Saving My Life - The Sequel

            It has been just a year since I first chronicled my quest to become a lighter (and healthier) being in “Saving My Life” (http://losgatos.patch.com/groups/tim-lundells-blog/p/bp--saving-my-life).  Over the course of an amazing five months, I had taken to heart the enthusiastic encouragement of Dr. Jim Pellegrin (“You can do it!”), and, with some serious study of nutrition and quite painless changes to my relationship with food, I had lost 37 lbs. to get to a weight I had not been in 40 years.  But I was not done.  I was in pursuit of a new personal frontier. Between January and August of last year, I lost another 33 lbs., and arrived at a place I had only dreamed about.  I am very happy that it has been an easy weight to maintain, and, as I said a year ago, I will never go back.

             Having arrived at my goal, I have now had a few months to reflect on “life after weight loss”, and offer some observations for others on, or considering, a similar quest. 

            1)  There will be awkward moments with your friends, especially the ones you don’t see frequently.  Some will wonder, but not ask, if there is a medical condition that has resulted in weight loss.  The reality is that your identity has changed, and both you and the world will have to get used to it.

            2)  It is not an inexpensive process.  Over the course of sixteen months, my wardrobe went through three substantial makeovers.  My pants size went from 40 to 38, then to 36, and now to 34.  My jacket size went from 50 to 44, and my collar from 16½ to 15.  You don’t have to get new clothes, of course, but you may look positively skeletal wearing your old ones, and you lose out on one of the biggest thrills of your new size:  looking really great in clothes!

            3)  The increase in energy, stamina, and flexibility is amazing, provided that you have adequately addressed your nutritional needs.  Though the benefits of nutritional supplements are debated, I feel they work very well with my primarily vegetable-based diet.

            4)  Maintaining my weight inevitably requires, and will always require, a certain level of obsession.  That is just a reality that I am happy to live with.  I weigh myself at the same time every single day, and I am aware at every meal how it will affect keeping my weight in the range I want.  Extravagance one day requires extra discipline the next.  When I got through a 12-day cruise without gaining a pound I knew I could be successful in this balancing effort forever.

            5)  Your body will adjust to carrying around a smaller mass, meaning that you will burn fewer calories in routine daily activities and you will have to push a little harder to avoid loss of muscle mass.  But my knee problems have receded greatly with 70 fewer pounds pressing on the joints.

            6)  My universe of food and creative cooking has expanded to include new vegetables and grains, and to follow more closely new trends and techniques in healthy eating.  I have taken up canning and will plan my garden this spring with greater attention to “garden to table” growing.

            7)  The metrics of health improve tremendously:  blood pressure and pulse rate way down, cholesterol way down, threat of diabetes almost gone.

            8)  There are so many things that are more fun to do: taking long walks, climbing stairs, wearing a tuxedo…and, most important, looking ahead to a longer and healthier life.

             A few final words:  I love food, and I always will.  The most important thing I have learned is to reinvent that love affair, always focused on food that I really, really enjoy eating.  I considered the whole spectrum of things I love to eat, sorted them on the basis of my nutrition plan, and leaned heavily on the healthier end of that spectrum.  Trick diets will not do it.  The body craves balance, but can tolerate a careful redistribution without painful cravings.  In my earlier blog, I said I have not necessarily become an evangelist for weight loss, because it is personal for everyone.  I would like to modify that.  Healthy eating is, without a doubt, right for everyone.  Healthy eating can be satisfying, creative, delicious, and will generally set you on a path to a healthy weight.  And, as Dr. Pellegrin said in the exhortation that started it for me, “You can do it!”