Chasing the Weight Loss Dream

The dream was always running ahead of me. To catch up, to live for a moment in unison with it, that was the miracle. - Anais Nin

A year ago, on November 1, I reached my Weight Watchers goal weight. Since then, I've been able to maintain, never going more than 4 lbs over my goal weight, and often weighing in a bit under goal.

But the numbers on the scale don't represent the greatest success I've experienced since reaching goal. True weight loss success is found, I have come to believe, in day to day decisions. When I decide to just dig into my daily WW program (eating from the Core List, getting some exercise, meeting the Eight Good Health Guidelines), I have immediate benefits. Living the program today means that I'm not waiting for a victory at the scale to know that I'm doing well. I experience success in the myriad subtle responses I get from my body -- more energy, better sleep, toned muscles, a brighter outlook, greater stamina.

Weight Watchers members like to say "it's not a diet, it's a lifestyle change." By this, we mean that we're not just aiming to lose weight at the scale, we're seeking to change on deeper levels. We understand that for the weight to come off and stay off, we have to change our attitudes, our beliefs about ourselves and the world around us, and our convictions about who we are and what we can accomplish. By working toward weight loss, we seek slimmer bodies, healthier attitudes about eating and fitness, and renewed vitality.

So if it's not a diet, but a lifestyle change, we can live the dream today. It need not always be running ahead of us, waiting at the end of a quest to drive down the numbers on the scale. No, the dream is here, in this time and place. When we live, right now, as the slimmer, healthier, more vital person we dream of being, a miracle occurs. We become ourselves, more fully. We become who we are here to be. And all the energy and effort we've put into fighting food, and fighting our bodies, becomes available to us for some other purpose. It's incredible what we can achieve when we stop devoting so much of our vital energy to the weight loss battle.

If you've been battling your body, fighting yourself to lose weight, imagine simply living as a slimmer person today. Imagine simply accepting that you will follow your healthy weight management program comfortably, without resentment and inner protests. Imagine surrendering the struggle to do it "your way," in favor of just doing the program, as it's written. Your weight will come off as your body is ready, in its own time, but you need not wait for the scale before you realize the benefits of your weight management lifestyle. Imagine what you'll do instead, now that you've stopped chasing the dream.

Stop chasing the dream and begin living it.

The best thing about the future is that it only comes one day at a time. - Abraham Lincoln

Wasting My Education

http://amysrobot.com/archives/2005/09/ny_times_on_sta.php

Let me get this straight -- if I have a quality university education, and then choose to actually raise my own kids, I'm foolishly wasting my education and betraying feminism because I'm unable to think outside the traditional box? If I don't get a university education and choose to raise my own kids, I'm sub-intelligent, outside the bounds of feminism, and following in lockstep some Stepford vision of womanhood? If I have a quality university education (or even if I don't) and I work outside the home I'm less than a good mother, abandoning my children to daycare and classroom "parents for hire?" And if I choose not to be a mother at all, I've chucked my womanhood altogether?

When DD was born, I went through a long, lonely stretch of the baby blues. I didn't recognize my life. I didn't know how to be DD's mommy. I didn't know how to be me, at home, sans career. . . The biggest adjustment of new motherhood was missing all the familiar, external cues by which I knew who I was: good student, loyal employee, creative person, good friend. The routine of baby care was numbing and exhausting. It took all day, and at the end I had little to show for it (although we both were breathing, clean and fed). And, though my friends and family may have tried to tell me, I didn't hear, "you're still you, you're just doing something different for a while." I had to come to that realization for myself.

Now I have a happy, bright 3 year old and we're in a good groove together. The baby blues are a bad memory. I'm more engaged with the world -- friends, hobbies, and books are back in my life. And I still work my butt off mothering.

I've worked for over 25 years in various capacities outside the home. I have an undergraduate degree from a Seven Sisters college. I have a graduate degree, too. I'm a feminist. I am a SAHM and homeschooler with a 3 year old DD and a 7 year old DSS. Am I wasting my education when I teach my DD to read, or show my DSS how to use an atlas? Am I wasting my education homeschooling my kids -- finding interesting things to read, schlepping to the library and the Y, going to park days and homeschool co-op days, reading everything I can find about how humans learn? Am I wasting my education attending homeschooling conferences, participating in workshops, sharing with other parents? Am I wasting my education viewing parenting as a vital effort to contribute to society? Perhaps a deeper question is whether it's a waste of time to spend it with children. Feminists Cheris Kramarae and Paula Treichler comment that "feminism is the radical notion that women are people." Is it really so radical to notice that children are people? Am I wasting my education spending time with children (mine and others') -- talking with them, sharing myself, teaching them about values, listening to their concerns, guiding them to find answers to their questions, helping them contribute to their families and community, treating them like valuable human beings? When my kids are older, I bet I'll be back in the workplace, with even more wisdom to contribute, courtesy of the time I'm spending with children. So am I wasting my fine university education?

I wouldn't say that spending all day, every day, with a child, or a bunch of children, is always gratifying. I have needs that my children cannot (or should not) meet. I have interests beyond my home and family. There are myriad Catch-22 decisions to make as a mother, and each day brings new challenges, hassles, discoveries and amusements. Raising a child is alternately boring, fun, exhausting, exhilarating, overwhelming, satisfying, nerve-wracking, and lonely. It's hard work with no guarantees about the outcome.

Why this culture doesn't value the hard work it takes to raise a thoughtful, kind, creative, contributing citizen is beyond one blog entry. I do know that until mothering is valued, women and children won't be valued, and the vision of feminism won't be realized.

Valuing Independence?

If we value independence, if we are disturbed by the growing conformity of knowledge, of values, of attitudes, which our present system induces, then we may wish to set up conditions of learning which make for uniqueness, for self-direction, and for self-initiated learning. - Carl Rogers

Recently, I found the above passage from Carl Rogers. Now Rogers already is something of an intellectual hero of mine. The author of the brilliant and gently provocative On Becoming a Person has long influenced my thinking about all aspects of human relations (from politics to psychotherapy to conflict transformation to friendship). But today, as I read his words I'm thinking of a conflict we're working through in my house.

My DSS doesn't want to go to religious school. Or does he? If only it was clear to me, I'd know what to do.

He has fun when he's there (it's two and a half hours, one day a week), he smiles, shows his work proudly, laughs and participates. But on Sunday mornings, when it's time to go, he complains, frowns, grouches, whines, tantrums, and generally does whatever he can to let us know he doesn't want to go. When we observe to him this pattern (he likes it when he's there, he hates it when it's time to go), he sulks more and continues to protest going.

I wonder what to do? As a parent who in my loving heart of hearts, feels that this experience would be good for DSS (in terms of moral development, sense of belonging/peoplehood, understanding of history), I want him to want to do this. The program is thoughtfully planned. The teachers are gentle, warm and playful. And of course, I know that seven year olds aren't always enthusiastic about things that are good for them. Good nutrition, going to bed once in a while, brushing teeth, and participating in community aren't always valued by kids. As homeschoolers who value interest-initiated learning, we're not above "strewing" provocative new materials or experiences in the kids' paths. But I want to honor DSS's process. His way of learning, his readiness to learn, his interests, his freedom. . . these also are important.

So far, we've been taking him, because each week (after he's been) he says he likes it and will go again. So what's bugging him? Is it the structuring of his time? The pressure to hurry up and get ready to go on Sunday mornings? Is it the nature of "school" -- someone else has decided what's important to learn, when, and how? The fact that he hasn't yet made a good buddy to play with while there? I'll keep asking these questions, waiting and watching for some answers. And this week I'll be driving him to temple Sunday morning.

Why Hippos?

It all started with my daughter's pre-school fascination with hippos. She just took a liking to the creatures, got all kinds of fun attention for this quirky fixation, and we were off and running. The more I learn about hippos, it turns out, the more I share DD's affection for them. What speed (18 to 30 mph on land), endurance (they walk up to 6 miles per day foraging), devoted mothering (baby-wearing - it's not just for primates!), ferocity (ever fought off a Nile crocodile?) and adaptation to their environment (they secrete their own sunscreen). . . .
http://www.hippopotamus-amphibius.com/

My Weight Loss Story

I returned to Weight Watchers in November 2003. My DD was 18 months old and I was a wreck. I'd coped with the stress of new motherhood (not to mention life in post 9/11 America) by eating. I ate a lot. And I ate the wrong things. I'm not proud to admit that I 0ften hit the fast food drive-through twice a day. I would put DD in her carseat, drive around until she fell asleep for a nap, and get some fast food while she rested. It was one way to cope, but by that November, I weighed 173, my all-time high. My BMI was 29.9, and I was miserable.

I say that I returned to WW because I'd been a Lifetime member for some years. I'd lost 25 pounds in the early '90s. Although I'd reached Lifetime status (which is awarded by WW when a member achieves a healthy goal weight and maintains that weight for six weeks), I hadn't integrated the personal changes necessary to stay at goal weight. In fact, I have a vivid memory of going to a drive-through for a "food reward" on my way home from the meeting at which I was awarded Lifetime membership in WW! I still had that diet mentality that goes along with short-term behavior changes. I had no confidence that I could lose weight and keep it off. So it's not surprising that I'd regained my 25 pounds by the time I became pregnant with DD. Or that I used food to cope with the stress of new motherhood.

I found a wonderful meeting, and began following the Flex Plan. I have a wonderful Leader, Shirley, who never failed to be encouraging. She always seemed to know just the right thing to say at the right time. The many honest, courageous and successful members of my Sunday morning meeting are truly inspiring. There's a large cadre of Lifetime members at goal who attend my meeting. Their example, plus that of Shirley, showed me that it's possible to lose weight and keep it off. To a one, they say "what got me to goal keeps me at goal." I resolved to follow their lead and keep attending meetings once I reached my goal.

Around February 2004 I began to exercise regularly. I did this despite not being particularly enthusiastic about fitness activity. Rather, I was responding to a challenge issued by a Leader. She said, "I have discovered that I have 30 minutes a day to sit and snack, so I must have 30 minutes a day to be active." I really didn't like hearing that. After all, I was the very busy mom of a toddler, working part time outside the home, and I was tired! But I began doing a 30 minute Walk Away the Pounds tape in the evening before I sat down to my crossword puzzles. Lo and behold, my rate of weight loss increased, my energy level picked up, and my mood improved. I've experienced chronic mild depression my entire adult life, coupled with a pretty rugged bout of the baby blues after DD was born, so the boost I get from exercise turns out to be a big benefit! In the past year and a half of serious exercising, I've worked my way up to one hour training sessions of tae bo, spinning classes at my gym, and strength training with the Firm. I'm considering taking up running, if the weather ever cools off enough to let me do it this Fall. I now strongly encourage everyone to explore different fitness activities until you find the one you can enjoy. It may not look like what I do, or what your friends think is great, but it's out there. Find it, relish it, and your body will thrive!

By the time the Core Plan was released to the WW membership in late August 2004, I was nearly at goal. But I'd hit a bit of an attitude plateau. After all, I'd never before been able to maintain a weight loss. Convinced that disappointment would follow reaching my goal weight, I was stuck about 10 pounds above my goal weight. When Core came out, I was delighted by what I read. What is Core? It is at once a structured approach to food and a freeing invitation to trust one's body. I eat to physical satisfaction from a list of wholesome, unprocessed foods. If I want to eat a nonCore food, I can do so in reasonable amounts. On Core, I've learned to trust my body to tell me when I need to eat, and how much. I've learned I can trust myself around food, I enjoy cooking (though I'll probably never enjoy cleaning up), and weight management can be fairly effortless.

Following the Core Plan, I lost the last few pounds and got to my goal weight on November 1, 2004. Since then, I've lost a few more pounds, bringing my goal weight to 133 -- an even 40 pound loss from my high one year earlier. To my delight, maintenance on Core has been straightforward. As long as I focus my eating on the Core Food List, and continue to exercise daily, my weight stays where I want it to be. In short, those Lifetime members at my meeting are right, "what got me to goal keeps me at goal." I continue to work on the skills I've learned from WW that support my weight maintenance efforts.

To see more photos from my weight loss album, visit my website, http://www.freewebs.com/hippomommy/