When I walked into Breakthru Fitness, changing the way I eat was in the back of my mind. Way back there in a closet where I lock up thoughts I don’t want to deal with.
I have lost nine pounds in three weeks and I am filled with hope and determination. Hope is no small feat because I was born a Lutheran and I don’t know why, but it was the most stern and unforgiving messages buzzing overhead in church and in our kitchen that stuck to me like flypaper. In recalling St. Paul’s greatest hits most people go to the wedding verses about love being patient and kind, but the one I remember is, “The good that I would do, I do not; and the evil that I would not do, I do.”
If he wasn’t talking about dieting, he could have been. The things I tell myself I will eat, I don’t eat; and the things I say I won’t eat, I eat.
If I could make just one great choice per day, and that would hold me under 2,000 calories, everything would be all right. I’m good for one good choice a day. Hell, I can make several good choices a day. But with dieting, it’s the endless opportunities to screw up that put me at a disadvantage. Dieting is like blackjack… there are so many ways it can go wrong.
The fitness program I yearn for is the one that is so rigorous you can eat anything you want and still get in great shape. But for people over 50, maybe even past 35 or 40, that fitness program is beyond the technological horizon. In the here and now, diet and exercise are forever linked; one without the other is only half a plan. There is no point in lamenting it. Would I rather eat chocolate chip cookies sliced in half lengthwise and stuffed with ice cream, or lose nine pounds in three weeks?
There seems to be a diet floating around the Breakthru Fitness club that isn’t really a diet, thank God, rather a set of guidelines that one interprets and applies as he or she will. I don’t fully understand it yet, but I like it.
At Breakthru they are part of the movement to blow up the word, “diet,” and replace it with, “nutrition.” This makes sense because over the decades news has leaked out that besides being no fun, diets don’t work. The best thing that can happen on a diet is you give up at lunchtime of the first day. Net gain: zero. The worst is that you quickly lose 10 pounds and put 15 back on in the three months after the diet’s over. Net gain: +5.
How many people do you know who lost 20 pounds by scrupulously adhering to a diet, then went back to “eating normally,” and kept the weight off for five years? I have a friend who won a Guggenheim. I know a guy who made $15 million playing major league baseball. I know three people who have scored a hole-in-one and half a dozen who have beaten cancer, some of them against high odds. But I don’t know anyone who went on a diet, got down to his or her high school weight and kept it off for a period of years.
Getting rid of the word, “diet,” is a great idea because it has such a punitive connotation. The first question people ask when you tell them you are going on a diet is, “What are you giving up?” A diet is like living with a low-grade fever. It’s like sacrificing a large chunk of life’s joy in exchange for a result whose benefits are hard to imagine, and are probably unattainable.
The God of Diets throws a case of Fat Tire amber ale overboard into shark infested waters and says, “There! You want your beer so badly, go get it.” He backs over a layer cake with a bulldozer.
But the Goddess of Nutrition sits you down at a beautiful and well-balanced banquet. She explains that the root meaning of nutrition is the same as nourish. It means, “to feed.”
When I think of “nourish,” I think of feeding my kids. While I can use some practice at nourishing myself, I’m pretty good at feeding my children. They eat lots of fruits and vegetables. They eat when they’re hungry, not when they’re bored. They eat what their bodies are telling them they need, not what’s convenient or easy to grab. They drink lots of water and they’re not allowed to eat crap. When they really feel like a treat they can have one. We eat dinner together almost every night. Food is part of our festivals and celebrations, but it isn’t the only focal point and food itself is not the reward. We don’t eat standing up. We never eat alone. Using healthy food, well balanced and in moderation, we nourish one another.
The idea that I could use the Peak program to work on nourishing myself was intriguing. Then I opened the little guidebook that comes with the Peak course, and noticed it had a recommended diet for Week 1. I saw several notations about “egg whites.” A torrent of thoughts came rushing to the front of my mind and they weren’t pleasant. I hadn’t realized it, but apparently I have issues with “egg whites.” I was thinking, “Egg whites taste horrible.” I was thinking, “What a waste of food.” I was thinking, “No way in hell.” For some reason, egg whites symbolized ridiculousness.
The first day on the program called for me to “nourish myself” with egg whites, Brussels sprouts, lentils, cottage cheese, kidney beans and kale, for a total of about 1,800 calories. What I ate was, bacon and eggs, toast with butter, a ham and cheese sandwich with mayo as only I can make it, a cheeseburger, fries, a chocolate shake, two chilled bottles of Fat Tire Amber Ale (from the frig, not shark-infested waters) and a small pond of Diet Pepsi. It had to be 3,500 calories but I didn’t add them up.
I was snagged in a vortex of defiance, born of the kind of stubbornness that would have made St. Paul proud.
