weight Watchers or gentle eating or pills or surgery or Allan's creative and fascinating plan. The key is to do something, to take Step Zero of OA and put the food down. Do something. Do it today.