By David Magallanes / Guest contributor
Sometimes I wonder if at my age and considering my gender, I’m a candidate for anorexia. Especially when I get dressed for the day, look at my profile around the waist area in the mirror, and wonder if I “look fat.” I fret about my weight, though most people looking at me, whether they be family, friends or complete strangers, drop their jaws in disbelief when I make the mistake of expressing my malaise over my weight. They say things like, “You don’t have to worry about that!” or “You need to GAIN weight—not lose it!” or the one that hits uncomfortably close to home, “Are you OK?”
I’ve never been seriously heavy. The closest I came was around age 20 when I had available to me an immense variety — and quantity — of interesting (or should I call it “mysterious”?) food offered to all of us military men and women on the bases where I lived and trained and worked. I remember eating more doughnuts, chocolate and heavy foods than I had ever consumed in my life. And it showed. It might have been a twenty-pound weight gain — one pound for every year of my life up to that point.
Upon visiting home on leave one day (a day that shall live in infamy, as far as I’m concerned), my parents silently gasped when they saw me for the first time after an absence of several months. I could tell they didn’t want to say anything, but at the same time they certainly wanted to say it. I think that’s what they call “tension.” At that time, I was more used to snapping to attention than creating tension. Finally, in what must have been an emotionally suicidal moment, I had the courage to ask the question whose answer I didn’t want to hear: “Do you think I’ve gained weight”
There was a pregnant pause. Oops, wrong choice of word. My mom shuffled her feet. My dad cleared his throat. Finally, my mom, the eternal model of finesse and consideration, said, “Well, maybe just a little…” Her voice trailed off. That’s it. I knew it. I had become FAT!
I had always held myself to high standards in the weight department. Possibly because I do recall my parents issuing, shall we say, “comments” about weight-challenged people when I was small. So to face my parents with my own increased girth was something huge. Oops, I mean, “uncomfortable.”
I confess to a measure of obsessiveness. I weigh myself every morning upon waking. No, I don’t graph my weight on a chart and perform statistical analyses. I’m not that whacked-out. But I’ve thought about it.
In a previous column, I’d written about having become a pescetarian, a modified version of “vegetarian” that includes fish in the diet. I’ve foregone red meat and poultry most of my life, and I don’t really miss it. My interest in eating a nontraditional diet began in the late 1970s when I started reading books like Frances Moore Lappé’s “Diet For A Small Planet” and began creating meals according to Ellen Buchman Ewald’s companion book, “Recipes For A Small Planet.” I became aware that despite all the propaganda to the contrary, we don’t have to eat meat, and in fact are likely better off without it.
When I began studying the role of food supplements in our nutrient-depleted diets in this country, I became convinced that I could feel better and assure myself a longer, healthier life if I actually paid closer attention to what I was eating.
From the time we are infants, we in this culture are overwhelmed by the misinformation that is fed to us (no pun intended) by the forces that stand to profit if we consume their products rather than eat healthily and wisely. We have an obesity problem in this country and throughout the world because we have forsaken the diets of our ancestors and veered sharply toward the siren call of the fast- and convenient-food hucksters. We have given up our health and collaterally lined the pockets of the fast-food fat cats, so to speak. We are nutritionally lost in a nation whose supermarket aisles overflowing with manufactured food scream at us to consume, consume, consume. And this isn’t “consume” in the sense of “buying,” but rather in the sense of literally ingesting into our bodies.
But I find myself digressing. Back to my problem. I eventually lost the extra weight I had gained in the military because I was so ashamed of myself. The early expectations and the unspoken messages in my life were more powerful than the enticing call of the food advertisers.
In later life, I’m finding it harder to lose any weight. I’d like to drop another ten pounds, but finding it exceedingly difficult despite an exercise routine that has me running several miles, several times a week. I can’t even imagine the frustration of those who desperately want to lose weight but have so much more to lose than I ever did. We live in a society that almost won’t let us whip ourselves into shape with the silent but potent messages embedded in the culture. The way we entertain ourselves, socialize and celebrate events with food makes losing weight akin to the plight of Sisyphus, the mythological Greek king who — to make a long story very short — was charged with rolling a huge boulder up the side of a steep hill, only to have it roll down when he was near the top, forcing him to start all over again. And again. And again.
I’m not giving up. I continuously examine, ponder and attempt ways that will allow me to lose those ten pounds. My latest approach, which seems to work better than anything else I’ve tried recently, is to have a nutritious breakfast, a light lunch, and commit to not eating anything after 2 or 3 p.m. In the evening, I’ll make myself a protein shake with juice, soy or almond milk and a high-quality soy protein powder. This way my body, in its infinite intelligence, doesn’t think it’s starving and then in a panic commence to store fat—the opposite of what I want it to do!
“So much for infinite intelligence…,” I tend to think. But indeed, our bodies are infinitely wise and are more likely to carry us through the long haul, into a slimmer, healthy old age, if only we learn what it is our bodies and minds need. It’s not what we’re being told they need, if we’re listening to the purveyors of most packaged foods. After all, when we buy a new or vintage car, many of us pore over the user’s manuals to find out what it needs—if we want it to last. But when it comes to our bodies — indeed, our temples — many of us put into them anything that tastes good, the consequences be damned. And therein lies the root of many of our health problems in this bountiful country.
Lappé, Frances Moore. Diet For A Small Planet. New York: Ballantine Books, 1978.
Ewald, Ellen Buchman. Recipes For A Small Planet. New York: Ballantine Books, 1978.
— David Magallanes is the creator of his own enterprise, Real World Projects, a speaking, writing and Internet marketing business dedicated to the advancement of the American Dream. An emerging branch of Real World Projects is Edifiquemos, a Spanish language enterprise dedicated to teaching the Spanish-speaking how to create a profitable international (U.S./Mexico) enterprise with low investment and high earning potential. David may be available for speaking opportunities. To contact him and for more information, you are invited to visit and explore his web sites at www.realworldprojects.info and at www.edifiquemos.com His e-mail is dmagallanes@RealWorldProjects.info