Watching the Weight

It's no secret that I am overweight. I've mentioned it here before and anyone who looks at me can see that I could stand to starve for a few days and it wouldn't kill me.

Dieting is harder for some than others. My weight issues began around the same time I started having trouble with endometriosis. Doctors put me on drugs that they now admit causes terrible hormone imbalances and weight gain. Twenty-five years ago, though, I was told that the medicines had nothing to do with weight gain, even though I put on about 30 pounds in six weeks without changing a thing in my diet.

Drugs change you, and change you forever. I seriously doubt I could ever get back to the weight I was when I married simply because my hormones are so screwy.

Of course, I have picked up some bad eating habits along the way. I also don't care for cooking, which makes convenience foods attractive. And then there are those hours when I grow bored and a perhaps a little lonely, and my friend Mr. Chocolate Bar saves the day.

I used to tell myself that I wasn't *that* overweight - I wasn't one of those women whose body fat droops over the edge of the chair, the ones with bellies hanging out of shirts or whatever. The ones driving around on the little cart in Walmart because they can't haul their own body weight around. And I am not that large, but I am at an unhealthy weight.

Serving sizes are a constant challenge. This morning, for example, I chose to eat a fat-free Pop Tart. I've gone back on Weight Watchers and so that's 5 points gone for today, and I only have 29 points all day long. But there are two Pop Tarts in a baggy in the box. If a serving is one single Pop Tart, why don't they put them in separate baggies? Because of course the other one is going to go stale before I get back around to wanting another 5-point Pop Tart. I don't eat them that often. A box of those will last me a month.

Nobody I know actually eats 1/2 cup of cereal, or drinks a half bottle of pop, or eats just 1/3 of a can of Vienna Sausages. They eat a bowl full of cereal, which is at least a cup if not more, and they drink the whole bottle of soda, and they eat all the little Vienna Sausages in a can.

While I take full responsibility for the state of my health, it would be nice if the food industry would also look over the corn stalks and take responsibility for its role in America's obesity epidemic. They don't have to supersize it, and shouldn't a serving of Pop Tarts, when there are two to a baggy, be listed as two of the darned things?

Virginia has a reported obesity rate of 25-30 percent of the population. Right next door, West Virginia has an obesity rate above 35 percent! Nationwide, about 34 percent (78 million) of Americans are obese. Not just overweight, but obese. If you count the folks who are just a little overweight but not yet obese, at least half of the nation is in need of a diet.

I have lost weight on Weight Watchers before. I manage to make it about 3 months before something happens - a holiday comes up, or I simply tire out, or I become ill and then can't get back on track with the diet. I've had so many new health issues pop up in the last 14 months that dieting has been the least of my concerns, but I need to worry about it now.

People who don't have weight issues have no idea how much of a struggle it is to deal with eating problems. It's not like being an alcoholic - you don't have to drink bourbon in order to live. But you have to eat.

The thing I most dislike about Weight Watchers is that I don't think it teaches you how to eat well or how to eat healthily. If you look at some of the foods they recommend - mostly their own brands of snack foods - they are full of stuff I don't want in my body. Aspartame or sucralose, carrageen - all sorts of things that aren't good for you. So Weight Watchers is really all about the money, like most things in the USA, and not about making people healthy. Weight Watchers does help with portion controls and if you stick to the points and simply stop eating when you hit your daily allowance, it works.

However, I want to learn how to eat well and live a healthy lifestyle. My head knows how to do this, sort of, but there is some disconnect between my brain and the rest of me. I've read enough books on the topic to know to eat fresh veggies and as little processed foods as possible, but that not-liking-to-cook thing gets me every time.

Also, at present I can't exercise much because of pain issues. Whatever is wrong with me simply isn't going away.

If you've been successful at dieting and have any tips, I am open to them.