Chicken Soup for the Dieter's Soul (19 page)

“Well . . . I’m pretty sure I had a mug of hot chocolate while I watched TV. But I didn’t put marshmallows in it.”

“Get your calculator,” I told her, “and let’s crunch some numbers.” I began calling them out while Julie punched buttons. “One-forty for creamer. Two-forty for orange juice. One-fifty for whole milk. Three hundred in the colas. Water, zero. Strawberry wine cooler, two-fifty. Hot chocolate, no marshmallows, one-fifty.”

Julie’s fingers were flying on the calculator keys. When the final sum was displayed, her mouth dropped open. “I drank more than twelve hundred calories yesterday,” she said in disbelief. “That’s almost my total daily allowance. And I didn’t chew a single one of those calories. No wonder the pounds aren’t falling off.”

I put my arm around my friend’s shoulder. “Now that you know what’s wrong, how are you going to fix it?”

“For starters, I’ll study this chart and look for low-calorie alternatives for my beverages. And you can bet that from now on, I’ll write everything in my diary, solid or liquid.”

And that’s just what she did. The big splash of coffee creamer was replaced with a small splash of skim milk. She poured skim milk rather than whole over her cereal, too. She drank no orange juice but ate an orange or half a grapefruit instead. The sugared colas were replaced with bottled water, and a four-ounce glass of dry, red wine took the place of a wine cooler. The hot chocolate was eliminated entirely.

Calories saved? More than eight hundred!

Soon Julie’s body fat really did begin to melt away. By taking in no more than 1,500 calories a day—most of which she tried to consume in nutrient-dense food—and continuing with our walking program, Julie lost almost ten pounds in a month. By the time swimsuit season rolled around, she had reached her weight-loss goal of thirty-five pounds.

To celebrate, she added back some of the “forbidden” treats she missed so much, a soothing mug of hot chocolate—with marshmallows—being at the top of the list. But she is immersed in the habit of keeping a food diary, recording not only what she eats and drinks every day but also how many calories each food or beverage is worth. On the facing page of the diary, she keeps an exercise log. As long as calories consumed don’t exceed calories burned, she knows she’ll maintain the ideal weight she worked so hard to achieve.

And when asked what her favorite beverage is, Julie doesn’t hesitate. “Water,” she says. “Delicious, refreshing and zero calories!”

Jennie Ivey

The Un-Diet

F
ortune and love befriend the bold.

Ovid

“No, Sue, honest, you don’t look fat,” my sister said.

It was the first day of my new job at a local lawn care company and I was in a panic.

“Are you sure?” I turned sideways in front of the mirror and sucked in my stomach. She had to be lying. My skirt was biting into my waistline, and I couldn’t button my jacket. How had those extra pounds gotten there?

I’d always been vigilant about my weight. One careless remark when I was ten years old, “Oh, isn’t she just a cute, chubby thing?” did it. I could read between the lines, f-a-t. Living in a family of skinnies, this certainly wouldn’t do. And so began a lifetime of dieting. The hard-boiled egg diet took me through my preteen years and then it was on to high school with the grapefruit diet. My early career days were marked by the cabbage soup diet—much to the dismay of my coworkers. All of these kept me from being fat. But I needed to be thin. So I experimented with the Target Zone diet, Weight Watchers and the Pyramid diet. And once I even tried fasting.

Just a few carefree months of living diet-free, like the rest of my gal pals, resulted in my present dilemma— starting my new job feeling like a blimp.

I took one last look in the mirror. Drats! The outfit needed something. I know! I quickly knotted a brightly colored scarf around my neck; let them focus on that instead of those holster hips down below. There was nothing else I could do about it now; I grabbed my keys and purse and flew out the door.

As soon as I walked into the office, my boss gave me my first task. “Here Sue, take these notes out into the warehouse and sort them by name. Each lawn specialist has their own labeled slot in the mail center.” She gave me an encouraging smile and went back to typing.

I opened the door and my jaw dropped. There in front of me stood the most handsome guy I’d ever seen. His muscles rippled as he hoisted a huge bag of fertilizer over his shoulder.

I waved.

He grinned.

I felt some chemistry.

I slipped back into the office. “Who’s the cute guy out there with the blond hair?”

“That’s Bruce,” the secretary in the corner said, "and he's dating someone."

From then on, I volunteered to do the notes each day and every other menial job that involved traipsing through “the guy area.” If that meant putting up with the horrid chemical smells in the warehouse, so be it. I got to see Bruce.

I wanted to look my best for him, so every morning I was up at dawn, camouflaging those extra pounds. Black was in, prints were out, and by the time I was done primping, I almost believed I had a chance.

And one day it happened. He sauntered over as I was slipping notes into the slots.

“Hey Sue, what’re you doing Friday night?” Bruce smiled and his tanned face crinkled. This gorgeous guy was really asking me out!

“I’m not sure,” I tried my best to sound nonchalant. “Besides, I heard you’re dating someone.”

“Nah, nothing serious,” he put his hand on the wall behind me, bringing us closer together.

“Well . . .” I hesitated, hoping he couldn’t hear my heart thundering in my chest.

“C’mon, just burgers and a movie,” he pressed, “how about it?”

“Okay,” I said, feeling giddy, “sounds like fun.”

We had a blast together, and he asked me out again. And again. With each date we grew closer, and within a few weeks we were an item. I was enjoying myself so much I forgot to worry about weight, exercise or that much hated four-letter word: d-i-e-t.

About a month later, Bruce came over to meet the family. It just happened to be the day my younger sister was going to the prom. She looked gorgeous as she drifted down the stairs in a swirl of peach silk, her blonde hair cascading around her shoulders. I looked at Bruce, who obviously agreed; his mouth hung open as he watched her sweep into the room.

I looked from my thin, beautiful sister to my great-looking boyfriend, and I wanted to disappear. What did he see in a chubbette like me anyway?

I pasted a smile on my face until my sister left for the dance. Then I clomped downstairs to the family room, threw myself on the sofa and bawled my eyes out.

“Hey, what’s the matter?” Bruce sat next to me and pushed my bangs back, trying to look into my eyes. “What are you crying for?”

“I–I–I’m ssssooo fat,” I turned away from him. “Why are you dating me anyway? You don't belong with someone that looks like me. My sister's more your type,” I blubbered.

“Sue, your sister is a real cute kid, but she’s way too young for me. Besides, she’s not my type—you are, and I think you’re beautiful.”

I turned over as tears continued to dribble down my face.

“But I have to lose this extra w-w-weight. I feel so fat and ugly-y-y-y. I don’t know what you see in me.” All the pain I’d experienced feeling like the chubby one in my thin, perfect family washed over me.

Bruce gathered me in his arms and just held me.

Then I felt something wet trickling down my neck. Puzzled, I pulled away and looked at Bruce. He was crying with me!

“I don’t ever want to hear you call yourself fat or ugly again. No one talks that way about the woman I love, and I love you just the way you are.” He leaned in and our tear-streaked faces met in a tender kiss. That was the moment I fell in love with Bruce.

Two months later, he slipped an engagement ring on my finger and on bended knee asked me to be his wife.

Dreams of a fairy-tale wedding filled my head, starting with my dress—I had to find the perfect gown. Too bad there isn’t time for just one more diet, I thought longingly, but with the wedding only six months away, it wasn’t possible. I visited every bridal salon within a thirty-mile radius, searching for the ideal style to flatter my fuller figure. I tried on every type of wedding dress imaginable, until I finally found it—the gown of my dreams.

“Can you wrap it up?” I asked as I gazed at the white confection of beaded satin and delicate lace.

“Oh no, miss,” she said. “We’ll keep it here since you’ll have to come in for several fittings between now and the wedding.”

She was right. But, surprisingly, at every fitting, the seamstress had to take my gown in, not let it out. “Are you on one of those new liquid diets?” she asked as she marked the alteration with straight pins.

“No,” I said. Funny, I hadn’t even thought about dieting. Come to think of it, my clothes were looser lately. And I couldn’t recall the last time I’d stepped on a scale.

Eight weeks later, on a perfect June day, I slipped into my wedding dress feeling radiant. I floated down the aisle thinner than I’d ever been. I beamed at my husband-to-be, waiting for me by the altar, and I knew it was all thanks to him. Bruce loved me just as I was, and that was the only diet I ever needed.

Susan A. Karas

It Takes Community

L
et’s take the bouldering mistakes of the past,
And the road-blocking challenges of the present,
And build them into stairs that support our
climb into the future.

Mattie J.T. Stepanek

Tears collected in the corners of my eyes as I crossed the threshold. They spilled down my cheeks as I unbuckled my sandals and stepped, barefoot, onto the scale. Biting my trembling lower lip, I tried to smile at the group leader’s sympathetic face. I then slumped into a plastic chair next to my friend, Ursi, who had nudged me through the door. Up until now, I had always rejected community weight-loss approaches, wanting to believe I was strong enough to do this myself.

During the next half hour, I dredged up five decades’ worth of tears from somewhere deep within. In those moments I wept for the little girl who prayed to be invisible as she tried on corduroys in J.C. Penney’s “chubby department.” I wept for the straight-A student, always chosen last for the relay team. I wept for the teenager who skipped breakfast and lunch, hoping her figure would attract a boyfriend. And I wept for the woman with expressive brown eyes who begged family photographers, “Don’t shoot below the shoulders.”

Struggling with my weight was nothing new. Topping 200 on the bathroom scale was nothing new. Dieting was nothing new. I was a veteran of the grapefruit juice diet, ice cream diet, high-protein diet, low-calorie diet, low-fat diet and low-carbohydrate diet, to name a few. By my fiftieth birthday I figured I had lost and gained somewhere between 500 and 1,000 pounds. What was new was acknowledging that I needed the help of others to reduce and successfully maintain the loss. That unconscious awareness was exposed to the brash light of day at that first group meeting.

Shaken, but with resolve, as well as remorse and shame, I went home that day, read the how-to booklet and started a food diary. By the second evening I was so hungry I would have eaten a piece of carpet if I’d had some good mustard to put on it. But I found that “lite” microwave popcorn was tastier and certainly better for my digestive system. The next week I went back to the meeting—four pounds lighter.

Portion control was a challenging new concept. Wasn’t half a grilled chicken breast a reasonable main course? My digital kitchen scale took up permanent residence on the butcher block. With it as my new cooking companion, I discovered my “reasonable” portion weighed in at about eight ounces; a recommended entrée was only half of that. It took time to change my old habits, but after a few months I was usually content to fill only one-fourth of my dinner plate with protein and cover the rest with vegetables.

I’ve always taken pride in my appearance, so I highlight my hair, use good face creams, polish my toenails and color-coordinate my outfits. Why couldn’t I add one more component to this picture—an average-sized body? I set out to eliminate all the Xs in my closet—the 1X, 2X and XLs on my clothing tags. Now, with the exception of an odd T-shirt that shrank in the dryer, I’ve done that.

My knees were also signaling me that I’d be better off thinner. At fifty-one I gave in to years of debilitating osteoarthritis pain in my left knee and had a total knee replacement. A few years later, the right knee was limping down the same path, and I was determined to avoid repeating that surgery. Carrying less weight would surely help.

When my daughter, Heather, suggested a fitness center, I balked, picturing svelte young women in fluorescent blue workout bras and shorts. But she escorted me to a gym with a sense of humor, whose slogan is “no Spandex here.” She introduced me to machines I could use to build strength without compromising my joints. Maybe, just maybe, I could do this.

The pieces were beginning to mesh. I paid for my first-ever gym membership. To get me started, a personal trainer asked me a lot of questions and devised a routine for me. I wanted him to know I was also dieting, but I was ashamed to tell him where I was going for help, so I dropped my voice and whispered the name to him. Maybe he saw a glimpse of his own mother in my embarrassed face, for he replied gently, “It’s okay to say it out loud.” His eyes and words spoke straight to my heart, and from that day on, I did say it out loud. I started telling everyone I knew of my diet and exercise plans. They really seemed to share my joy as my success grew and my body shrank.