Gasping for Air

Cherries, macadamia nuts, and brazil nuts
Coffee with half-and-half

I remember going on my first diet when I was 10 years old. Even way back then, I followed Weight Watchers. You were allowed only two servings of breads/starches per day and you had to have fish five times per week. You were even supposed to have liver once per week. I ignored the liver part, but followed the rest pretty much to the letter. Bread and other starches were minimized and protein was emphasized. This was 1971 when the conventional wisdom for losing weight was to reduce the starches and sweets in the diet. This had long been the prevailing wisdom. Even my uneducated grandmother, who always kept her weight in check, told me on more than one occasion that to lose weight I needed to leave off the bread, rice, potatoes, and dessert. Every meal she served included a meat. Breakfast was always eggs with either bacon or sausage and a piece of buttered toast. She is 96 now and still trim. Maybe she knew what she was talking about.

In the late 70's and early 80's, as I was entering adulthood, I was also eating my way through my parents' divorce and the transition to a big university from a podunk town in rural south Georgia. Those were sad, lonely years, and I turned to food for comfort. As a freshman at UGA, everyone around me was getting drunk to manage their insecurities and to blend in. I ate. It soothed me, and I didn't want to blend in. I wanted to hide.

During the 80's and early 90's, I returned to Weight Watchers numerous times for support in losing weight or managing my weight. But by this time, the tide had turned. Carbohydrates were now good, and they were supposed to form the base of the diet. I still remember the joy I felt when I realized I could eat more bread and still lose weight. I read Jane Brody's bestselling Good Food Book (I still have the well-worn copy) and loved it. "We need to eat more carbohydrates," she wrote. "Not only is eating pasta at the height of fashion. . . It can help you lose weight." I followed Brody's advice along with the updated Weight Watcher program. I lost weight eating a lot of carbs, little protein, and practically no fat. And I took up running. I ran and ran. And struggled to maintain my weight. Despite running half-marathons and obsessing minute-by-minute over every bite I put in my mouth, my weight gradually crept back up. And I berated myself for my lack of will-power and self-control. Dieting began to feel like holding my breath. I could do it for a little while, but then, like one gasping for air, I would eat uncontrollably. And it was always refined carbohydrates. I couldn't seem to get enough . . . You can never get enough of what your body doesn't need.

From the mid 90's until 2004, I pretty much gave up dieting altogether. I read all Geneen Roth's books about compulsive over-eating and tried a few times to follow her advice to make peace with food. Her advice: Allow yourself to have whatever it is that you want and as much as you want. Eventually you will stop over-eating when the food is no longer forbidden. The problem with that advice for me, is that (I now realize) I have an addictive reaction to eating lots of refined carbohydrates. So advising me to eat all the carbs I want was like advising an alcoholic to drink all the booze they want until they eventually get enough. It was dumb advice!

In 2004, I returned to Weight Watchers. I weighed 248 pounds, down 20 pounds from my peak weight. I had recently quickly dropped 20 pounds by giving up all processed sugar. That's all I did; no other change. Without dieting the 20 pounds came off almost effortlessly, simply by eliminating all processed sugar. I decided that to lose the rest of the weight, I needed help, so I returned to Weight Watchers and began again to monitor every bite I put in my mouth, trying my best to follow the recommended program. Over the past five years, I have had that "holding my breath" feeling many times and responded in the way that one does when she has been deprived of air. I gasped for air, and I breathed it in! I ate every refined carbohydrate I could get my hands on. And then I held my breath again for as long as I could stand it. Oh, I have certainly had some success. My weight is down considerably from 2004, but I have not been able to get to a healthy weight, and I have routinely gone on carb binges during those five years, regaining 10 or more pounds only to have to lose it again.

So three weeks ago, on August 8, I decided to experiment with eliminating all grains and refined carbs from my diet. Why eliminate grains? I wanted to see if eliminating grains would reduce or eliminate the carbohydrate cravings that have plagued me for years. I decided to try it for one day, and it's now been nearly three weeks. That's long enough to convince me that this is the way I need to eat. The cravings for sweets and other carbohydrates have greatly diminished. I still sometimes want something sweet, but I feel in control of the craving rather than the other way around. I can choose to have the sweet or choose not to have it. It does not control me. I have allowed myself ice cream (full fat, thank you very much) a couple of times, and last night I had some chocolate covered almonds. And then it's right back to my low-carb way of eating with protein and fat at every meal and plenty of fruits and vegetables.

I am so grateful to finally have found the way I need to eat. I feel a little angry with myself that I didn't embrace this way of eating sooner. The minute I started crossfitting, this was suggested to me by my very first coach, Patrick. And others since. I dabbled with it -- stuck my toe in the water. But it was only recently that I embraced it wholeheartedly. I think I was finally ready to receive the message, and I think the right messenger came into my life. And I was finally ready to ignore conventional wisdom and break the rules to find what works best for me.

"To attribute obesity to 'overeating' is as meaningful as to account for alcoholism by ascribing it to 'over-drinking'."
Jean Mayer
Harvard Nutritionist
1968