At times I allude to the fact that I can (physically) be all over the place in a week but not really give any idea of what that looks like. It is not unusual for me to go from a meeting in the morning with someone at Panera, to lunch at a great salad place with another person to an afternoon meeting at Starbucks with someone else just to round off the day. My entire week does not look like that as I spend a significant amount of time on the phone, but I can have a day or two to be like that once or twice a month for sure. As crazy as that sounds, it makes for great people watching and a few great stories peppered in between.

There is a really cozy café type store that I tend to frequent a lot because it has some really good soup. The only drawback of this place is that it is a little too cozy: the seating is very close. When I meet with someone, I have zero idea of what we’re going to talk about or how it’s going to go down and it does not matter if it is the first time I’m ever going to meet with them or the thirtieth. I do not dictate the conversation, whoever I am with does. Trust me when I say there are never any awkward moments and we never run out of things to talk about but I have learned in my old age that your everyday conversation reveals more about you than any “philosophy” that I may come with trying to sound educated. If I shut up, you reveal. It works well.

However, there are times when I may ask a question or poke a stick in something that it is a loaded bee hive and you burst forth like the Hoover Dam. It is never my intention but I don’t apologize for it happening either. Clearly we needed to go there and it always ends up being worth the tissues. With that being said, I never think about the people sitting around us and I never wonder if they are paying attention to us because normally, they are not. But on this particular day, there was a woman, we’ll call her Rosy, who was very much interested in the conversation I was having with a client.

“Excuse me.”
“Yes?” I said in a very warm and inviting manner (big mistake because she took me up on it).
“What do you do for a living?”

I sat there for a solid two minutes thinking…what *do* I do for a living? What in Heaven’s name would you call this? At this time I am sitting across from someone who is looking for an entire box of Kleenex, never mind just one, and I have a woman who looks like Blanche from the Golden Girls shaking me down for info. So I kind of did a soft shoe because I have no idea where she is going with this.

“I’m… an athletic coach and nutritionist… I guess. Although… I am not actively coaching right now and I do not do nutrition…in the traditional sense.” I need you to know that that sentence came out of my mouth like I just got caught nude in a car parked on Lover’s Hill or something. What was my gig? You would have thought that I had 2 kilos in my bag with me and she was the Feds. Ridiculous.

“Oh. Good to know. I knew it was something like that. I am a counselor myself and I could just tell that you were in that line of work.” She sat there smiling at me…awkwardly…for a while…anybody?

She was sitting across from an older gentleman who I think was her husband. She was decked out in the latest Lulu outfit and looked quite fit for an older woman. She was definitely in her mid sixties, I would say, and either just came from the gym or was about to head there. She went on to explain that she counseled women with eating disorders and thought what I did (I said more after I stopped feeling like I was Sharon Stone from Basic Instinct) was really interesting. Our conversation, which by the way was intermittent because in between all of this I was still sitting across from someone (!!), started out light but then it took a crazy turn and I sat there thinking to myself, “Should I ask my client to move over?”

She launched into how she loved the place but the soup had way too much sodium in it (it does not, it is all made that day on location so it is not laden with MSG or other preservatives) and how she needed to avoid sodium because it was so bad for but it was okay because she had already worked out for the day so she had sweat and a little bit of sodium would be okay but that she didn’t want to put on any weight and you know how bad sodium is and…DEEP BREATH…

Who has ever seen my blank stare? Yeah…in full effect at this point. This begs the question now, ‘Who is the client? Her? Or the people she counsels? And what does that session look like?’

Did I say anything? What?? Are you smokin’ crack?

No one is harder to counsel than other health and fitness professionals. We are on the front lines doing personal work in spite of our own personal failures. We have to look like we have it all together even though we do not…not even a little bit. The thought of opening up to someone who is your peer and saying that you need help—or better yet, even admitting you need help is pure heresy. Do not even think about it in this industry. If you want a good idea of what I am talking about, go to a personal trainer’s conference and watch everyone jockeying for position that they know more than the guy next to him. It is like crabs in a bucket each pulling the other one down to get on top (I am only referring to the participants). The saddest thing about that, though, is that every trainer needs a trainer. You cannot be good at giving advice if you suck at taking it. I have two very strong women who speak into my life weekly and I will never give them up. One of them gives me the hairy eyeball while the other gives me the silent treatment. I love it and I love them. If you help people in any capacity, make sure you are being helped yourself because you need a place to dump all of that angst. It is hard to work through everyone else’s stuff all week long and not unload some of that somewhere. Ask me, no really, pleeeaaase ask me how I know? OY!!

Tomorrow, via email, I will wrap this up so be sure to check for it. Not sure what’s coming next but I have two cooking in my brain now. Just need some titles…haha!! Woop woop!!

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Could I do a play on words here with you? Is that ok? Because I would never do a play on words, right? I chose the name of my post to be ‘managed care’. I could not get away from that title and if you are subscribed to my emails you know that I get the titles of my blogs first and then I write them based on the title. No title, no blog. But managed care, in this day and age, refers to (as Wikipedia puts it):

Managed care is used in the United States to describe a variety of techniques intended to reduce the cost of providing health benefits and improve the quality of care.

Well obviously that’s not what I am referring to in this series so I was annoyed with myself when I couldn’t get rid of the title and find another. So I looked up the definition of managed and one of the meanings was:

to bring about or succeed in accomplishing, sometimes despite difficulty or hardship

and I looked up the meaning for care and saw that one of the choices was this:

a state of mind in which one is troubled; worry, anxiety, or concern

Could I just be so bold as to stick the two together and create my own definition of managed care which is a representation of the story I am going to tell today? Managed care in today’s post means:

A lifestyle that succeeds in accomplishing, sometimes despite difficulty, a state of mind in which one is troubled.

Yeah…that’s it. And you ain’t just whistlin’ Dixie with this one!

I went to a house party/gathering/get together kind of thing. There were a lot of people there. It was a mixed crowd of singles and married couples, all colors, all occupations but mostly my age range. It was good conversation for the most part and I had a really good time. I, also, had an interesting “fly on the wall” moment with one of the girls at the party.

There are about 4 of us sitting around chatting, just enjoying the night and having a good laugh. Somehow, and I never pay attention to how until it’s too late, we got to yapping about weight, dieting and everything that it entails. I clam up. I got nuttin’. I want to have this conversation like I want to glide my tongue down a splintered piece of wood. Who understands what I’m saying right now? If it wouldn’t have been so obvious, I would have gotten up and moved elsewhere but I was stuck. So it begins…

Let me start by saying it was not the actual conversation that bothered me. To be honest, I cannot for the life of me remember what we were talking about so the topic wasn’t the problem—the girl that was speaking was the problem.  I will venture further and say, I like her, actually, so it wasn’t her per se as much as it was what she was trying to convince us of. Have you ever been in one of these conversations where you start wondering if the person you are talking to is really even talking to you or not? Or are they talking to themselves, convincing themselves of the things that are coming out of their mouth? And that wouldn’t be a big deal either because we’ve all done it at least once in our lives but most of the time we are honest about it. What was going on here was a total travesty.

Somehow—again, no idea how—we start talking about daily regimens and how we manage eating in general when there are all these bad choices around us. I should be more specific here and say “they” because I ain’t sayin’ nuttin’. Like nuttin’. So they get into how they all have dieted and how maintenance is tough—yadda, yadda—and the girl launches into how life is so wonderful now that she eats “this way” (I’ll explain in a minute) and she doesn’t know why it took her this long to do this and so on. “This way” means that she eats all organic food, nothing refined in any form, she makes all her own [insert whatever you may buy readymade like salad dressing], she eats very little meat and so on and so forth. There is nothing wrong with the choices of what she eats, I have no organic/whole food agenda here and it is working for her wonderfully because she has dropped a good amount of weight. Here is what you need to know: she is much like “Dr. Mercola” from yesterday in terms of extreme eating, and she is one of the most critical/harsh women I have met in a long time—she’s polarizing to be exact. Her claim here is that she is now ‘happy’, yet she is happy like I’m a domestic housewife (sounds good in theory but never comes to fruition). What she described is a life that is absolutely bound to her eating regimen to live day to day ‘happily’. Change anything in her eating and you have upset her balance.

I know what you are thinking: sounds like a lot of folks I know. Yes, I’m sure, but my issue here is much like the one of yesterday in that she had an agenda and she was recruiting. Unlike “Dr. Mercola” whose agenda was the extreme eating itself, this girl’s agenda was ‘now I am happy and you can be, too’. Suddenly, we were all miserable, shameful creatures because we just couldn’t see how happy and stable her life is now that she changed her food choices. The conversation began to get tense simply because she was trying to convince us that this is the life to live and the rest of us weren’t going for it. No one opposed her but no one supported her either. It was just dead air, she was miffed and just like yesterday’s post I said nothing. (When I go that silent, just know there’s something up.)

Why didn’t I say anything?

I would have upset the eco system. One of the worst things I can ever do (and ask me how I know this…sigh) is to enter into a conversation like that, ask a question or two that would have rocked her world and then get in my car to go home and never look back. If you know that you have a friend, not a close one, who is a holy mess but you don’t want to be the one to deal with it…leave her alone. This girl is at least functioning right now. If I had said anything to her to change where she was but then did not offer any assistance when she fell flat on the floor, then I am as irresponsible as they come.

This is hard for us to understand because many of us operate from a place of compassion when we see someone we know or like or even love suffering from the choices that they are making in their lives. (There is no one there who didn’t want to scream at her, “You are not happy!”)  We want to help them and give them some good solid food advice or help them with their training routine, which is all fine and good, but we need to have super sensitive antennae up that tell us when we should leave ‘good enough’ alone. If someone has built their survival around a religious (meaning scrupulously faithful; conscientious) activity and they have gone so far as to convince themselves that this is the way to go…LEAVE THEM ALONE. Only get involved if you are in for the long haul—and I mean long haul. You may disagree with me and that is A-OK with me. I, however, have had my fair share of Humpty Dumpties who have had a great fall all because I stuck a poker in the bees nest and then high-tailed it out of Dodge before realizing I just brought Armageddon to their front lawn. Again…I am reformed.

There’s yet another for us to look at tomorrow before I wrap up via email…hang tight…

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Once a month I go to a leadership type of meeting. No, I’m not a leader in anything and am quite happy with that but I do enjoy listening to the ladies that are there and learning from them. I am typically the youngest one in attendance so there is much to learn every time I go.

About 4 months ago, a new lady showed up to the meeting and really stirred things up. We probably have a new person come every 2 to 3 meetings or so and it’s always nice to get a new perspective and we really do welcome new people with open arms. The meetings, themselves, are centered on leadership and helping each other out in our respective positions so it is always nice to put it into practice by being accommodating to new people. The meetings are not about health or anything fitness related at all as we come from different professions and all walks of life and occasionally we will focus on one particular person’s field of interest, but that’s not the norm. We are there for the purpose of leadership development and supporting each other so who knew that the new woman at the meeting would cause such a raucous this day by not adhering to our purpose.

This is where I want to break and talk about meetings in general with women. WOW. What an eye opener. If you ever want to see the word *insecurity* in the flesh—a meeting will definitely do it. Now, I am not talking about these ones in particular because they are very small and focused, but more in the broader sense. Women are like a pack of dogs all searching for the alpha position—whether they want the position or they are looking to find out who has the position it doesn’t matter, they are all searching. And should you find yourself not knowing which one you are, you can be mowed over by the one who is claiming alpha or pushed out of the way but one who is aggressively looking for the alpha. YIKES.

The meeting time is set for the morning so when we get there our hostess typically has a light breakfast assortment out for us to choose from. The choices range from healthy to nowhere near healthy so everyone there is represented and it is at her house so honestly, no one is expecting her to be IHOP with a menu of choices. I’m happy she’s hosting it, for crying out loud, I know I wouldn’t want to do that monthly. So in walks Dr. Mercola—I mean the new woman. Holy Interruption, Batman! Yes! I am all about health. Yes! I care about the choices that you make and why you make them. But heck no! am I going to torture you if you choose something that is not so healthy.

I need you to know before I go on explaining what went down with this woman at this meeting that I am working on some major things in my personality. One of them is not stomping on people in conversations. If you know me, you know I have my work cut out for me, but dang it—it’s worth it. I can, if given the opportunity, dominate a room…no, wait…obliterate a room full of people if you pick a good enough topic. About 3 years ago, I had to free myself of that burden; too much carnage in my wake and it feels awful when you are done. So, I liberated myself from being the know-it-all that I can be. No…really…I did…stop laughing…sigh. But I also have an incredible knack of blending in the background, too, so that no one knows that I am there and I just sit back and watch the drama unfold. I brought the silent woman to this meeting in case you wondering.

So Dr. Mercola, as I will now call her, systematically went through the room shaming everyone for their choices in a very passive aggressive manner. It looks like this:

“Oh, I love Danish. I haven’t had any in such a long time. They cause too many gastric issues and they’re not good for you. I gave up anything with white flour or any refined foods for that matter. I’ve lost over 100 pounds in 2 years. I don’t let anything unhealthy pass my lips.”

My immediate reaction to this was sarcasm…in my mind. I wanted to say some things out loud…but I’m reformed. My biggest problem with what she said is the “I am better than you because I can make a better choice than you can” kind of tone. It was mean and it was a pot shot. Essentially she was picked on and debased when she was heavier so now it’s her turn to unleash the cracken on someone. Not cool.

The ladies at the meeting are just that: true ladies. So they let Dr. Mercola have her say for a minute or two and then moved right into the meeting. OH…but the nonsense did not stop! The meeting was barely in motion before we heard about how alcohol was so bad for you and that not ONE drip should ever be consumed because it is so poisonous. And studies show that…[my eyeballs begin to bleed]…

Why did I take such offense to that? Because in her ranting she neglected to stop and find out about the people at the meeting and who we all were. One of the participants—whom I have truly grown to love—is a newly life living ex-alcoholic and she needed to hear this like I needed someone to ask me if I ever take my own nutrition advice (another story for another time). It was only about her and it was apparent. The other thing that made this very difficult for us was how much she tried to make it seem like it wasn’t about her and how she wanted to help everyone. Oh how I wish that people—more trainers than anyone else—could see that their soap box is just that—theirs! When you are in the business of helping others…help them! And helping them is not making them look and act like you. OY!

We barely got through the meeting that day. Every way that she could interrupt, she did. She had the most extreme ideas about food, health, health care and so on. I was mortified. And I was also silent. I said not one word. Who can believe that? Not one. Why? For two reasons:

Why bother? Years ago I came to the realization that in the fitness industry everyone is a nutritionist and everyone is a trainer if they, themselves, have dieted themselves or worked out at least once and had some measure of success. If you cannot handle this, get out now. Almost all people operate under the fallacy that ‘if I have gone through it, I am now qualified to take you through it’. This is why you see guys/girls do one show and become a coach. It’s frightening and dieting is no different. Once you have dieted and had success, you are now officially a nutritionist. I have to say that this is the number one reason I avoid social engagements that are centered around food. They are just not fun for me. I either get challenged by someone in the room or I have to listen to Dr. Mercola, Dr. Oz and a splash Oprah all night long.

…the second reason…

Where would I start? That woman’s pain was sitting all over her sleeve. Torment, anger, resentment, vengeance and pride were all abound. Which one would I pick on first? None of that was about food. She wouldn’t know good nutrition if it took her out to dinner for goodness sakes. No…that was 100% about her personal pain and she drags it with her everywhere she goes. I will spare you her diet regimen but she was so rigid about what she ate and how she ate it that I think I let a tear fall down my face for her daily eating plan. We can all be like this at times, ourselves. We truly need to be mindful of this monster because we develop a false sense of security in the rigidity of our choices and the routine of our lives. We think that somehow we’ve erased a painful past or challenging circumstance because we count out 10 blueberries and avoid sugar all day long.

The saddest thing about this is that she looked gaunt. She was not super thin at all, her weight was fine, but she looked unhealthy. I believe that was simply because her frayed edges were showing and she couldn’t hide them anymore…

More to come tomorrow…

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The last of the “Desperate Diets” and the wrap up to the series…

The Push Your Luck Diet

What is a good example of this diet? The Cheat Your Way Thin diet, The Volumetrics Diet

Why do we think we do this? We have great metabolisms and we’ve always been athletic/thin/in shape so why not eat right most of the time but then enjoy ourselves with structure the other times.

Why do we really do this? On the surface: Pride.  Arrogance.  Again, we think we’re better than everyone else.  We can eat half of the universe and “get away” with it.  We do this alcohol, as well.  Not cool.  Deep down: cry for help.

My life changed December 23, 1997.  Ten days after diagnosis, my 64 year old mom—who did not look a day over 50—died of pancreatic cancer.  At the time I was 7 months pregnant with my first child, newly married and dealing with death on that level for the first time.  I did not do a good job.  In fact, I did not do anything.  I cried some and dealt with it on the surface a bit but for all intents and purposes, it was like it never happened.  I had an active “bubbas” in my belly that needed my attention; we needed to find a home for our new family; and quite honestly, I did not have the emotional capacity back then to take the situation on the way that it truly deserved.  There was too much pain: she was my world and now what?  There was too much anger: she would never meet my children but she knew my sisters’ kids, what kind of crap was that?  There were too many questions: what the heck am I doing having a baby and which end of them is up, again?  I would love to tell you something dramatic happened and I had this major breakdown but nothing did.  Nothing.  Two weeks after she was gone, life resumed.  I had to get the illegal squatter out of my body, we had to buy a home and I needed to go back to work/normal/life.  And so it was.

A little over a year ago I put out via email the tale of my body; what I did to myself after competing and how it forever changed the way I looked and dieted.  I tell the story, whenever I tell it (which is rare on a large scale level but frequent on a one to one basis), always starting from December 2004 because that is when the actual weight gain began.  What I conveniently neglect to mention is what precipitated that weight gain.  I would love for you to think that I was this healthy trainer, working a bajillion hours, who had a ton of clients, running a training department, juggling a household of toddlers and being wife of the month and actually I was…except I was not healthy and I definitely was not wife of the month.  What I was was “pushing my luck”.

We have blessings and curses that come with our physiques.  Blessings would include looking great, being in good health on the macro side of health (diabetes, blood pressure), having energy and the ability to physically live life to the fullest.  At times, though, I wonder if the curses of this lifestyle sometimes outweigh the blessings because we rarely talk about our emotional state when our body fat is low, how it feeds our ability to strive for perfection or how we can hide some major junk going down with us behind a great looking body.  I have said this before and I say it with full love, the only difference sometimes between a lean woman and a heavy woman is that the heavy woman’s body makes her more honest.  She cannot hide that she has an issue with food…but the lean woman can.  So there I was, leaner than lean and striving like a mofo.  I dealt with my mom’s death ever so slowly by becoming the top trainer in my club at the time, the nutrition guru, the playdate mom, the barely functioning wife and the iciest heart moving in a warm body.  The crash was inevitable but the pace was excruciatingly slow.

I had my second child in 2000 and kept about 8-10 extra pounds of pregnancy weight on already petite body until a client asked me to get her ready for stage.  I had never heard of competing, knew nothing of the sport but thought that I cannot get someone ready for something I, myself, have never done.  In the summer of 2002, I started “getting ready for show”.  I had ZERO issues with food or body image at that time and had a “great, little athletic body”.  My getting ready for stage was all about learning how to coach on the back-end; it was never about me being ‘competitor of the week’ (this is important to know because it is how I ended up being far more of a jackass than any of you could ever claim to be).  I lifted hard for the first 4 months and in January 2003, I started dieting.  It took me 8 weeks to lose 23 pounds and I swear I did not have that much to lose.  I was lean…and I stayed that way for a long, long time.

At first I realized that if I stepped on the scale in the morning and then in the night and it read the same thing, that the next morning I would lose a pound.  Then I realized I could eat a cheat meal and the sodium may mess with me but within 3 days, it would be back to normal.  Then I realized that if I ate a whole pizza by myself, nothing happened.  Yeah I would be bloated for a day or two, but then I would have the tightest lines, my abs formed a 16 pack and I would be a veiny mess.  Not bad, I thought.

I stepped off stage for the last time October 2003, the lightest I had ever been post college and I then entered into a very dark 365 days of pushing my luck:  My job became more demanding.  My feelings that I stuffed so deep into my socks that I wore one shoe size bigger because of it started to leak out all over the place.  Staying lean started to take a toll on my cycle, my mind and eventually my marriage because there was cardio to be done and lifting had to happen because I needed to “pay penance” for all the tomfoolery that I was doing.  And boy was I doing some tomfoolery.  At no point did I think that what I was doing would have a lasting effect on my body.  By the time 2004 came around, I was an Equal junky (18 to 30 packs/day—remember, it wasn’t “bad” for you back then and most of it was in my 4-6 medium size Dunkin’D’s teas that I had daily because I never ate), in full panic attacks, training 40-50 FLOOR hours per week on top of hours of cardio, a full blown egomaniac (let’s just own it now) and crying for help louder than any woman I know.  I would eat all kinds of crap, “work it off” and start all over again once I got the scale back to normal.  The crazier life got, the more I ate dysfunctionally always careful not to mess with the number on the scale.  I went through all the stages of pseudo dieting, fake show dates, “major events” that I needed to ‘lose 5 pounds for’ and then thought that what I needed was “a structured plan”.  I need to be “on an official diet”.  If I just had structure then I will follow it and I will stop all this nonsense.  Wrong.  It made me more manic.  And it made me push the limits even more because at this point I was infallible…invincible…a math whiz with the scale…champion of carb games…master trainer…and a Holy. Hot. Mess.

So I had an idea…

I “allowed” myself to gain weight.  Not a ton (about 10-15 pounds)…but just enough to get me back to a “normal weight” and stop playing the games because I was not enamored with being lean as much as I was with being able to control the outcome of what was going on with my body-hence my greatest folly.  This was my first official personal cry for help to myself.  I ignored it.  Six months later, the rest is history.

You ask me constantly ‘how are you in my head’, ‘how do you know what you know’, ‘it’s like you read minds’, ‘I can’t get away with anything’ and so on.  Well, now you know why.  You cannot bull crap a bull crapper.  Plain and simple.  I am cutting this short here for 2 reasons:  what happened next emotionally (most of you know what happened physically) is another series for another time and this post could get so long that it qualifies for a Pulitzer Prize in drama and that would completely miss the point of this post and this series.

My biggest wish is that you will look at what you do, why you do it and what is the emotion that drives it.  When you talk to me you have to know that I am listening for what you say, how you say it, what words you choose, what you are avoiding, what you are trying to convince me of, what you are trying to convince you of and so on.  You need to see that pride is just a defense and excessive drivenness just an excuse; the scale is pimp who plays us like a fiddle on a good day, emotionally abuses us on a bad one.  Every diet game we play is one step closer to melt down and I am telling you, nothing is worse than trying to come back from being so high and falling so low.  The diets that I picked were funny at first because that is stage one; stage two is believing your own hype; and stage three is beginning of Armageddon.

Talk to someone.  Whether it is a stranger in a subway (make sure he/she is clothed), your best friend, someone who does what I do or even me—it does not matter, just talk.  You do not need a couch to lie on, I never went to therapy.  You need a listening ear and someone who can point you to your craziness because then you can do something about it but it takes you owning it first.  My husband could not help me because he had *no idea*.  I never talked about my emotions, we were 2 ships passing in the night because we set up our schedule in such a way that one of us was always with the kids so when he came in, I went out, and I was not in a place to admit that this was bad.  Honestly, if my body did not give out, I am not sure what would have stopped the madness.  Scary.

I love you, ladies.  If I can keep any of you from walking in my shoes, then I have done my job.  The next series is cooking in my head now, not sure when I’ll spit it out.  Keep your eyes peeled for the emails.  Woop woop!

Previous Series Post

Desperate

–having an urgent need, desire.  One of the worst feelings you can have when you are scale dependent is getting up one morning and the scale says something you are not mentally prepared for or seeing your life out of control with no way to slow it down.

The “I Am Carb Sensitive” Diet

What is a good example of this diet? Any no starch diet such as Paleo, South Beach, competition diet, sugar busters

Why do we think we do this? We are sensitive to carbs, we were never meant to eat starches, sugar makes us crazy

Why do we really do it? We have an event and we need to drop 5 pounds fast, we’re suddenly up 5 pounds and we need to get rid of it fast or we have not eaten starches for so long (because we are still doing the celebrity diet) that now when we do have them we blow up like a puffer fish in within 10 min. of eating them so we’re now in a battle.

There are so many jacked mindsets within this diet that I almost did not know where to start.  From panic attacks to pure unadulterated weight gain mythology, we can really get ourselves worked up over something as simple as oatmeal and swear that we do so much better without it.  Only, we do not really live without starch/sugar.  Instead, we start this really bittersweet love affair with sweet potatoes, oatmeal and any other grain that sounds impressive to pronounce (quinoa, spelt, etc.) where we eat them once in a blue moon, shun them and then cry over them later on because we want to eat them but can’t.  Once that gets old, we decide to stop eating them for good and we can hang for a few weeks until we realize the scale is not magically moving just because we gave up starches (how dare it) so we start sneaking sugary type carbs all the while swearing that we cannot eat them.  Eventually we gain back what we initially lost just cutting out carbs and then we convince ourselves that we gained it back because we ate starch and not because the starch came in the form of cookies or ice cream.   Or better, yet, we really do lay off the starches because we really can’t take the way they make us feel but then we become a peanut butter pimp pushing it at every meal, occasion and event like a crackhead lost on a peanut farm.  It is crazy.  No matter what stage I catch you in on this diet, you are in full justification mode ready to go with every reason why you are the only one out there who really cannot eat starch and how bad it is for you and how such and such doesn’t eat them and they look great and… Hold on while I load up the next round of justification.

Here are some things that happen when doing this diet:

1) None of us really have a start date or an official goal of this diet.  We tend to waft in and out of it.  We wake up one Monday and just stop eating starches—again, because in our warped thinking the pounds should just fly off now—but we never *change* anything else about what we are doing.  We do not measure our portion sizes or increase our veggies now that we are missing those precious cals nor do we change our exercise regimen.  No…we sort of coast into this odd sort of hypnosis diet that causes us to start weighing ourselves frantically every day to see if something has changed—although nothing has really changed.

2) We are absolutely convinced it was starches that made us this way in the first place although almost all of us have had the fake sugar, fake salad dressing, protein powder laced with fake sugar, turkey bacon chemical phase that none of us really ever consider.  Nor do we realize that that could possibly have an impact on what we may be sensitive to diet wise because it is much easier for us to stop eating 100% whole grain oatmeal that has 5g of protein, 5g of fiber and fills us up like cement in a bucket than it is to figure out what is going on.  That takes time and there is no time.  “We *feel* fat.”

3) Honestly, when that feeling of “I need to drop 5 pounds” takes over, someone could tell us that our liver would fall out if we did not eat a starch and most of us would take the chance regardless.  NOTHING—and I mean NOTHING—can convince a woman to stop doing whatever folly she is doing when a) her pants suddenly do not fit, b) someone important made a snarky comment regarding her weight or c) she is going to a class reunion.  If any of these things are in place, there will be no starch eating til the drama passes!  This means that this diet, unlike all the others, cannot be stopped once it is started until we are finally convinced it will not work.  This is THE diet trump card of all trump cards.  If you pull this one out on me, I say “uncle” and move on my merry way.

The Extreme Makeover Diet

What is a good example of this diet? Changing the way you eat from top to bottom (becoming a vegan, starting a raw food diet, looking for locusts), changing the way you workout (trying triathlons, trying Crossfit, trying MMA), changing where you workout (you’re outside, you’re in the air, you’re in the ocean), hiring a nutritionist/trainer/physical therapist/yoga specialist.

Why do we think we do this? We do this to get our mojo back, get back into it, get focused, find ourselves, start anew and so on.

Why do we really do this? All hell just broke loose in our lives and instead of dealing with that, we need a worthy, expensive distraction that will force us to focus only to realize $2000 later that we just needed to face the pink elephant in the room.

You will not find ANYONE who knows this one better than me, for real.  This is also called the “ostrich in the sand” diet or the “if I don’t acknowledge it, it can’t happen” diet.  If you ever find yourself in a place where life sucks this bad that you feel the only way to cope is overhaul your entire workout regimen, call someone—heck, call me—and fess up as to what is going down on your end.  I have seen so many diet and exercise nightmares unfold because of this when a simple phone call or 3 hour lunch with someone could truly set you on the right track.

There is a ginormous pressure on us to have it all together.  We may be the “athletic one” or the “hot body” or “the good mom” or whatever label you may feel others know you as *because* of your fitness level and dedication which makes us feel as if we always have to be that one that holds it together.  But that is a lie from the pit of hell, girls, and all it does is hold us in our own self contained prison.  Yes, someone is watching you, but they are not hoping you continue to hold it all together; they are hoping you will be human and let your hair down in front of them.

Here is one way how this diet comes about:

You are going along fine for a bit, life seems to be ok.  Your body is where we want it to be and you have a rhythm.  Then, bammo!  Something happens that may seem small at first but it upsets your sense of “control” and you begin to try to maintain that control through eating, working out, juggling life and so on.  Soon disordered eating rears its ugly head and you are not full out bingeing and purging but instead you are going good for 3 days, out of control for 4.  You have now done the Paying Penance Diet, the Hypnosis Diet, the “I am carb sensitive” Diet at least 3 times and you *feel* as if you are out of options.  You see the train coming and you cannot get off the track to save your life so the ‘light bulb’ goes off and you think, “I know what I need.”  Insert whatever new thing there is but this is not small–not a diet change—this is a life change.

There are so many other reasons why this happens:  drama at home with significant other, sudden increase in weight, increased job stress, financial crisis, sick loved one and so on.  You are trying to “make that thing go away” through your diet and exercise and it is not going to work.  The only exercise you are going to accomplish with this diet is an exercise in futility.  I understand how this happens because the fear of whatever you are facing is great—totally get it—but when it is all said and done, that thing you are facing is still going to be there only now you are X amount of dollars in the hole, doing a new radical workout you really are not in to and eating foods that you hate.  Call someone please.

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Prideful

– satisfaction or pleasure taken in one’s own success or achievements.  Not a bad thing for sure until it drives us to hurt ourselves, destroy our true sense of worth or worst of them all:  hurt others.

The “I Know This Works” Diet

What is a good example of this diet? Whatever diet you did when you think you looked the best.

Why do we think we do this? “Oh, this is the only thing that ‘works’ for me.”

Why do we really do it? Because we think, “Oh, this is the only thing that ‘works’ for me.”

If you are two months into a weight loss plateau and you will not change what you are doing simply because ‘this is what got me to where I wanted to be in the first place’, then I am talking to you.  Taking starches out of your diet does not give you instant weight loss, ceasing all cheating does not make your body shape up overnight and splitting your meals into 5 meals from 4 meals does not put you on the fast track to the cover of a magazine.  There is so much more to physique trans4mation than ‘the last thing you did that worked’ and you are cheating yourself out of a new experience simply because ‘you know this works’.   There are three things going on here:

1)      Arrogance: No one knows your body better than you do, as far as you are concerned, and you know what you are doing because you do it for other people. Maybe so but every coach should have a coach, just like every doctor has a doctor.  Get over yourself and learn something new (this said by the former ‘most arrogant nutritionist in the field’) so that you can at least get off that weight loss plateau and before you do something harmful in desperation later.

2)      Fear: The last time I tried something new I gained 10 pounds and fought like a dog to get it off again.  No thank you.   I know this works and I’m sticking to it. I hear you loud and clear here and NO ONE knows this fear quite like me…BUT…it is still a cop out.  Your body does not change because of what you are doing; it changes because of the *change* in what you are doing.  If you do not change, it does not either.

3)      Pride: I actually do not want to change because then I would have to tell someone what is really going on with me and I’ll open up my closet full of Jurassic Park bones. Listen, after reading this site, you have to realize that we all have closets full of pterodactyl bones and it is A-Ok over here.  Feel free to mingle with us loonies.

The Celebrity Diet

What is the origin of this diet? Facebook:  Following the diet of the latest and greatest fitness model.

Why do we think we do this? Typically we start this because we are new to the industry, in love with {insert name here}, naïve enough to believe that they do what they print in the magazines and it is going to work for us.

Why do we really do it? We want to prove to ourselves that we can hang with the best of them even though up until then the only thing we’ve ever “denied” ourselves was humility.

Almost all of us have the same story in terms of our paltry beginnings:  we were always the best at {insert here}/very athletic/very smart/the obedient one/the dare devil who got good grades/worked 2 jobs/started a social campaign to save the whales/discovered America so when we graduated college we were looking for a way to stay athletic/top of the heap/challenged beyond belief because we over achieve at breathing and denying ourselves food and lifting until we pop a hemorrhoid seemed like the best way to do it.  I know, I was like that, too, so this is a common one for all of us in the way beginning:  we find the best looking fitness model/competitor with the most stringent diet and we just follow it.  We may follow their whole diet, the fact that they will not eat {insert here}, how many days out of the week they lift or what have you.  But what is the most notable thing about us doing this diet is that *we* think it is hard and that somehow there is something glorious about us because we can hang with such and such and do what such and such is doing.  Eventually we grow out of this but some of us are still doing it, not by following a person, but by following the *culture on a whole*.

Following the things your favorite fitness model puts on her Facebook is like eating the display dish at your favorite deli counter: both scary and dangerous all at the same time.  Not only is she not telling you the whole truth and nothing but the truth, but she is most likely sponsored by someone to tell you all that she did and she is not disclosing that to you.  I am saying this unequivocally right now that this is not about anyone in particular nor am I pointing a finger at fitness models or competitors.  This is about you—and just you.   The internet is a scary place to be when you feel “less than”, when you are vulnerable or when you just gained 3 pounds for no particular reason so you are reaching for straws.   Seeing her Facebook page is like an ex-alcoholic walking into a 24 hour lounge with open bar.  Even if you don’t want to participate, the draw is too much for you to resist when you are down and out.  Think about who you are allowing your mind to be filled with everyday and ask yourself, “Are they helping me or hindering me?  Do I feel good about myself when I am done looking or do I start a barrage of negative self talk right after seeing her bum hoisted up on the bathroom sink with her thong in full view?”

When we stalked them as a particular person, it was easy to spot later on that we had an issue and had to stop.  But when we stalk them all as a culture, it is less obvious and we may not see the things that we are doing that are hurting us.  She diets for a season and a reason, you diet so that your physique is pleasin’—it is not the same.  To hold yourself to that standard of discipline week in and week out is unrealistic and to compare yourself to her is mind numbing.  I totally get it, though, she *looks* like where you want to be but trust me, even if you hardened up your butt cheeks to the point of cement like status, you are still married to the same man, living in the same house, going to the same job and eating the same food.  This is a dangerous diet to be doing.  Knock it off.

The “I Am Superior” Diet

What is a good example of this diet? Dr. Mercola, PhD based diet programs, The Program

Why do we think we do this? We are being mindful of our metabolism; we are nurturing our thyroid; we are on top of our hormones, all cancer and food intolerances.

Why do we really do it? We are showing off.  Plain and simple.  Look at me, I am doing this elite diet by this PhD guy and his intelligence has now wafted on to me somehow.  I am leaner and smarter all at the same time.

We have to be really careful, ladies, we are different.  We diet harder, we workout harder and we achieve more in the day than the average doobie.  Some of us get up at the crack of dawn and do in one hour what many may not do in a month.  Those around us get “it”: we’re driven.  But let me let you in on a secret:  you will not always be.  And when your drive fades or the reason behind your drive shifts, you will be left with a shell of who you used to be and a whole lotta people celebrating your crash because you spent a good amount of your time letting them know how superior you were when you were fit and in shape.

We do not mean to do it, but we do.  We make our families feel bad, our co-workers insecure and our significant others feel like schleps and in all honesty, that is their problem to deal with for sure.  However, we do not help by the way we do things:  making our Facebook pages a place to lecture people on their bad habits, spouting off information that sounds super intelligent but does not help a soul, showing up to the gym in our latest LuLu outfit complete with our program from our ‘top coach’ or being the one at the party who has to set everyone straight on the latest food findings.  There are other little things that we do that may seem more innocuous like never letting anyone ever see you eat something bad, never allowing people to see you “up a few pounds” because you will not go to the gym until you are “back to normal”, never admitting to a friend that you cheat even though your fingers are orange from the bag of Cheetos in the car or basically not ever being “real” with anyone.   All of these things scream, “Look at me.  I look good, I diet harder, I am more disciplined and I am smarter than you.”

What makes this diet so hideous is we did not choose the diet or the online coach because we needed them, we chose them because there was someone we knew who we “didn’t think was up to par” doing the same diet/using the same coach as us and we immediately thought, “I need to up the ante.”  Our fuel for changing and seeking this person out was simply that he/she is at the elite level and we wanted to be associated with them lest the nubie dieters get the idea that they are on the same level of us as dieting and working out.  At this point, we are probably just graduating from the The Celebrity Diet and we need to distance ourselves from the crowd of those “who do” from those “who think they do” so we hire the intelligent guy, keep it hush hush, stop talking about our workouts and food because now it is proprietary (because he’s the only one who knows about oatmeal) and we begin to insulate ourselves from everyone else because…well…we think we are more special.  Wow…did I just say that?  I did.  And it hurts my heart to know it is true.  We can insert whatever we want in there, too, because it is not just dieting.  It can be gyms, trainers, exercises, food brands and so on.  There is an undercurrent of snobbery with us and like I said above, people are waiting in the rafters for us to fail and we eventually do.

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Reactive

– pertaining to or characterized by reaction.  Whether you are reacting to what you have seen or heard, trying to avoid an adverse reaction to what you are not admitting to or trying to snuff out continuous damage done to your physique by your bad habits, it is all in some way reactive.

Oh no!  I think Jodi just threw out her back while actin’ a fool listenin’ to your new diet request.  WOW.

The “I Watched Too Many Documentaries” Diet

What is the origin of this diet? Skinny Bitch, Omnivores Dilemma, Food Inc., Forks Over Knives

Why do we think we do this? Because we are on the cutting edge of health information and we need to set an example for our families and clients.  We need to be aware of what is in our foods.

Why do we really do it? We’re scared crapless!  Oh no!  We’re gonna die!  Aaaahhhhhhh!

I do not know why y’alls do it to yourselves.  And then I don’t know why you then turn around and do it to me!  Stop watching these films and reading these books!  It makes you psycho.

We all have things we do not like about ourselves and we make it a point to work on trying to change them.  One of the things that drive me crazy about myself is that I am physically dramatic whether I want to be or not.  Yes, I am dramatic when I tell you a story or I want to explain something to you and that’s a good thing, but it becomes a bad thing when you come to me with your new food kick you are on because you watched one of these documentaries:

“Jodi.”  The minute you say my name like that I tense up like my 7 year old does when he hears me coming up the basement stairs while he is illegally fishing for snacks in the cabinet.

“I was watching {insert scary movie name here} (instantaneously I just convulsed in your presence) and I had no idea that {insert some God awful thing here like cows were fed pig eyeballs for 4 weeks to fatten them up so they could be slaughtered with acid, fed to llama, regurgitated, breaded and shipped to school kids in Idaho}.  I will never eat {meat, starch, sugar, veggies, worms, etc} again.  Can you help me put a diet together of wheat grass, tempeh and locusts?”

At this point, I have rolled my eyes so hard that I have most likely sprained my Levator Palpebrae Superioris behind my eyeball, sighed in such a manner that I have expelled every inch of air from my lungs and my afro has grown at least 3 inches off of my head into a full blown peacock plumage.  I am visibly not on board with anything that you are saying and I am about as professional as a chimpanzee running around in IKEA.  I admit this fully and I apologize if I have ever done this to you.  But, please, stop watching these things.  If you are not set on changing the world through an aggressive social campaign, spare yourself the drama and just eat whatever food you are now afraid of while praying that it won’t kill you.  I say this because very few of you are truly prepared to become responsible vegetarians. What you actually become is an “I-refuse-to-eat-meat-a-tarian”, which is just a physique nightmare waiting to happen.  Suddenly your meals become cheese, lots of starch and the two vegetables you still eat (because you know you hate asparagus, green beans and broccoli now). Holy hodge podge of food, Batman!  Stop making me show my behind in public by acting out this way.  Just say no to these films!

I do realize that none of you would try to eat brickle every day and pass it off as okay.  But you see, I love brickle…and I do have a picture of chocolate and wine but…I love bricke…and I wanted to see it again…so…I added it.  Sorry.  It’s all about me right now.

The Hypnosis Diet

What is the origin of this diet? Wine is good for you.  Chocolate has antioxidants. It’s just a little milk in my coffee.

Why do we think we do this? We want to prove we can keep these things in our diet because we have restraint, unlike general public dieters, we are different.

Why do we really do it? Life is hard right now and we want what we want when we want it so we convince ourselves that the thing that makes us feel best is actually good for us. And it stokes our sense of adventure by making us feel like we can get away with something.

What I love about this diet is that this is the hidden diet.  This is the thing that you are doing that you think that I don’t know that you are doing that you are secretly hoping you do not have to confess to doing while we are still friends.  Whatever this thing is, it is so good and so important to your well being that you would risk a few pounds on the scale for it and you do not care.  It would take a force of nature to get you to give this thing up.  You would have had to have watched one of those scary food documentaries and find out that your beloved thing was made with squid guts from the sewers of a third world country and even then you would try to find an organic version of it.  You love it and you have convinced yourself it doesn’t have calories or any kind of impact on your goal whatsoever.  When I finally approach you about the thing that you think that I don’t know that you are doing or you finally have to confess it because the pressure is too much to take anymore, you present it to me in 1 of 3 ways:

1)      The scientific approach: “Jodi, studies show that having molten lava chocolate cake once a day enhances your love life and you know my husband and I are struggling.”

2)      The humanistic approach: “Honestly, Jo, this was the only thing keeping me sane during company layoffs.  I just figured that if it kept my cortisol levels down, it was helping. It was just a jar of nutella.”

3)      The defensive approach: “I figured you knew.  How was I supposed to know I shouldn’t be having a quart of cream and a ½ pound of sugar in my 7 coffees a day?  Jeesh!”

Face it, ladies, you don’t stand a chance against this foe.  Look at it.  It’s creamy and yummy and…and…

The Paying Penance Diet

What is a good example of this diet? Juicing, cleanses, any kind of “jump start” plan, shakes and also really hard, psycho workouts that defy human nature fall into this category, too.

Why do we think we do this? We’re cleaning out the toxins, we need to get our heads focused, we need structure, we love to sweat.

Why do we really do it? We put ourselves on punishment for some kind of out of control behavior that we feel we should not get away with so “pat me on the head for disciplining myself”, please.   In fact, you will try to talk about this diet like you deserve it for the awful behavior you have been engaging in.

If you have ever had the luxury of having this conversation with me regarding one of these diets, you now know you will never ask again because I will give you the hairy eyeball times two and force you to fess up.  It starts out this way:

“Jodi.  What do you think of {insert latest hot product name} cleanse/shake system/cat-o-nine tails? “

Sudden silence–enough for me to make you uncomfortable.  Steely stare.  No facial expression.  You start squirming.

“No, I know what you’re thinking.  I just want to try it out.”

I break the silence:  no inflection in voice, quiet, resolute.

“Why?”

You’re nervous. “Well, because I heard it really helps with cleaning out the body.”

“Oh?  Why do you need help with that?”

After what seems like hours but really was no more than a 2 min exchange you begin to babble…

“Honestly, Jo, I am just a mess right now and I need something to get me back on track because I can’t stop eating {insert whatever here but usually full of sugar and involves some form of peanut butter—I know of very few women who can stand against peanut butter} and I just want to feel clean again.  I feel gross.  Work is a mess and I am tired and I am not working out the way I want to and I am up 3 pounds and I eat it every flipping day and…and…and..”

…so you somehow think I am going to say it is ok for you to enter into an incredibly negative cycle of out of control eating and then “cleansing” it away.  Umm…yeah…no.  But what *is* good is that I just stared at you in such a way that you are now thinking about what you just asked me and realizing the root of your folly.  Bullseye.  I joke about this one today, but I bring it up again in a different way a little later on and all humor is gone.  Knock it off. {hairy eyeball}

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Thank you so much if you have been reading all week long.  LOVE YOU for the support AND I appreciate the patience!  Let me know your thoughts at the end.

This just says it all.  Keep reading.

The last and most significant change that you will absolutely notice (if you haven’t just by this series alone) is that I am much more transparent in my writing, in my work and in my life.  I have no problem sharing my struggles with you, although, I have been for years but you may not have recognized it at the time because I never labeled them as mine.  If I had a dollar for every time someone said to me, “It’s like you’re in my head.  How do you know what we’re thinking on that level?” then I would never have to work again. I have had people tell me they cannot read my blog on the weekday because they never know what I am going to dig up in their head and they do not want to deal with it the next day in work.  It is as if I have some sort of machine that can extract your thoughts and put them on blog, while that may be fun, that could not be further from the truth.  What if I just told you that…umm… I have lived it first?  Honestly, you cannot bull crap a bull crapper.  I can—and did—run circles around you ladies with diet games.  From manipulating the number on the scale to the crazy thoughts that go through your head when you lose a bunch a weight only to gain it back three months later and then live in the terror of “what’s everyone going to think?”, I have gone through everything.  I mean everything.  I would love to stand before you now and say that that battle is over but I would be lying.  It is not anywhere close to where it was 5 years ago, but it is still there to some degree and we are going to hash those things out together.  For 5.5 years of my life I lived in a body that was not my own and that brought things out in me that I did not know existed.  For the last 2.5 years of my life I have lived in a body that is my own but I needed to learn how take responsibility for it all over again.  Emancipation is a process, ladies.  You may think you are free when the chains fall off until you realize that they were never external chains but actually internal ones.  I do not know how I am going to roll that one out to you but I will figure it out as I go along.

So where does that leave me?  Let me give you what you won’t see on Jodiojo:

1) One and done articles (unless I have some major ax to grind and then I’ll figure out how to present it thoughtfully).  Everything will be series based.

2) Body part series (unless there is a moral behind it).  The tribute to our butt/thighs/shoulders days are over.

3) Generic health topics. Stuff like “Top 10 Foods That Will Enhance Your Cleavage”.  Not going to happen.

4) Snarky Rants. I was good for them.  I almost can’t read anything I wrote in 2010-2011.  Painful.  Kiss those goodbye.

5) Straight “lean articles”. Any topic that addresses getting you leaner on the outside without talking about what’s going on the inside of you will not make it on the blog anymore.

I have no desire to leave nutrition on a whole; however, I am retired as a trainer.  That does not mean that I will not put out training articles because I do not want to limit myself like that, but they will not be as often and will most likely be presented in a different manner.  I also have no desire to change my audience; I am married to the lean community.   I have been talking to lean (those who are or those who want to be regardless of their current size) women for twelve of the sixteen years I have been doing this.  I am good where I am at.  But I cannot stay who I was before or even write the way I did before (pre 2012), that woman is gone.  What you have now is a woman who loves to watch bodies change just as much on the inside as they do on the outside.  She is much more aware of her responsibilities as a coach, a friend, a mentor to some and as a woman in general.  She is a wise guy, a dedicated mom, a faithful wife, a dog with a bone about some issues, an intense person to have as a friend (ask Kris and Seanna) and a woman just like you. If you have been reading since January 2012, I hope that you continue to read the site because it will be much like that but more focused on all that I just laid out over the past 4 days:

1) Series based on our motives and why we behave the way we do. Type A, dedicated, driven, disciplined and successful are what we want to be seen as–that’s not a bad thing to want.  But I have not met a woman, yet, who has this drive for the right reasons and I have dieted a bajillion women.  We can have a lean, healthy body without it costing us our adrenals, marriage/relationship, career or integrity.  Let’s work on that.

2) Series based on the idiosyncrasies. You know the odd stuff you do in the name of nutrition.  Yeah…we’re going there.  (You’re probably doing something weird now while you’re reading this.)

3) Series based on hard topics. Disordered eating will be the first one that I tackle–I think.  But know that that’s where my head’s at in terms of “topics”.  No matter how hard the topic, though, there will be no shortage of humor.  I cannot change that part of me, I am a clown through and through.  I promise I’m not going sappy.

4) Workout series but only if they point to something about ourselves we need to know.

5) Honesty, transparency, fun, goofiness, the hairy eyeball and genuine understanding. There is an industry out there full of snakes and scorpions that is poisonous to our minds.  It’s validating us in all the wrong places and telling us that if we don’t keep conforming then we are somehow less than.  You know:  not strong enough, not disciplined enough, not attractive enough, not worth anything and so on.  Hold on, let me talk to the industry for you real quick…”SHUT UP!!”  There.  Now we can get back to focusing on working on the bodies we would like to have for all the right reasons.

If you knew me from before and are looking for that woman to come back then you are wasting your time, she will not so now is the time to step out with me waving good-bye to you with a sad face.  I will miss you!

Next up:  The 2013 Diet Review–I think.  It’s not what you think so hang tight and see how I present this to you.  You may learn a thing or two about yourself.  But, I also may write a completely different one that just started cookin’ in my head this week so I’m not sure.  Keep your eyes peeled…I’m back.  Woop woop!

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Something to keep in mind as you read, today especially: Jodiojo isn’t really a blog, it’s a conversation between you and me.  I do not write to an “intended audience” and then hope to find readers.  I write to a few hundred women that I know very intimately.  I would say I know 75% of the Jodiojo readership because I’ve either dieted you or trained you in some capacity so when I write I am very specific in what I say but I’m also intentional in the detail that I share.  I want you to know what goes through my head the same way you share what goes through yours.  Hence today’s post.  Read on…

I appreciate genuine honesty.  We should know what we’re getting into before starting something.

Since we are on the topic of revelation, let me tell you about another one that I have had:  honesty is always the best policy but boy does it come with risk.  This is not the same as what I just described, that was more about you seeing that your psycho tendencies were real but not at all limited to just you and that there was something more behind them than you just not knowing how to take your face out of a bag of chips.  What I am now referring to is how every-so-often I will say something that floors even me.  Something so raw and truthful that once it leaves me lips, the only thing left for me to do is to hide under the table that’s between us.  Let me preface what I am talking about by saying this before illuminating more:  I love what I do.  And I love that there are women out there who trust me on the level that they trust me.  They literally tell me things they have never said to another human being before in their lives;  walk through things with me that take tremendous emotional courage; and look inside themselves in ways I know they never would have if it wasn’t for them trusting me that it was going to go somewhere productive.  I am not a therapist and I do not try to be one.  I am that girlfriend you wished you had to cry with when the one you really had didn’t have time to listen.  I totally understand the enormity of the position I am in because there was a time in my life when I didn’t and I have seen the pain it can cause when you don’t “get” this.  But I get it now—more than you will ever know–and it floors me.  It completely lays me out in lavender.  I am honored beyond all belief and very aware of the fragility of the relationship therefore I treasure our moments together and am never, ever casual about any conversation—even if it is just about the weather.  This is mainly because I understand that every conversation tells me more and more about you—even the silly ones.  You will open up and share about stuff that you may not have ever thought about simply by me asking you the most basic question and you feeling safe enough to be honest.  This is huge and it comes with great responsibility so when I let a grenade fall to the floor, I always hold my breath and pray the pin is still in it or we’re both going down in that particular conversation.   This is not easy!  This is risk in its rawest, most real form:

Will you talk to me again? Trust me when I tell you I have had some who took weeks before they would ever “go there” with me again.  But they eventually did.  Patience.

Do you understand that there’s not a lick of judgment on this end?  That I’m just like you?  And truth be told, probably worse because I know better? I would say yes because you keep reading/talking/texting with me but still, the risk is there.

Are you now a holy hot mess? Remember, I’m not a therapist and I don’t work with anyone who truly needs one, the things we talk about are all relational, but still…I just poked a finger into a gaping wound, major soft spot, place of shame or etc.  What’s going on in your mind right now?

Did I get the timing right?  Did I rush it?  Did I sound impatient?  Was I rude?  How could I have just said that out loud?  Are you hurt?  Do you hate me?  Do you see it, now? AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

I wish I could tell you what that feels like when you say something that may seem so innocuous to someone else but you know it’s a loaded scud missile:  “So…do you think you were being selfish when you said that?”  “You do realize that it’s your responsibility to do [X,Y,Z]—not theirs”  “Is it really her fault, or are you just jealous?  Because from here, all I hear is jealousy.”  I could go on for days.  None of these statements are super deep but they are like flaming arrows to the heart when they come out of the mouth of someone you trust, directed to you who is standing with your heart wide open and vulnerable in your hand and they land on it dead center like a bull’s-eye painted on the side of a wall.  I don’t know about you, but that kind of experience will humble anybody with a heart and/or conscience.  I had better have my information straight, my motives on point and my own internal defense mechanism off because there will be repercussions from that conversation—good and bad.  Between phone calls or meetings is where the action is because there are seven days before we will speak again and a lot can happen in your brain in that time.  Basically, you get to think…and think…and think and at times that is to your advantage, many other times, though, it is not.  Thoughts like:

“I never saw it that way”

“How long have I been doing that?”

“Oh my goodness, I really do, do that!”

This is the first day or two, however, if you are not in the place to want to see something, shame or blame may set in:

“Who does she think she is saying that?”

“She thinks she knows everything and she knows nothing!”

“She always gets my head going and I can’t stand it.  I don’t need to think about this to lose 5 pounds!”

Embarrassment and panic could set in because we pulled the ‘kick me’ sign off of you so now you are defensive:

“Why didn’t anyone tell me I’ve been doing that?”

“I can’t go back to the gym now.  I need to find a new gym.”

There’s a chance of bitterness and resentment from erroneous conclusions about friends and loved ones:

“I knew my boyfriend wasn’t looking out for my best interest.”

“This is all my mother’s fault.  She would always…”

“My so called friends are jerks.”

All of the thoughts introduce risk; not on the level of therapy—just on the level of pride.  Has your pride been damaged because if it has, I’m going down the next time I press in your ten digits.  And I am sure you are wondering, and I will answer the question for you now, yes, I have been eaten for breakfast by some folks but it is always temporary (because ultimately they get their breakthrough) and I have never ended on a sour note but I have had a few frosty phone calls that were not exactly fun.

Now that you know that I do this, how do I write about it?  You can’t hear love in my tone if you’re reading this.  I know I can soften it up but then it loses the effect.  I want you to wake up and smell the coffee:  He is NOT the best guy for you, yes he IS cheating on you and that IS why you just ate that bag of chocolate and I meant to say that, but reading it would come off harsh.  And if I am writing about it, then it most likely would not be that specific.  It would be more general which would mean that for me to make my point, the word I deliver would really have to be a major scud missile and then I just worry about hurting people’s feelings because you may not know me enough in this way now to understand where I’m coming from and you will read it wrong.  Sigh…

Again, I will figure it out and get back to the task at hand.  But you can see where I have been for the past few months in that I have been metamorphosing in the confines of my basement.  Did that sound sort of creepy to anyone else besides me?  What I mean is, a lot has been going on on this side of the computer.

Tomorrow I share where I am headed.  It’s not a mystery if you have been reading the last 4 days but I lay it out in black and white because the site is changing.  Normally, a blog would just sort of change and not make too big of a deal of it in terms of saying why.  It would just happen.  But back to my original point, this is “not just a blog” and I feel you should know where I am headed and decide whether you want to come, as well.  We finish up tomorrow!  Woop woop!!

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You have to read this series as if it was one long blog post because…well…it was.  But it was way too long to post as one day so I chopped it in five…keep reading…

Flash forward to now.  Now…I don’t say a word.  Why?  Because personal revelation is far more effective and long lasting than me *telling* you about yourself (and boy can I tell you about yourself if given the chance. OY!)  Understand what I am saying here: I am not saying that I will let you walk around endlessly with a ‘kick me’ sign on your back because I thoroughly recognize that I have a moral obligation to tell you that you are smoking crack and you need to back away from the pipe.  What I am saying is that there is a huge element of timing that is involved in breakthrough and a certain level of risk on my part that I have to be willing to accept (i.e. you getting angry at me that the scale isn’t moving fast enough) if I really want to get you to a true place of success.  I am so done with ordering people around for 12 weeks only to have them back 6 months later because they didn’t learn a thing about themselves the first time around.  It is time for breakthrough but breakthrough requires patience and an element of looking like I don’t know what I’m doing for a while and back in the day, I was not willing to take that risk.  It is not always fun for me at first, but it is so worth it in the end when you are a whole new woman not controlled by your moods thereby not controlled by your eating.

Let me tell you what this looks like because you may still be thinking, “I don’t care, Jodi, I don’t ever want a ‘kick me’ sign on my back.”  I understand that fully but guess what, if you do, it will still be there after you lose whatever weight you would want to lose.  The only thing that would change is that you would be 10 pounds lighter with that sign on you only your friends and family won’t come along and take it off your back because they know you will need it again in 9 months when you gain all the weight back and start the crap all over again.  With that being said, hold on to your sign while I tell you what it looks like to take it off for good:

Most of us (in fact I can go out on a limb and say if you are reading Jodiojo then you have definitely at one time or another done what I am about to say) have struggled losing weight at some time or another in our lives and at the end of that struggle we may have found something that “worked” at that time.  Be it low carb, high carb, no carb, extra fat, no fat, certain types of fat, eating while standing up vs. eating while being upside down, the cute trainer in the gym vs. the old guy with the hairy mole at the boxing ring, whatever it was, we automatically thought, “that was it” and then we erroneously set our lives up around that food, food plan, gym, trainer or what have you.  May I be so bold as to tell you that it is never “them”?  If it was the first time that you had to lose weight, then yes, it could have been “them”.  But if you have worn a tread around the Mulberry bush losing the same 5 to 10 pounds every year—it’s never “them”.  Let’s flash back, then, to the days of my depravity.  I would have to beat you into submission/understanding that the root of your problem was not “them”.  I would tell you the truth and what I said was right, but I would say it in a way that just shut you down and never gave you the chance to experience it for yourself.  What’s so bad about that is you never got to see where you had gone wrong in your thinking so you could not appreciate/grasp the concept/understand what part of your thinking was holding you back in the first place.  Not one of you lack diet knowledge—not one.  There is not a shortage of brain power with the readers of this site.  However, all of us still walk around the Mulberry bush ‘over thinking’ our issue thinking that it is the glycemic index in relation to the mitochondrial influence on our Thyroid that has caused us to mysteriously put on 10 pounds while we were getting our hair done because we just learned on Dr Oz that if we don’t control the surge of ghrelin in our guts, we will surely release too much insulin!!  WHAT??  Really???  Heavens to Murgatroyd!  Say isn’t so, Sam!  You want to watch my afro grow 45 feet in 3 minutes flat?  Come to me with some nonsense like that and I could seriously launch out of my skin into your head and stomp on your thinking for about 10 minutes before I even realized that I had invaded your mind like that.  I know some of you are laughing right now because you are still picking out remnants from the bottom of my shoes out of your frontal lobes so you know what I am saying is true.  Please…whatever you do…don’t come to me with craziness like that.  It makes me psycho…and you wouldn’t like me when I’m psycho.

Now this is some bull right here!

After all of this, though, I still have not told you what this looks like so here it goes:  First, let me start by saying that this is not anyone in particular so please do not email me and say that that’s you.  One, get over yourself; two, we ALL do this.  ALL of us!  You are not a freak—you’re normal!  Seriously.  This means that no one can email me and say that I put their business out there because it is EVERYBODY’S business!  Get your hands off the keyboard now.  Thank you.  What was I saying?  Oh yes, you decide you cannot take the extra ten pounds anymore and so you hunt me down for a “diet”.  The conversation may go a little something like this:

Girl: “Jodi!  Where have you been?  I miss you!”

Who knows I haven’t been ‘anywhere’?  What they’re really saying is, “Why weren’t you here last week when I stuck my face in my refrigerator on Friday and then didn’t bring it back out again until Sunday night?  You slackard!  Now I’m up 10 and it’s all your fault for not making your voice loud enough in my head. Grrr.”

Me: “Uh…I’ve been right here.  I miss you, too.  What’s up?”

Completely said with that voice that says “I’m so onto where you’re going and I’m not going with you.  However, I’ll entertain you for a minute because I love you.”  Compassion in action.

Girl: “I need you to put a diet together for me.  I need to take this extra weight off.”

Me: “Really?  What happened to the last 4 I put together?”

Who can hear me saying that to you?  Again…no shortage of knowledge on this site!

Girl: “They worked awesome!!  I just need to get it together again.  I need a jumpstart/energizer/refresher/focused plan/structured type of thing to get me back on track/serious/in line again/all about health/where I was before.”

Me: “That’s what you said before.  What happened?”

Girl: “Nothing.  It was awesome actually.  I hit goal.  But then…work/husband/kids/life/high school reunion/alien life forces/alignment of the stars got in the way and I’m back to square one.  Please Jodi.  Can you just make me a diet/make me hot/make me like my job/make me not want to hit my relative/make me look good naked just this one/two/three/four times again?”

Me: “I’ll tell you what…”

Right away you should know something is coming down the pike at you that is going to cost you something and I don’t mean money.

Me: “I’ll give you a new plan—we’ll start this Friday.  You have it for 4 weeks.  If you can’t stick with it, then can we talk?”

Girl: “Absolutely!!  I’m so excited!  Thank you!”

Said Girl (thank you, Norman) gets the diet.  She’s good for the first 2 weeks like it is her job! Then week 3 comes along and there’s a bit of a falter and by week 4 she’s bordering on being a mess (mind you, the whole time she was losing weight so this isn’t about lack of progress!):

Me: “Ok girl, what’s going on?  You know there’s no pressure from me but you’re not going to make the goal that you wanted to make if you keep falling apart like this.”

In other words, do you see what I see? Go ahead, sing it in your head.

Girl: “Nothing is going on.  I’m super focused…it’s just that my food is so boring/life is so hectic/I really want to be able to eat [insert here]/I hate cardio/I’m so tired from work/I need someone to cook my food…so I haven’t been on track lately.”

Me: Total dead pan tone, “Really.”

I get blamed for everything. Sigh.

Here is where back in the day I would have lambasted you, got you in a head lock and ate you for breakfast.  Now?  Not so much.  Instead, I wait…it  may take a few more weeks…but I wait…hear every word you say, we talk about your progress, we put minor solutions into operation…and then I wait again…drop little hints here and there…ask questions…and wait…chat with you like I know nothing….celebrate your achievements…and wait…til it hits you like a ton of bricks that it’s not the carbs/insulin/wheat/gluten/beef vs. vegetarianism issue that you have been plagued with and if someone had cooked your food/hand delivered your food/heck, ate your food for you, you STILL wouldn’t have stayed on track.  Instead, the issue lies with you!  Now if I had told you that, you would not have believed me.  You would have blamed the diet/republicans/democrats/gun laws/innocent wombats/webkinz and so on because you were not in a place to see what I was seeing.   But for some reason, the lights have been turned on and all our patience has paid off because THAT’s where the success lies.  When you tell it back to me like I had zero idea and honestly, I most likely didn’t, but I knew something was up then we are truly cooking with gas.  But you needed to figure that out—not me.  Me knowing does you no good.

This has been my last 2 years and it has impacted my writing tremendously because I can no longer write about what I used to I see things so differently now.  Hence my disappearance.  I’m not done, though.  There’s more.  Not much, but enough that I couldn’t shove it in today.  See you tomorrow.  Woop woop!

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