Archeology

I went down into my basement looking for some old papers, and I hit the jackpot!  I haven't looked through any of this stuff since long before I moved to this house - the boxes just moved intact. But I found the cache of stuff from the late eighties and early nineties - the decade plus I spent in Chicago - that I was looking for.  I have neat files of tax records, paid bills, checks and receipts. Then I found the Big Box o' Stuff, just all tossed in. It seems to have gone into the box as it accumulated, and so it came out in reverse order. I found Christmas cards, letters (remember letters?), newspaper clippings, records from my ancestors, a few photographs, New Yorker cartoons, certificates from work. There were several poignant moments, as I found things from loved ones that are gone from my life by various means. I found what I was looking for specifically.  But I also found artifacts commemorating my life as a dieter.

I found my records from my first foray into Weight Watchers, in late 1988 and early 1989. I found a "year of weight loss calendar" where there were helpful facts and places to write in your weight, your food, and your thoughts. I found more food diaries, and my first ever recipe for cabbage soup.  It was in purple "ditto" reproduction, a long lost and forgotten technology.

Man, I've been at this for a long time!  Some things have worked, and some things that used to work don't work any more. Some things that were easy are now hard, but some things that used to be hard are easier to handle. Life moves forward, and we change and evolve. The goal isn't even the same, not exactly. I don't care nearly so much about my weight as I do being fit now.  My idea of what is fit, and what is an acceptable weight, is different - I have higher fitness goals, and also higher (heavier) weight goals.  My relationship with food is different - I believe I know what to eat, and most of the time I manage to eat that.

I'm in the middle of listening to the Kitty Kelley unauthorized biography of Oprah, and I was also struck by the years of Oprah's struggle with the same issues. There was the liquid diet success followed by a quick rebound, and then there was "exercise is the key" success followed by a slower rebound.  She is roughly my age, and I bet the post-menopause slowdown in metabolism is responsible for the most recent rebound. I found inspiration in her book with her trainer, Bob Greene, Making the Connection.  I've commented to my personal trainer, "Oprah may have her own trainer that takes care of just her, but she still has to climb on the elliptical trainer and move it by herself. Nobody, and no money, can do it for her."  I don't think Kelley gives her enough credit for the work.  But it sure would be nice to have the personal chef around!

Looking at the history, twenty-two years ago my stated goal was about what I weighed in high school. I considered myself chubby in high school, by the way.  The weight that I started from at Weight Watchers in 1988 was about where I got to at the end of my Big Loss eleven years ago!  The first time I weighed about what I do now was twenty years ago, as the weight started to pile on and stay on for most of a decade. Middle age was setting in, and a rewarding career was not balanced by an inadequate life outside of work.  The Big Loss was facilitated by both a happy career change and an improvement in most aspects of the rest of my life.

The last time I weighed what I do now was two years ago, when I managed to maintain this weight steadily for about four months. It then shot up when I stopped thinking about it.  I would really like to blast through this floor I stuck at then, two years ago, and get back to the lower weight I was five years ago.

During the Big Loss, I read extensively about diet and exercise. I read source documents, original medical reports on weight loss studies, and a giant meta-analysis by the National Institutes of Health of as many reputable weight loss studies as they could find. From this, I learned that a very reasonable and achievable weight loss target, by any form of calorie restricted diet, is ten percent off your starting weight in six months.  Most people are really disappointed to hear this, but that's about what I've done in the last six months.  I think I'd really like to do another ten percent, and then see what I want to do after that.

We'll see. Each day really is different. The decades I just excavated were part of my life as a dieter, but really were the time of big gains in weight. I don't want my body to be like it was then, and I have the tools and motivation to keep that from happening.