10/03/2010

Fad Diet Pioneer 9/15/10

I am overweight. This is just a fact, not a complaint. I eat healthily, and I exercise almost daily, yet overweight I remain. Sometimes I remember to record my meals and count my calories, sometimes (ahem, usually) not.
A friend of mine is underweight. This is her own observation, not anyone else's. She eats healthily, but has a stressful schedule and some medical issues, and so remains underweight.
We trade our woeful "can't lose weight/can't gain weight" stories often. Our efforts toward our goals are earnest.
"I think stress just makes it worse," she says, and a light bulb appears over my head.
"So," I say, "we won't stress over it. We'll start a 'No-Stress Diet.'" We gave ourselves a month. I tried not to weigh myself, so I wouldn't think too much about whether the "diet" was working - which was the whole point, not thinking about it. I gave in about 3 weeks in.
"I couldn't resist anymore," I confessed, "and my weight is the same." My friend's weight was also about the same.
While I'll need to delete my manuscript of the - I was sure - best-selling fad diet book of all time (it's ok, I'll make my bajillions of dollars elsewhere), I took comfort in the fact that if I simply trust myself to make the right food choices (however grudgingly), and to keep exercising, I will be fine. I won't balloon to a triple-digit BMI as I secretly feared. My pants will still button. When I am ready, I will count calories again so that I can be sure I am consuming fewer than I currently eat, but even then, I don't have to stress over it to make it work.
Before I delete that manuscript, though, do you suppose anyone would be in the market for a book on how to maintain one's weight? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?