From the Frying Pan

I read an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal entitled The Death of the Diet (page R8 Thursday, January 2022).

The author describes the frustration of people who are sick of dieting and tired of failing. They are sick of being shamed for carrying excess weight and tired of the culture’s narrow picture of health which has been strung up in a beach body string bikini, BMI of 21… or less.

I get it. Health is more than BMI. Fad diets do not work.

I get it because I hear it every day from the clients we serve at Oregon Weight and Wellness.

I get it because I have lived it.

I was fourteen when I began my dieting career. Looking back, I was not even overweight. My BMI was 22. But I thought I was overweight because I was short waisted, had more muscle and more hips than my friends at the time, and therefore looked stockier than their taller, lankier, drink of water bodies.

Let’s see. My first diet was the cabbage soup diet. Remember that one? And all the weight loss it promised? I was sure I could be successful because there was a half a cup of vanilla ice cream on day three or something like that.

Well, little did I know, I hated cabbage soup. So that diet lasted all of two minutes.

Over the years of eating the Standard American Diet, bereft of essential nutrients and loaded with unessential antinutrients which made my cells unwell, I experienced slow steady weight gain, crossing back and forth into the overweight BMI category through my 30s and camping out there by age 40.

So, I did what every normal, red-blooded American does: counted calories, overly restricted, and started hating life.

I wanted rules and I wanted results. Immediate results. Thank you very much. Whatever the diet gurus who promised the most results at the time said to do or buy, I did it. If they said eating fat made me fat, I cut out fat. I bought low fat bars and shakes and meal replacements complete with pictures of the skinny woman I would magically become if I bought that particular brand.

I recall a visit to that haven of all nutrition knowledge, that emporium of rapid weight loss gimmicks: Wal Mart.  As I stood in line, my cart loaded with the bars and supplements and artificially sweetened candies, a friend I hadn’t seen in 20 pounds strolled up behind me and made small talk. How have you been? How are the kids? As she was rifling off the usual questions, I could see her eyes darting back and forth looking at me then looking at the items in my cart. With her eyebrows raised and her lips pursed, she held back her true questions. I felt humiliated. I never made that mistake again.

I never made that mistake again because the next trip I made for dieting fare was to the Wal Mart 30 miles away in a town where I did not know a soul.

I tried Slim Fast, Atkins, South Beach, and Weight Watchers. I tried challenges at work, at church, at home.   And up and down and back up went my weight. Up went my weight and down went myself image.

In 2014 I listened to a lecture by Dr. Robert Lustig which changed my life. Among other concepts, he introduced me to the idea that a calorie is not a calorie. And American calories have been hacked.

I came to understand that the Standard American Diet that I was eating from the time I left my parents’ house and lived on my own was not really food. It was ultra-processed, hyperpalatable, brain hijacking chemicals and food like substances. OK not all of it, but over 50% of it was. This standard American diet I was eating for years had caused my cells to become dysfunctional and caused me to be hungrier, overeat, and gain weight.

With dieting, I went from the frying pain into the fire. My brain could never escape the overstimulation of sugar, artificial sugar, salt, or seed oils that were scientifically engineered into the diet foods in order  to make them taste good or at least good enough to have the appearance of a reasonable  substitute for the pizza or whatever I was craving at the time but was white knuckling to avoid.

So why was I still feeling so deprived? Why was I never satisfied?

Because packaged, processed  food whether part of a diet or not, never satisfies. It can’t. It is not designed to satisfy. It is designed to make me want more. And I was in its grip.

Having dieted for over 35 years, at almost 50 years old, I rediscovered what I really wanted. Freedom.

Freedom from the clutches of processed food and freedom to be able to choose the real food that heals and not harms.

Why is that so hard?

Because I have been conditioned by a culture to want to eat the foods that don’t serve me well and ultimately are harmful to my health. Afterall, “ I deserve a break today.” “ I can have it my way. “I can have my cake and eat it too.” When I eat what I have been brainwashed to think I want to eat, my body does not function properly. And I might not gain weight right away, but I will eventually. Everybody will. Nobody can eat packaged food and stay healthy even if they have a normal BMI.

Without the tainting of the standard American diet, my brain and body want real food.  

That is the truth that sets us free.

Real food. Real food like beef and salmon and eggs. Like Brussel sprouts and kale and cabbage. Like avocados and olives and walnuts. Like berries and lentils and brown rice.  It has taken me eight years to get my brain back, my intuition back, my health back. Oh, I am far perfect in my food choices, but I have retrained myself to prepare, eat, and enjoy real food again.

Real food satisfies because it takes time for it to break down in the stomach, so it naturally reduces the hunger hormone made in the stomach. It takes time for the micronutrients to be absorbed in the small intestine, for the small intestine to release messages to the brain instructing the brain that it is full and satisfied.  Real food establishes a healthy gut microbiome which is essential for immune function, mental health, and weight regulation. Real food does all that and more. It sets you free from dieting.

Do you want to be free from dieting? Get out of the frying pan. And stay out of the fire.

At OWW, we offer an intuitive eating group and we help you learn how to want real food. To find out more, give us a call 971-273-7143