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…

Next Post in Series

Yesterday we tackled what you needed to do physically to get through the STA. Today, we are going to talk about it emotionally. I am not going to go into too much detail because I would rather cover this more comprehensively at another time but you will get the gist of where I am going and it will give you a few things to think about in the mean time.

Scenario #1 Having to lose weight again within one year of a 10 to 15 pound weight loss.
Pro: This should not be earth shattering in terms of losing the weight again. It is very doable.
Con: You will have to work harder than you did the first time and that is always a bummer.

Things to consider:

1. The weight comes off easier the further you are from the date when you stopped dieting. If you entered into maintenance in April and gained the weight back over the summer, you should not have a hard time come December or January if you follow the guidelines I outlined.
2. The older you are, the harder it is and the longer it takes. Each time may look different so be ready to “re-learn” your body all over again.
3. The way you gained it makes a difference as well. A slow creep is easier to take off than a 2 week bender that happened a month after you entered maintenance.

I find that this is the least debilitating situations out of the four groups. Typically, this did not come about as a “grand revealing” so you don’t have to do the “grand veiling” 6 months later. Most of us who take off ten pounds, just take off ten pounds and there isn’t much fanfare about it. Maybe someone notices and compliments us here and there, but if it took a while, it most likely didn’t cause a commotion. Where the problem comes with this group is that they keep losing the same 10 pounds over and over and over again. This brings on a sense of failure, futility, frustration and guilt that can start to take on a life of its own and also become habitual. I can honestly say that some of us would not know what to do with ourselves if we didn’t have “10 pounds to lose” but if that is the case then I would seriously beseech you to look at the underlying feelings that are causing that craziness.

Scenario #2 Having to lose weight again within two years of a 20 plus pound weight loss.
Pro: If you are closer to the two year mark there is hope.
Con: You will most likely be forced to go extreme to take off the weight if you are impatient–which pretty much describes most of us women.
Things to consider:

1. You lost a good amount of weight and you will not get it off the second time without a fight.
2. Before trying to lose the weight, get all of your ducks in a row in terms of eating and having a rhythm. This means trying to regulate your eating right where you are. Don’t restrict calories, just clean up the diet. Give your body some time to get into a healthy rhythm before putting it through the rigors of dieting again. Usually, when we get off track our normalcy goes with it. Restore that for at least a month before starting on yesterday’s guidelines.
3. If you gained back 20 some odd pounds in less than a year, then it will take an act of nature to get it off again in a year without some sort of extreme measure. Can you do it in 2 years? Yes, you can. But less than one year is going to cost you.

This is a hard one to get through emotionally. Twenty pounds is noticeable and you feel naked before friends and family. What is the hardest, though, are the declarations you most likely made to yourself and others that now you have to live down. Things like “I will never go back to my size { } ever again” or “You just have to make healthy choices” and so on. Insert whatever glib statement you want but many who lose that amount tend to become overnight nutrition counselors to everyone else so when they fall…they fall hard. My weight in last 2.5 years has fluctuated more than the Dow Jones off a bad Tweet. I went for 5.5 years without being able to lose a pound to fixing some major hormonal issues that caused me to drop weight in five seconds flat. So yes, I could now lose weight but I, also, could gain it back faster than I have ever seen before and the roller coaster ride that I went on trying to find a balance was not fun. I have a very different body post apocalypse and I have learned much in terms of the emotions that go with not being able to control your body’s response to things. It will be really tough to go through this if you had much to say about your weight loss to others. To the degree that you were vocal will be the amount that you will struggle on the rebound. If you were quiet, though, your second journey will only be physically hard and only slightly emotionally laborious. Sounds exciting.

Scenario #3 Having to lose weight again after a 12 week hardcore diet countdown of any kind losing ANY amount of weight.
Pros: You haven’t had the new weight long enough to become too emotionally attached.
Cons: If you lost it that fast, EVERYONE knows and is now focusing their attention on you and you feel as naked as a baby’s bum on a changing table.
Things to consider:

1. You have to give yourself at least a 4 week break before you can try to lose weight again. If you dropped into a 15-20 pound weight loss over a 12 week hardcore restrictive diet, you most likely rebounded HARD—meaning almost overnight–when you gained the weight back. This is THE hardest weight to ever take off. Your body is tired from dieting and you are SO over it by this time. Hormonally you need to stabilize before expecting your body to respond.
2. You must drop your cardio immediately and stop dieting. The guidelines are essential—follow them.
3. This was to be expected and I am not sure there was much you could have done to prevent it. It is…the nature of the beast. Knowing that, do not beat yourself up over it because it only wastes time and you don’t have any to waste.
4. You will not rebound this hard the next time you diet. Your body will get used to the dieting and you will be that much wiser the next time around. Trust me on this one.

See my series called Failing Forward to see how this goes down emotionally.

Scenario #4 Having to continue to lose weight when you have a sizable weight loss goal of 30 pounds or more.
Pros: If you have been doing this incrementally and nothing extreme, you just need a refeed here and there and you’re good to go.
Cons: It is a long haul and you need a good team behind you and that’s not always available.
Things to consider:

1. You have to be the master of change: diet, workout, perspective, etc.
2. Cut your cals last. Since you have a long way to go, a cut too deep too soon = plateau.
3. You will lose on the scale, in the mirror and in bodyfat. Do not declare a plateau until all 3 of those have stopped moving.

You need a professional team of rah rah shish coom bah’ers on your staff. They need to stoke you like a coal fire in a steam engine train. There is nothing more to this. If you have to lose more than 30 pounds, you know what I am talking about. Put your nose to the grind, ignore all the people who feel like they are your “Jillian Michaels” for the moment and just keep it moving. Make sure you have a sanity check in your life from someone who knows what they’re talking about and just ride out the storm. Cool? Because the only thing that is going to take you down is taking your eyes off of the road. Looking out the window will cause a crash. Keep your eyes focused on the road.

Oh my, ladies.  Well I’ve lost about five pounds just getting worked up this week over this.  Whew!  Thank you for the workout! Haha!  Next series is a short one…Look for it on Tuesday…Cool?  Woop woop!!

Previous Series Post

Today can best be described as ‘rolling commentary’. For those of you who have ever had a conversation like this with me all I can say is, “Thank you for still staying in touch with me.”

Shell Shock
I remember the first time I realized I couldn’t lose weight right away and that where I was, was where I was going to stay. I am not sure that there are words to describe that feeling. Shell shocked was about the only words I can find for you. But you will run the gamut in terms of feelings when you realize that the golden scepter of weight loss has been removed from your life.

Your first reaction will be to put everything back into action again. In other words, go back to the diet you were doing, the same amount of cardio, the same supplements and so on. My reaction?

It’s not going to work. In fact, you will feel like a hamster on a wheel because you are going to be working really hard but getting nowhere. You will go weeks without any weight loss and you will end up exhausted before anything else. If you don’t get really desperate and think about a fat burner, liposuction or gastric bypass,then you will most likely cut your cals down to just sniffing your food and boost your cardio up to endurance training levels.  That’s a surefire way to enter in no-man’s land–fast.

Flim Flammed
Once that doesn’t work, you’ll turn the internet. You will read somewhere that you are not eating enough or that you dieted so long that you are now in “starvation mode” and what your body really needs is calories. But you’re too scared to just increase your cals so you find one of those really “book smart” gurus out there to help you. He tells you that yes, you need to eat more and puts you on a high calorie diet and says, “Don’t worry. This will get your metabolism going so you can take off the weight again.” My thoughts on this?

DON’T DO IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Is he reputable? I’m sure he is.
Is he brilliant and beyond reproach? I don’t doubt it.
Is he right? Technically.
So what’s the problem? HE’S A MALE!!!!! And he is leaving out the most important thing you need to know: YOU ARE GOING TO GET FATTER BEFORE YOU GET THINNER!!!!! That may not seem like a big deal to a random passerby but I have not met ONE of you who are willing to take one for the team like that! Guys don’t care about the things that we care about. I would rather have someone do a cavity search on me with studded gloves before I’d EVER willingly gain a pound! Am I driven by my body? NO! You all know that—especially so if you’ve met me in person—but I’ll be darned if you send me ten steps back to go twelve steps forward! It takes a LOT to lose weight. Heck, I was gonna say it takes a village for a minute there because it almost seems like that but do not ever, I mean ever assume that that weight is going to come off just because some really knowledgeable guy says so!!!!! Let’s look at why:

1. You know you didn’t tell him all the reasons why you are where you are. To be thoroughly truthful, you probably haven’t told yourself either!
2. You know you are not stable minded when you weigh more than you want to weigh. You will only half follow what he says so you’ll only get half of what he promised.
3. You know he can’t really *make* it come off and since he is giving you that assessment off the bogus information you gave him in the first place, you are playing Russian roulette. Get out now.

So let’s say for afro’s sake that you didn’t go up anymore weight because that just didn’t sit right with you. What do you do? And when you *do* do it, what does it really look like while going through it?
1. Open up your diet but do NOT increase your cals, yet. Whatever you took out to get there, put back in immediately. This includes but is not limited to dairy, wheat, eggs, starch, fat, taste, enjoyment, fun, crunch, salt and anything else that makes you smile when you think about it. Stop eating Styrofoam lying to yourself saying that this is ok. Girl, please! It’s most likely why you fell off the wagon so fast in the first place.
2. Make sure you have a way of tracking your intake that is reliable. I get it…tracking is not fun. It is time consuming and laborious but so is dragging around an extra 15 pounds in your back pocket. Suck it up and get over it (the harshest thing you will ever see come off my keyboard. Sorry, but please do it.) You did not have to do it to get here, but you will have to do it to get out of here. You must know what you are taking in every day. Eyeballing is not going to work the second time around.
3. Start first with a refeed. Do not ever increase your cals for a sustained amount of time but definitely eat a ginormous amount of food for 3 days or so to at least signal your body that you are about to do something. Just coasting into a diet is not going to work and I cannot tell you how many times we try to get away with this. Crazy. What constitutes a lot of food? Around 2300 to 2500 CLEAN cals for 3 days. Doesn’t sound like a lot? Try it. You’ll hate food by day 3 because that’s a lot of food.
4. Whatever way you dieted before, do something completely different this time around. If you were lots of protein and greens before with no starch, you’ll be moderate protein, some green veggies and some colorful ones, too, with a bit of starch here and there. It cannot look the exact same as before. YOU MUST CHANGE IT to get the scale to move.
5. Start with the cals you started with the first time you dieted assuming you were dropping them as you were dieting. This puts you in a caloric surplus but not so much that you balloon up like a tic on a dog.  Do not…I repeat…do NOT gain a ton of weight back thinking it will just “come off”.  You better make friends with that weight at that point.  Start talking to it.  Cuz it’ll be with you for a while! Just sayin’.
6. Leave cardio where it is. Don’t touch it. Whatever you’re doing now is fine. This is a diet issue.
7. Make lifting more like cardio. Stop the splits because you are wasting your time. Get to moving the big muscle movers and for Pete’s sake, increase the amount that you lift.  Or…hire a trainer who will work you hard during this time.  The point here is you must sweat, work hard and lift heavy and most of us are not motivated enough to thoroughly change our workouts like that.
8. Wrap your mind around the fact that this isn’t Kansas anymore, Toto. Gone are the days of 1 to 2 pounds per week. What you will most likely see is:

• Non linear weight loss. You’ll go 3 weeks without losing one pound and then suddenly drop 2 out of nowhere.
• You will get smaller before you get lighter. Don’t ask me why I have no idea but this is fact.
• You will feel like everyone in the world is talking about you. This is not true. Only a few are talking about you and you most likely talked about them so all is balanced in the world again.
• You will not be as hungry. This is a tough one because there is a fine line between stuffing yourself and shorting yourself.  My first instinct is to tell you to eat but if you have to unbutton your pants like it was Thanksgiving everyday, something’s up and I’d pull back.

9. BE PATIENT! If it took you 8 weeks to lose it the first time, it will take you 12 weeks the second time. You will have to put in about 1.5 times the effort to get what you got before.

Wow. I actually tore up some of the fabric on the chair in my office and it is now securely tucked away in my butt thanks to my anal sphincter. I think I’m gonna go for a walk now and let off some steam. Scare the neighbors a little. Hahaha!!

Wrapping it up tomorrow! Woop woop!

Previous Series Post Next Post in Series

I’m not sayin’ I’m upset or anything but I’m definitely spitting while talking today!

(On side note, I used to wear my hair like this but what a beast of a hairstyle to keep up! UGH!)

You are not general public. Period. Do not forget that as I go through this series because I have to constantly remind women of this who venture into the land of clean eating. Once you get to a certain body fat (I will qualify this in a later post), none of the diet rules pertain to you anymore; you have now entered into the clean zone. Why do I bother to say this? Because much of what I am going to say is going to seem counterintuitive to what you know is out there or it is going to seem like I am making it up because I have nothing better to do with my laptop keyboard. Another reason is that there is very little research on this—if any at all—because no one studies the lean community. (When’s the last time you saw a study that said, “Lean Girl Struggles to Lose 10 Pounds to Get Back to Pubescent Weight”? Don’t wait around for it.) Studies are done on the obese (and by companies who want to push a product or an agenda) and you cannot extrapolate their results to you because they live in *excess* and you live in a constant famine. Hormonally, you are a very different woman and depending on how much you lost, your body may not be happy about it.

The number one question rolling through our minds is always ‘how did this happen?’ Although the answer is quite obvious, as you lift your face out of a bag of Lindt chocolate truffles, it really isn’t that clear cut. First, you never ate Lindt truffles before you lost the weight so now why the obsession? Second, it’s more than the fact that you like them—you’d sell your first child on the black market for them–and if you don’t have kids, you’ll sell a niece or a nephew because it is all about the [insert food here] right now! Where did that intensity come from? Third, you are not pounding them down in outrageous amounts. Yes, it is more than you should be having but it’s only once a week or even less so why the extreme weight gain? And lastly, why aren’t you doing anything about it? Why is it that the more you try to stop, the more you eat?

Before I can get into the details of what it looks like the STA (second time around), it is imperative that we define just who we are talking about for this series. Yesterday I gave you 4 possible scenarios as to what constitutes the STA, today we are going to tackle scenario #3. Let’s assume that you have just done a 12 to 16 week diet. You lost anywhere between 12 to 15 pounds. You lost it either easily or quickly—or both. Let’s also assume that you ended at a weight that you have not been at for a long, long time. And that you threw out all your clothes at the larger size because you swear you “will never be there again”. OY! Now that we have all that established I ask again…what happened?

1. You lost too much too soon. Honestly, saying it that way is sort of inaccurate because what really matters is not how fast you lost it but how extreme you had to go to lose it but for this blog post, it’ll do. Losing that much weight that fast causes your body to go into “oh heck no” mode and it begins to fight you but not like it does if this was for an event, this is a different fight. It is more akin to a scale creep than a scale leap. Because you are not losing this for a show or an event, your cortisol levels will not be sky high since you are not anticipating anything. Therefore, you notice that although you crave sweets, it is not an all consuming vacuum like it once had been but the fight to stay at that weight is there and you feel it. Your body wants to go back to where it was and that desire of your body depends on how long you were there.
2. You didn’t own the weight. This picks up where I just left off: you have to be at that weight for at least 3 months before you can truly say that that is now your new weight. And let me be even more real here: you really have to be at that weight for at least 6 to 9 months before you can breathe a sigh of relief. This does not, by any means, mean that you have to keep up with the level of dieting that you were doing to get there but it does mean that you need to be extra vigilant for a while.
3. You bounced out of diet mode instead of easing out. I see this a lot. It was an inconvenience in the first place to diet, it is an even bigger inconvenience to keep it going. Making the time for the gym, keeping up with the dieting, being a nuisance at events that you had to go to. When it was all said and done, you couldn’t wait to be “normal”! Not to mention, life got hectic so you had to cut a few days here and there off of your normal gym time as well as a few weddings happened and so on. You woke up one day and just said fahghettaboudit. And you did.
4. You didn’t deal with the issue that made you gain in the first place. I’ll admit…this is a tough one without first adding a qualifier. Let’s assume that you have dieted before and this “new you” has happened in your lifetime already. In fact, over the course of 5 years, it has happened a few times but this time is the best you have ever looked. In light of this, we can honestly say that you haven’t dealt with the issue that keeps causing you to self sabotage and gain the weight back. Dieting is exhausting and every time you gain the weight back, you care less and less about doing it again. Not only that, but you begin to “live” in diet mode and that is debilitating.
5. You live in diet mode. You should have seen this one coming just from the way I ended that last sentence. At some point this gets old. We never know when it is going to hit but when it does, watch out! This is sheer rebellion, ladies. “I am tired of being on a diet”. However, you are not on a diet any more but your mind is! You perpetually live in restriction. Even if all you are doing is eating clean, in your mind you’re on a diet. So many of us have ritualistically embraced the concept of eating clean: Tupperware, cooking ahead, no processed food and so on because we joined the clean community in hopes of changing our physiques. But over time, we need to shift from this being a means to an end to this being a way of living in our minds, hearts and actions. I guarantee you that most of you believe that you have because you have lived this life for so long but I am telling you just from talking to you that you have not. You have “accepted” the ritual as your reality but deep down, you long for the old way of living of eating [name your food of choice here] and make do with the new way of living. This is why when you are left on your own in front of a buffet for five minutes, you cut up like a clown at a Big Apple Circus premier. We will talk more about this.
6. You really don’t care. What?! Did I just say that you really don’t care after you paraded yourself around the gym like a float from the Macy’s Day Parade? Yup. I did. And look me in the eyes and tell me differently…I dare you. Hairy eyeball ‘n’ all. Talk about a real let down dropping 12 pounds, looking awesome, loving the way you feel and realizing that your significant other is still a pain in the butt, your siblings are all still dysfunctional, your job is still demanding and you still don’t have a pot to pee in or a window to throw it out of. Why flippin’ bother? You thought it would solve all your problems. Now you’re the star of Facebook but you still have to collate all the pages of the 2013 Budget Review at your firm. Fun.

Those are 3 technical mistakes and 3 emotional mistakes that we make that cause us to go from glory to gory in all of a few months. Next up is what it looks like when you are actually dieting because it is very different from what you expect and it can drive you bananas (although I hope not on a no starch day because that wouldn’t be cool.

See you tomorrow! Woop woop!

Previous Series Post Next Post in Series

Who wishes they were in my basement with me when this guy showed up?  He was HUGE. And he made loud clicking noises.  Ewww. Now this is a beast.  YUCK!  Thank goodness for hubby and the 6 pound med ball he dropped on it!  But then it stunk up the house for at least a day. Blech!

Clean living sounds like the most simplest of things to do; that all you have to do is stop eating processed food and voila—you are all set. Your body comes in line, your happiness is all set, your bills are paid…I mean seriously, look at the ads for living the clean lifestyle. You would think this is America’s best kept secret. On the one hand, it is. I would not go back to the way I used to eat before 2002 if you paid me. But on the other hand, I wish people told me back in the day about food cravings, mood swings, texture issues, loathing protein, loving protein, loathing green veggies, craving green veggies, metabolic chaos, hormonal troubles and the topic I’m covering this series: losing weight “the second time around”. There is so much more to eating clean than is ever talked about and I pray to cover every little dirty secret of the industry if I possibly can because most of you think you are nuts, when really, you are experiencing clean eating.

I am sure that I speak for many of us when I say nothing is more upsetting than the big diet countdown that leads to a fabulous loss of weight—at least 10 pounds or more—only to be dampened by a not-so-fabulous gain of weight less than a year later. So please allow me to set up the scene:

• You are not out of shape by any means, but you feel as if you could lose at least 10 pounds without looking like a crack fiend.
• You go to your gym at least 5 days a week and missing a workout is rarer than a Sasquatch sighting.
• Not only are you the mayor of your gym, but the front desk staff checks in with you if they do anything like change the TV settings or enact a new gym policy.
• You show up to family functions and everyone knows that you’re the “healthy one”. They ask you things like, “Does this meet your approval? I got it just for you.”
• It is not like you truly know that your girlfriends are jealous, per se, but you definitely can tell that they are secretly rooting for you to gain a pound or two and certainly don’t want you to lose more.

This is your life before you even lose any weight so what do you do? You get your act together and lose 15 pounds off of an already good looking body. It wasn’t easy. You fought for it tooth and nail but you did it. This may have been your introduction to true clean eating or maybe you have been eating clean for a while and simply got your head out of your butt and made it happen. Regardless of which one that it was, you got it together in such a way that now you look amazing and just about everyone on the planet (or so it feels) notices. This, ladies, is the beauty.

Everyone had something to say about it:

• Gym goers named a piece of cardio after you because you look so good.
• Your mother “just knows” you’re doing drugs. How could you be so skinny?
• Your girlfriends now give you attitude over anything that you say. Somehow it’s all about you. (Although…they may be right!)
• Your partner may or may not be onboard depending on whether he’s all about “skinny” or “meat on the bones”.
• The mailman asked if you if you lost weight! I mean seriously!

For a few months you are walking on air. As far as you’re concerned, life has never been so good and you can’t remember a time when you didn’t feel insecure about your weight. This is great…kind of… While you were busy losing weight, life was unhappily going on around you and somewhere in your euphoria you woke up and noticed. Your boss was laid off and now you and your co-workers are picking up the slack; your mother got ill—nothing life threatening, but now you are taking care of her and her affairs; you and yours truly are suddenly fighting and you have no desire to hang out with your girlfriends right now. It has only been 5 months since you lost 13 pounds but somewhere in all of this hoopla, you have gained back 10 of it. You’re actually not sure if it is a full ten or not because you are afraid to step on the scale. And you can’t really tell in your clothes because you immediately went back to the baggy pants just in case someone notices. Your gym buddies can’t really help you because now you don’t want to go back to the gym. Now what? Do you crawl under a rug and disappear? Do you change gyms? Of course not! You simply lose that weight again. If you just get right back on to cardio and fire that ole’ menu up again, you’ll be back down to your diet weight right away. Right? Wrong!! This, ladies, is the beast!

The most hardcore eye opener you will ever have is that you cannot lose weight the ‘second time around’ without either taking an organ out to make the scale drop or selling your soul to the cardio demon just to take off an ounce. It is the most helpless you will ever feel when you have to diet the second time around. So what defines “second time around”?

Having to lose weight again within one year of a 10 to 15 pound weight loss.
Having to lose weight again within two years of a 20 plus pound weight loss.
Having to lose weight again after a 12 week hardcore diet countdown of any kind losing ANY amount of weight.
Having to continue to lose weight when you have a sizable weight loss goal of 30 pounds or more.

If you have any of those scenarios in place right now, this is the series for you. We need to talk about 4 things:

• What got you here in the first place.
• What it looks like losing again because it is very different than the first time.
• How to get past the emotions you go through looking “fabulous” one day to looking…well…like what you used to the next.
• The rules and guidelines of dieting the second time around.

I am not sure I am going to go in that order, but I do know I will cover all four of those topics. This is a big deal because how you handle this determines whether you keep your metabolism healthy or not. Most girls get themselves in trouble here and almost all girls think that they have “metabolic damage” when they are stuck here which is pure nonsense. Trust me when I say, when you have true metabolic damage, you have far more indicators than gaining back a few pounds. You typically have an apocalyptic event on your hands.

Hang tight for more. See you here tomorrow! Woop woop!

Next Post in Series

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.

Previous Series Post Next Post in Series

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.

Previous Series Post Next Post in Series

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}

Previous Series Post Next Post in Series

Dysfunction junction what’s your unction?

Hooking up diets with crazy thought patterns.

(Feel free to sing along)

Dysfunction: a consequence of a social practice or behavior pattern that undermines the stability of a social system

Junction: a place or point where two or more things meet or converge.

Unction: something soothing or comforting.

Let’s face it:  we have issues.  We do.  As put together as we may appear to our families and friends, we have some hard core, no joke issues that start with our bodies and then manifest through food.   For the longest time, dysfunction was a word that when I heard it I would think of families.  Don’t we all think we have the most dysfunctional family and even more so every time the cops show up to a backyard barbeque because Uncle Peanut and cousin George are going at it again over money?  Or is that just my family?  Now, the word dysfunction immediately makes me think of the way we perceive food—not our bodies—but food in relation *to* our bodies.   How many of you have a certain quirky behavior that you do now that you know you never did before because somehow doing it makes you feel as if those calories do not count or your clothes fit better or whatever?  We all have something and to some degree it’s cute and it’s funny, but then there comes a time when it begins to set up a pattern of thinking that starts out as dysfunctional and quickly morphs into mental bondage.  Where we can’t have a cheat meal—which is food albeit not necessarily the best food but food nonetheless–because we think we will gain weight but we will thoroughly ignore the fact that over the course of the week we ate a bunch of “little” cheats that added up to 4 cheat meals and a snack by the time we were done anyway.  But it doesn’t count…because it took a week…and it wasn’t as bad because…well…because it wasn’t.  [pouting while looking at the floor]  So, to make up for that folly we skip the cheat meal again coming up that weekend because we believe in our warped thinking that we should not have it because we just cheated our way through the week but now we are resentful because we can’t have it…and we want to be done with this dieting thing…and why are we the only one with horrible genetics…and we don’t need it anyway because it’s so much easier not to have it…so we—wait for it…–keep “cheating”!  UGH!

This is just one of the quirky things that we do and the most easily recognizable but there are many more dysfunctions, and yes, I am going to touch upon one of them in this series and it is not the cheat meal–it’s dieting in general.  Understand dysfunction was not our issue at first.  None of us started this behavior consciously and almost all of us developed it over a long period time.  Long enough that we may even tell our quirk to other people as if it actually had scientific basis or did not seem wonky at all while we try to convince them that we have no other motive for that behavior other than pure science (“Baby, I eat my food cold because studies show it digests better.”  Riiight).  Trust me when I say this, they think you are jacked in the mind.  Just accept it.  Especially when you try to convince them that something tastes amazing when it clearly does not (*cough* protein pancakes *cough*).   Again, all cute and funny here but like I said before, there comes a time…when we reach a certain junction in our lives…when we cross a line from a silly behavior to augmenting the way we eat to accommodate a twisted thought in our head.  Not cool.  That junction is normally at the meeting place of our bodies vs. ‘loss of control’ somewhere in our lives and we feel as if we need that control back NOW.  Stat!  Pronto!  Therefore, decisions must be made and behaviors must be changed (read that as ‘become more extreme’) so that we can feel more in control of something we have absolutely no control over.

The most obvious decision that we make is to do some sort of overhaul with our diet.  We need something to placate the feeling that we have.  We are spiraling out of control.  We are up 5 pounds, manically eating junk, feeling lousy about ourselves, not liking the look of our body for some reason, feeling insecure, wanting relief from something emotionally draining or what have you!  We may be one of those; we may be all of those. The point is:  We. Are. Something.  And if we do not have ‘something’ that soothes or comforts that feeling we have, you know…like an unction (i.e. crazy diet), then we could possibly self destruct until we do.   Here it is, though, here is the scary thing and it is happening so innocently that we may miss it.  The problem is not the choosing of an unction, the problem is in the justification.  What are you telling yourself to justify the decision that you are making?  What “science” are you convincing yourself of?  What rationale are you using to say it is okay to eat white fish at every meal for 2 weeks straight just to lose 5 pounds?  Again, the diet or method you may choose to do may not be bad, but the reason you choose it is and that is puts you on a game playing, weight loss merry-go-round that can be mind boggling at best; destructive at worst.

We, in our dysfunction, diet for many reasons but I have only chosen 3 for this series and 3 diets per reason; I could have easily chosen another 10 if given the chance.  I start the series out in full humor but end in all seriousness.  Tomorrow is about Reactive Dieting, how y’alls tend to do crazy things for silly reasons and try with a straight face to convince me that you have fully thought this through.  Wednesday is about Prideful Dieting.  This is slightly funny but more on the cautionary side.  I may come off as if I am lecturing you but I can assure I am not.  I am sparing you from your own folly.  Ask me how I know (hanging my head in shame).  Thursday I am in your living room, sitting across from you on the couch, looking you dead in your eyes and saying enough is enough.  You are worth more than this psycho behavior can give you and the destruction has to stop.  Friday, after you booted me out of your house on Thursday, I still had more to say so I made you meet me for a tea and I talk about the last diet and then I put a short wrap up together so we are clear on all that I am saying here.

This is much like the last series in that I do not have any lead ins or transition statements at the end of the blogs.  I will not “make sense of” or wrap anything up until Friday so be sure to read all the emails I send to you about the posts and this introduction again if you feel as if you are missing something.  I have much to say about the way we diet, I do not need to make the posts any longer with transition stuff.  I hope you enjoy.  “See” you tomorrow!  WOOP WOOP!

Next Post in Series