A Sad Litany of Diets

I've been overweight for a long time. I believe the last time I weighed within the healthy range for my height was 1998. That's eleven years ago, as I type. I've struggled with my weight since about age 9, but in high school I managed to keep it in check, using a combination of swimming and self-starvation. Since that time, I have gone through the usual litany of diets, some more successful than others, some with results that lasted longer than others, but as you can probably guess from the need for this most recent venture, all were ultimately failures (or perhaps my participation in them was a failure?).

The list is as follows:

High School Years: I swam everyday, which gave me some latitude to eat. However, I mostly starved myself, ate Ramen noodles, pretzels, and Carnation Instant Breakfast. The results were successful, but I think I can still feel the effects on my health.

1996, Jenny Craig: If you're not familiar with this diet, the premise is that the less control you personally have over your eating habits, the better. They provide you with three pre-packaged and/or frozen meals a day. All you have to do is add in the extras like salads, olives, milk etc. You have to go back to them every week. They weigh you, take measurements, and you purchase more food. Jenny Craig is fine when you first start it. You don't have to think too much, you just eat what is on your weekly plan. There are, however, only a finite amount of Jenny Craig packaged foods, so if you have a lot of weight to lose, you can quickly become very sick of their offerings. The foods are mostly frozen, although some are freeze-dried or vacuum-packed. They are all similarly laden with preservatives and unpronounceable ingredients. There's also another downside to this diet: what if you like to cook? To me, Jenny Craig teaches you that eating is dreary, automatic, and non-participatory. This first time though, I did lose weight, but calling Jenny Craig a lifestyle change is a joke.

1997, Larry North Diet: Referred to by my family (we all did it together) as "The Larry Diet," it espoused an extremely low fat, lean meats, lots of vegetables approach. Larry was a big fan of snacking, so it did feel like I ate constantly, but I never really felt satisfied. I don't remember the exact tenets of this diet too well, so I might be doing him a disservice when I say there was not an emphasis on whole grains. I do remember that it was ok to substitute Slim Fasts for meals (yuck) and I did this often. The main thing I remember was "No Fat." However, I did the diet, lost 30 pounds and kept it off for about a year and a half.

1999, Atkins Diet, Attempt No. 1: You probably all know about the Atkins diet, maybe you've even tried it. It does work, in the short term, and it's so much fun to eat all that bacon and cheese. When I moved away to college in 1999, my roommate and I were both doing this diet (and also ritually doing Billy Blanks's Tae Bo, remember that?). We ate mounds of bacon, chicken wings, cheese, salami, sausage and deprived ourselves of sugars, breads, lots of fruits, some vegetables and grains. I lost weight, but I didn't feel all that great doing it. The way Dr. Atkins explains the diet in the book, you are supposed to lose the weight and then start adding in whole grains and fruits for maintenance. This didn't happen with me. I would get these MONSTER sugar cravings. Once I bought an entire white baguette, ate it, the whole thing, smothered in butter, and then cried because I had ruined my diet. I think though, that a diet this unbalanced sets up an unachievable standard because our bodies are not wired that way, and it's so difficult to use a vast amount of willpower to rewire your biology.

2000, WeightWatchers, Attempt No. 1: Weight-Watchers has a good diet, and it's easy to follow. The program is easy enough and there are a lot of support systems and tools, such as recipes, online chats, points-tracking programs, and the meetings. Now what I'm about to say might make me sound like a horrible person, but I f**king hated those meetings. I hated the weigh-ins and I hated the meetings. I have attended three different WeightWatchers branches in two different states, and all seemed the same. No one is friendly, even when they sign you up. It has a very punitive vibe. They take your money, give you your materials, explain the program and you attend a meeting. You get a little card, which you have to take back every week when you get weighed, and they stamp it and write your weight on it with a plus or minus sign indicating whether you lost weight or gained it. The weigh-ins are just weird: little cubicles with a scales, which you inhabit briefly with an inevitably middle-aged to older lady in frumpy clothes with a dour expression. She will snatch your card from you like she owns it, and instruct you to get on the scale. Even if you lose, say, six pounds, I doubt she will crack a smile. Then you go to the meetings. Saying I felt like a fish out of water is an understatement. The meetings are 30 minutes long, have a "theme" and are led by a "lifetime member," someone who has lost all their weight and kept it off. The leader gives out little stars to people who have lost certain increments of weight, and everybody claps. Yea! They then spend thirty minutes talking about which high salt, high sugar, low-fat processed foods they can substitute for all their fat faves, and how many points these foods are. Again, no one is under fifty-five or male. There was a big hush in the room when I asked how many points there were in a margarita. How dare I mention that I might want to waste my points on alcohol instead of preservative-infested WeightWatchers frozen fudge brownie sundaes? There are some rather lame attempts to tell you that you should eat your veggies, and that's what the diet is supposed to be about, but trust me, go to a meeting and you'll see it's not. I'm sure WeightWatchers means well, and it's been around for years, and it truly is the best commercial diet I've tried, but it just doesn't work for me.

2000-2004, A combination of any and all of these diets: I tried Jenny Craig again, tried smoking myself thin, breaking up with boys-myself thin, WeightWatchers, Atkins, the not-diet, going to the Rec Center, Curves, and Dieting With the Duchess, in various rotations with varied effects.

2004-2008, The French Diet: Eat like the French do. Have butter, cream, coffee, pastry, eggs, sauces, wine, but have them in small portions and eat slowly. This might work if I lived in France, but I don't. I can't walk everywhere here, and mealtimes are a rushed affair, especially lunch, and portions are massive. Nice to think it could work, but it didn't for me.

I also gave up a lot during this time and decided to be happier with my weight. Now I say "screw that, back to reality."