Diets I have Known

I think it’s impossible to go through a lifestyle change and not talk about it on my blog, especially for me because I have so much tied up in having to be thin to succeed in relationships with men. I know a lot of this is simply what goes on in my own mind because there are plenty of people who stay happily married even after one or both of them gains a lot of weight. Unfortunately this has not been my experience with partners or within my family. My friends love me no matter what I weigh, but I don’t love me and that is what really matters. I wish I could accept myself fat and maybe I could, but my body just won’t accept it anymore and so here I am at the end of one month on yet another diet. I was surprised when I got on the scale this morning and found I had lost 18.4 pounds, I also have lost 2 inches from my chest, and 4 inches from my hips and waist. I also have found that I can now pull my jeans down without unbuttoning them, the hallmark of any good weight loss measure. In the past I have actually had my pants fall down around my ankles while I was walking. See I hate tight or even snug jeans and over the years I have noticed that even though you can zip them up you may not be able to sit down in them and there is no way I can go through my day in gut crushing jeans. So I wear my clothes loose, and I wear em lose until the fall off. It’s not very fetching, but I feel better that way.

So Yesterday I was sitting around lamenting my past failures and in the process I decided to see if I could remember every single diet I was ever on. I decided to categorize by age to the best of my ability.

10 or 12?

The Daddy Diet

16 ~ 20 (weight 120-130)

1. The Amphetamine Diet
2. Weight Watchers

25~40 (weight 130 to 150 to 199)

1. The Cocaine Alcohol Amphetamine Starvation Diet
2. The Protein Shake Diet
3. The Neuropsychology of Weight Control
4. The T-Factor Diet
5. The Rice Diet
6. The Atkins Diet
7. Fit or Fat
8. Fit for Life
9. Anything By Geneen Roth and had a dubious flirtation with fat acceptance.
10. Love Yourself Thin
11. Colon Cleansing

40’s (weight 169 to 189 to 199 to 225)

1. The Rice Diet
2. The Master Cleanse
3. The Protein Shake Diet
4. The Atkins Diet
5. The Raw Food Diet
6. The All Fruit Diet
7. A Raw Food Coach
8. Colon Cleansing
9. The Cancer Detox
10. The Detox Diet
11. The Grape Cure
12. The Fat Flush Program
13. Neandrathin
14. Weight Watchers
15. Another dubious flirtation with Fat Acceptance
16. Overeaters Anonymous

The most prolific weight loss I have ever experienced was when I did The Master Cleanse. I don’t feel like being specific about measurements right now, but let’s just say all you consume all day long for as long as you can stand it is a lemonade drink. I did that for 28 days straight while exercising 2 hours a day and I lost 30 lbs. Amazingly I kept that weight off for 6 months and it was an all time low in my 40’s of 170 lbs. I am not too sure what my actual weight was by year because I became a scale avoider and would not go near one and I would not let my doctor weigh me saying I had an eating disorder. So those records are gone forever.

I suppose I really do have an eating disorder because dieting has been such a big part of my life and now at the ripe old age of 46 I have to come to terms with what food and eating mean to me, and how important it is for me to stuff myself full of food to help alleviate my pain, the pain that has been with me for as long as I can remember and the food that has been with me to comfort me in my grief. I think a lot people can relate to what I am going through and I think when I was younger I used other things to sedate me like, drugs and alcohol and sex and men. So I never really learned how to eat properly or take care of myself properly because I only cared about being thin so I could attract guys, it had the side benefit of making me feel better in my skin, but the immediate gratification of eating always felt so much better than the long term maintenance of a diet. For most of the diets I have listed, I didn’t stay on any one of them for more than 28 days and some didn’t last more than 2 or 3 weeks. I actually gained weight on Weight Watchers every time I did it gaining 8 pounds in 2 weeks the first time, but I liked the idea of having support and having to be accountable to someone other than myself. I have been toying with the idea of going back to OA, but I so don’t like it.

Anyway, I finally feel like I am learning new eating habits and I am being monitored by a physician. I am also preparing my own meals rather than living on take out and I am getting the hang of it. I also am feeling much better than I have in years. My mind is clear. I have a lot of energy and my clothes are getting baggy. I think there is hope for me yet! The one thing I know, really know is consistency is key and even when I lose all of the weight I will still always have to be ever vigilant over my eating behavior, it is what it is. Like my dependency on men, my dependency on food has got to stop or nothing I do will work. For me it’s that or a daily injection and that is one dependency I have no interest in pursuing.