Everybody knows how to lose weight. You eat less. You move more. The bathroom scale digits tell you – you’ve won. At least for a while.
Because I’m SUCH a genius and know the foolproof formula for losing weight, I’ve managed to gain at least five pounds a year for the past ten years, punctuated by extreme diet losses of up to 20-lbs that all eventually found the way back to my hips.
When I worked in a newsroom we joked there are one bag of Cheetos’s stories and there are three bags of Cheetos’s stories – all washed down with Diet Coke.
When I was covering breaking news, by the weekend it was time to let my hair down and enjoy a few beers, or seven.
And meal planning? M-E-A-L planning?
Doesn’t that sound like something Aunt Bea worries about? Certainly Aunt Bea made lists of seasonal fruits and vegetables to combine and cook and place next to roasted chicken or lean meat or even – that smelly stuff – fish!
You’re supposed to eat fish, right?
But not me. I was too busy. I was also usually too shaky from not eating properly to give any thought to where my next meal was coming from. Actually, I was regularly pretty light-headed most of the time and certainly too busy to plan a week’s worth of shopping, chopping and actually eating.
So, six weeks ago, while I was minding my own business at my very nice health club, (the club I think of as a great place to use the bathroom while shoe shopping), I saw a sign-up table for new groups forming. What caught my attention was a one-hour ‘Meet the Nutritionist’ opportunity. A free one-hour Meet the Nutritionist opportunity.
Little did I know that by simply writing my name on that blank form I would actually come face-to-face with my diet demons. It was the first I actually thought about what I eat and why.
Because I’m such a GENIUS, after the free meeting I didn’t sign up for any help or counseling. I figured, it’s worth a story and instead of facing the personal work I needed to do; I wrote a story about my future nutritionist – blowing my fee on stockpiling movie candy.
But something about The Bossy Nutritionist got me thinking. What WAS up with the way I ate? I can’t even say, “fed myself” because I wasn’t ever feeding myself. I was eternally serving snacks.
I had been running on French fry fumes my whole life.
Why was I eating like a five-year-old at a cocktail party? Why did I love that Sunday evening sound of big dinner plates clacking when I pulled them down but hate the idea of eating anything nutritious ON a big dinner plate?
Coincidentally, in mid-June I woke up one day and stopped drinking Diet Coke, which had been my coffee, my milk, and my water for nearly 40 years.
It seemed like I was ready to surrender my bad habits, illogical behavior and insatiable desire for Lay’s Barbecue potato chips.
But I couldn’t do it alone. I needed a wingman and The Bossy Nutritionist was up for the challenge.
Coming up next Sunday: Why Chocolate Doesn’t Fill You Up
Rayne Wolfe is a former New York Times regional newspaper reporter, a past 8womendream.com contributor and hosts Toxic Mom Toolkit on Facebook, a community for women who have grown up sane and happy despite toxic parenting.
You can reach her at newsyrayne@gmail.com.
Rayne has been collecting women's stories for a long time. Each one is a story of survival and strength. And really, it's the very last family taboo, isn't it? With a birth mother (alley-cat), adoptive mother (glamor girl/cheater) and step-mother that she actually adores, honey, she's got the material but no one willing to hold a gun to her head every day and make her type. From time to time you will find Rayne sharing her dream wisdom here at 8 Women Dream.
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