Reading Shelley's blog about diets not working (sorry cant link to it) brought back a flood of memories of my diet history. It started when I was in year 6 at school and already a bigish girl. We were doing gymnastics in PE and I jumped onto the ??? horse (cant even remember its correct name) and broke it. If that wasnt embarassing enough my slim, young, blonde and very attractive teacher made fun of me with a comment about having to diet and the seed was planted.
My first attempts at dieting were to drink big glasses of water before meals so I wouldnt eat as much. At a very young age (probably under 14) my mum took me to my first diet clinic and I was on a diet as such. I remember eating my prescribed meal for lunch and being hungry an hour later (I was a growing girl with a good apetite). I couldnt stick to it and I lost no weight (maybe even gained some) and was chastised when I had my weekly weigh ins.
My problem was that I was a great eater with a healthy appetite but I did no sport and was quite inactive. I have very poor hand eye coordination and was just basically not good any sports. My parents didnt nurture or encourage me in any so any semblance of weight management was going to be an uphill battle.
My teens were a struggle of losing a bit of weight and then regaining it but I cant remember how I did it. All I know is that I knew jack shit about good nutrition or the importance of exercise. Being in a European family where poverty had been well known, eating heartily and being a bit overweight was highly desired. Thin was definitely NOT in.
In my early 20s I joined Weight Watchers for the first time back in the days when their program was very basic and you ate a certain number of serves of the various food groups. Ironically the simplicity of this diet meant it was pretty clean as there was no scope of extra processed crap. Needless to say I lost a decent amount of weight but never hung around to learn maintenence so it always came back.
I have been on a diet just about every day of my life bar a few instances such as post comp (but by 4 weeks later I was trying to lose weight again) and that small window between giving up a diet and then finding all the weight coming back with a vengeance. In my uneducated days I believed the following at different times:
1. Meat was fattening so I would eat vegetarian quiche.
2. Anything low fat could be eaten in any quantity I desired. Hence low fat muffins and biscuits became my best friends.
3. Sugar was nowhere near as bad as fat.
4. Fruit juice was better than soft drink so I drank heaps of it.
5. Starving on one meal a day was the ultimate diet.
When you read that now you wonder what chance I had of ever getting lean and maintaining it. But I discovered aerobics and fell in love with it and at least I had movement in my life on a regular basis as I taught it from my mid 20s until this year. I also tried weight training back then but just couldnt warm to it.
So over the years I think I did Weight Watchers about 3 times, the Israeli Army Diet, the soup diet, the body wraps that sweat your fat off, the go to the gym and use the vibrating belt for exercise, the Magda diet, the whatever else I could get my hands on to try, give up, yoyo and be forever frustrated and unhappy with myself. One time in my 20s I managed to get my weight under 60kgs and have some scary photos of me in a size 8 dress looking almost skeletal. Gee I thought I was shit hot then.
So fast forward to more recent times. I now know so much more not just about food but about the psychology of diets. I've done it tough on a comp prep diet and got my body fat down to 12%. Not something that I could or would even want to maintain. But in the process I've also taught myself about clean eating and learnt what works for me both on the physical level and on the emotional one as well. One benefit of getting older is getting wiser (there arent many I can tell you LOL) and then waking up to the fact that there has to be a better way.
A way where there is freedom to enjoy the food you love without guilt or shame.
A way where you listen to your body and feed it when it needs it, not when the clock strikes 3 and its time to eat.
A way where every waking moment is not spent anticipating what the scales will say at the next weigh in and then having that number determine what sort of day you have.
A way where life is lived and not spent weighing, measuring, preparing, portioning, logging and analysing every morsel that passes your lips.
A way of life that promotes calmness and internal happiness.
Whats your diet history? I'd love to know.
:-) Magda
