Food and Our Lives

Fast weight loss is every obese person’s dream diet, but when I introduce my new clients to my proven plan they panic when I tell them they must eat to succeed. This is something I actually understand. When I weighed 256 pounds and was so depressed I was worried for my safety, I found a naturopath who would run the blood tests I wanted to see if my liver was to blame. After giving her my medical and dieting history and explaining why I felt it was my liver causing the problems she agreed to let me do things my way. I thought I had convinced her. Nine months later when I had lost 136 pounds and returned for the final blood work that would prove my liver theory, she shared with me her first impression. She had written in her notes: “Patient views food as poison.”

We both laughed at that, but it was not far from the truth. Not just for me, but as I have learned from helping so many other obese women it is a common theme among the obese. None of us feel that we can trust food because we cannot trust ourselves with it. It has been the cause of all our weight problems, not actual food, but our unhealthy relationship with it. For this reason we come to fear it.

The problem is that for those of us who have grown up with obesity the idea of how to eat like a normal person is outside our realm of understanding . We only know two modes of eating: dieting and overeating. The only time we seem to be able to control our eating is when on a structured diet, but that structure soon becomes a prison and we run to our other method of nutrition, the one that keeps us obese. Food has just never worked for us.

One of the first things that becomes very clear when new obese clients start my program, and what they actually all voice is: “I don’t know how to eat like a regular person.” When I tell them I want them to eat 1800 calories their first two weeks to find out what their true maintenance diet will look like, their eyes pop, their voices quake, and they stammer: “1800 calories, that is insane. I will gain weight.” It takes me a while to convince them otherwise.

I check their food every day. The first week is always predictable. The food logs are packed with diet type foods in quantities that wouldn’t satisfy a child. The calories rarely come close to the 1800. For that matter they rarely reach 1500. When I start to question the choices they actually defend the food saying they prefer it to other “real” food. After a long lecture on what we are trying to accomplish the second week is better, but it still takes a while to get them to give in to foods they feared all their lives and to eat enough to feel sated before leaving the dinner table.

I don’t believe there is anyone diet that works for everyone. We all have different likes and dislikes and our bodies react to certain foods in both positive and negative ways. Some of us do better with low fat, some thrive on higher fats. Some of us are insulin resistant with some foods spiking our blood sugar while others can eat what they want. We also have different appetites that dictate if we are grazers or three meal a day type of eaters. There is no one right or wrong way to eat. Yet most obese men and women feel they have to conform to dieting standards which have always been about deprivation and obsession.

That fear of eating that has been hammered into us all these years has to be tackled. The only way to do that is to eat. Sounds simple enough, but in my experience I have found it is harder to get people to eat then it is to get them to diet. Why? Because all we know is deprivation or guilt.

When I start a new client on this program, their first week proves how true the above statement is. They eat tentatively. The foods tend to come from their dieting history, the amounts minimal. I pick out these dieting foods and ask why they chose to eat them. Their answer is surprising. Not only was the food not satisfying, but oftentimes they ate food they didn’t like because that is what their dieting brain told them was the only acceptable choice. Now, there are diets out there on the market that promote lots of eating choices. They work for some, but the problem is they are small amounts for the calories, and most obese men and women need bigger servings, and when they eat higher fat, sugar, or salted foods, cravings dictate that one serving is never enough. That creates more fear of food, and that fear limits viable choices in their idea of what they can and cannot eat for weight loss. I make it clear, I do not want to see those diet foods in their menu again. Panic ensues.

It is a process, a hand holding to calm their nerves and gain their trust that it is okay to eat food as long as they understand that each choice they make needs to be seen as a whole, and it needs to work with them as a person. Once they see that they really can eat 1800 calories a day without gaining weight they are amazed. Amazed that they are now eating foods they saw as detrimental to their dieting cause, and eating those foods in amounts they find satisfying.

It is this fear of food, this fear of not being able to stick to a diet, this fear that food controls us and not the other way around that keeps the obese obese. Food is neither enemy nor lover. It needs to become a partner in the obese person’s quest for health and well-being.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 21st, 2009 at 9:46 am and is filed under Diet. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.