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This
Is My Brain. This Is My Brain On Chocolate
by
Alissa Levenberg
I weighed
207 lbs a couple of years ago. Or at least, I know that
is the highest number I ever saw on a scale. Not that I
owned a scale during the time I was putting the weight on,
I did not. I didn't want to know. In fact, one time
when my daughter was very little, we went to the pediatrician's
office and when she refused to stand on the scale by herself,
the nurse suggested I hold her and then weigh myself without
her in order to calculate her weight. "Sorry,"
I said, "you're just going to have to guess."
My
Right Brain, My Has-Left-The-Building Brain
Looking back, I'm still amazed at the way my brain
was able to convince me that I was not heavy at all, that
I did not need to make any drastic changes, that a couple
of doughnuts every time I went to the store would not do
me any harm. My brain told me that I could eat a handful
of chocolate chips and then stop. Then after I finished
the bag, my brain would tell me that I wouldn't put
on any weight as a result, and that I had learned my lesson
and would never do that again.
Getting
My Money's Worth Out of Maternity Wear
The fact that I was still wearing maternity pants when
my youngest child was three years old didn't seem
to register. I knew deep down that I was unhealthy and unhappy
but my brain did a pretty good job of protecting me from
having to face the thought of change. It even gave me permission
to soothe the pain of "not caring" with as much
food as I wanted.
I constantly suppressed feelings of shame, inadequacy and
hopelessness. The fear of change was so powerful that I
preferred denial and self-destruction. I had to hit rock
bottom before the fear of change was dwarfed by the fear
of wasting my life with superficial comfort crutches that
weren't helping anyway.
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Alissa's
Most Helpful Tools
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Chef
Kathleen – I found Cooking
Thin to be not only inspirational and informative,
but an essential periodic reminder. It was important
for me to surround myself with a "culture
of health" to counteract the overwhelmingly
unhealthy messages coming at me from all corners
of society. She has taught me that I can love
food and still be healthy.
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 Kathy
Smith – I like her videos. Videos
don't work for everyone, but they worked for
me. I didn't have to pay money for a gym membership,
I didn't need to find babysitting and I could
start with her low impact workouts and move
my way up slowly. My kids were well trained
not to ask me for anything once that tape went
in. "Just keep pressure on it honey! I'll
be done in fifty-six minutes."
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 Diet
and Exercise Assistant for the Palm –
This is a very handy program which lets
you put in your height and weight and your weight
goal. Then it tells you how many calories you
have to burn more than you take in each day
in order to meet your goals. It comes with a
substantial food database and lets you enter
in your own food items as well.
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 Cooking
Light
Magazine – This is a great magazine.
I initially got it so I could make all the low
fat desserts, but hey, as Chef Kathleen says,
"baby steps". We have looked forward
to its arrival every month and we have gotten
to the point where now we scoff, "30% of
the calories from fat?! We can cut that
waaaaay back!"
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Whole
Foods – I never ever thought I'd
fit in with the "health food crowd".
But this is where I always shop now. I find
it a whole lot easier to treat food with respect
and to be mindful of its true purpose when it's
so beautifully displayed, when I can choose
between locally grown, natural, organic and
farm raised. I don't even think of packaged
junk as food anymore. It is such a shock
now to walk into "normal" grocery
stores and be inundated with messages of "Buy
these huge bags of junk! Everyone does! And
if everyone is doing it, it can't be
bad!" I find that I have to exert a
lot less self-control in health food stores.
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 Star
Stickers – A pretty, shiny sticker
for every time I exercised. Call me anal retentive,
but I was really motivated by having my calendar
completely covered with star stickers by the
end of the month. I even had different colored
stars for different types of exercise so when
I did it every day, they all lined up. Hey,
if it works for the kids…
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The
Donut and Nap Theory
Bruised and battered at my own hands, I'd had enough.
But to succeed, I had to understand past failure. I had
the benefit of having lost significant amounts of weight
in the past, like for my wedding for example, so I knew
it was theoretically possible for me to lose weight. I had
no trouble accepting the principle that no matter who you
are or what you weigh, the basic physiology of calories
in versus calories out always applies.
But still, I had two small problems: getting started and
keeping up with it. The precise point where my brain would
normally step in and derail me with thoughts of how daunting,
overwhelming and finally not worth it the whole undertaking
was going to be so why not have a doughnut and take a nice
nap instead?
Fortunately, I was able to recognize this pattern, and being
a fairly introspective and analytical person, I threw myself
head first into trying to understand why my brain was doing
this to me. I believe that my behavior, destructive though
it may be, always has its roots in something positive. My
brain was merely doing its job of trying to protect me from
something. It hadn't matured to the point of being
able to connect the dots. The self-preservation methods
I was employing weren't actually helping me. I was
fat in order to protect myself from the disappointment that
comes with living life.
And
The Academy Award Goes To…
You see, at this point in my life, I was supposed to be
living on the Italian Riviera with a mantel full of Academy
Awards and the handsome husband actor whose torrid past
would have been the cause of much concern for my adoring
fans that goes with them.
Instead, I was a stay at home mother of two whose most exciting
adventures took the form of finding ways to sufficiently
separate all the food in my children's lunch boxes
so they wouldn't throw it out because things "were
touching."
Being fat eased the pain of unmet expectations. By being
fat I didn't deserve any better. And if I didn't
deserve any better, I didn't need to bother putting
effort into making things better. Being fat got me
off the hook for taking responsibility for my life. I got
to avoid the hard work of change because I was a victim
and not an active participant.
Lacing
Loopholes
Because I'd finally figured things out, I thought the
rest would be pretty easy. In fact, once I'd laced
all the loopholes, it was. Knowing my brain would be fishing
for ways out, I developed rules and tools. For instance,
being the daughter of two lawyers, I knew that if I made
exercise optional, I would find a way to get out of it.
So I had to exercise every day.
So I
wouldn't get burned out or injure myself, Yoga counted
for two of those days. Not doing anything at all was simply
not okay. Once I discovered that I didn't have to
want to exercise, I simply had to do it, it
became a lot easier.
Gadget Girl
I got a nifty little program for my Palm handheld computer.
It tracks calories and helps you to create and set goals.
I made myself a solemn oath not to lie. I didn't have
to show it to anyone and I didn't have to hit the target
number every day. I just had to be honest. The most courageous
thing that I have done, perhaps in my whole life, was to
squeeze into those XL workout clothes every day, see that
image in the mirror, and lumber through a low impact aerobics
tape, drenched in sweat.
And The Winner Is…
So here I am, two and a half years later, 65 lbs lighter.
At the age of 38, it's becoming less and less likely
that I will be able to use my Academy Award acceptance speech,
but somewhere along the way, I stopped caring. All that
"protecting myself" ended up being completely
unnecessary. Turns out, I married a really great and very
handsome guy, I have two bizarre and wonderful kids who
constantly amuse and challenge me and I can get my
butt up a hill on a bike.
My Awards Mantel
My mood is consistently better. I get what "High on
life" is all about. Life was always there, I just couldn't
see the good life through the defense shields. I'm
not a famous actress or a supermodel, but I've come
to find that true beauty is a woman in XL exercise clothes,
challenging herself to face her fears and change her life.
Through openness, willingness and hard work, I got to focus
all the energy I used to spend on hiding myself, feeling
self conscious, wondering if people were judging me, on
truly important things; like finding plastic lunch containers
with little subdivisions so the food won't touch.
People have asked me how I lost the weight. At first I would
reply, "I ate less and exercised more." But then,
feeling that this was an oversimplification, I have modified
my response to "I did a lot of thinking, took responsibility
for my health, asked for help, found tools to keep me on
track, and then I ate less and exercised more."
If you'd like to submit your weight loss success story,
click
here.
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