Speaking Metaphorically

Some images that came to mind through my first few weeks of this grand adventure that I really feel apply:

The elephant in the room

I had been living a pretty healthy lifestyle for quite a bit. I had been researching and applying a lot of sound nutritional wisdom, including some elements of the paleo diet, the health benefits of raw whole milk, chia seeds, egg yolks, and all of the other foods that can supply an intense wealth of nutritional value and health benefits that have shown their proof through generations. I’ve read books on how grass fed butter can cure diseases, and how important many real, honest foods are for the body. I grew to realize the soy was not good for fertility and hormonal imbalance, packaged foods were not a dependable source of nutrients, and that food is work. I was not, however, losing weight while on this health kick.

I still believe my understanding is sound, and I will one day live in that fashion. But I came to realize that there was a different issue at hand—I was on the wrong side of the battle to be eating a diet that would maintain and restore health in such a way.

I realized that my weight was like an elephant in a room, and that this healthy living I was doing was like the epic and laborious act of scooping the elephant’s poop. It was hard work, and the poop was everywhere. What I realized, too, was that I was doing so with the elephant still in the room, and as he stood there he kept on pooping. I was perpetuating the problem that I was eternally cleaning up after. The decision I came to was that I needed to first remove the elephant, and then go about the task of scooping. Medifast is my lead rope, escorting the elephant out of the room, which will then leave me free to clean the room under circumstances that will actually produce a fairly clean room.

 

Turn Around

I was told by my doctor that likely what has caused such a difficult and life-long battle with weight was a high carbohydrate percentage to my diet over my lifetime. Truly, the low-fat diet had always been the ideal I was told over and over again by popular nutrition (case in point, everyone thinks “fat-free” on the label of a food translates to healthy… uh, wrong!). I remembered Healthy Choice snacks, Nutrigrain Bars, Non-fat milk, Fig Newtons, and Snackwells. The green box means it is a diet food! No.

The thing is, I had turned my body into a machine that thought it was supposed to run on carbs, but at the same time it had no idea how to do so. I was barreling down the freeway at full speed on the wrong fuel, and in fact it was running backwards: storing fat and processing carbs, and ever-growing in the process. My doctor warned me that ending this cycle would be hard, and would put me out of commission for a week or so. I had no idea that she would be so right. I felt almost medicated for about a week, I was so exhausted. It was because my body, looking for carbs and simple sugars, thought it was starving. Believing that I could flip the switch on such a metabolism, and instantly feeling good on a diet my body didn’t know, was a dream—it was about as realistic as taking that truck that is barreling down the freeway and popping it into reverse and not expecting a huge problem. I had to bring my backward metabolism to a full and complete stop and then start in the other direction.

It was a long week, but eventually I got up to speed going the right way on the right road, and now I feel fine most of the time.

  

4 related metaphores

Those couple of weeks before the diet adventure actually took off, I did what I called a “farewell tour of food.” It was not indulgent or stupid, and as bad as it sounds now by the way I just said it, it wasn’t about the food or having to wrench it from my sad, desperate fingers. It was about facing it, realizing that for all its merits it wasn’t that great, and parting ways. This brought out four images:

 

Rented SuitThat morning that I woke up and felt as though I’d gained weight overnight, as I looked in the mirror I felt like I wasn’t even looking at my body anymore. Like I said, I felt like I was suddenly rejecting it, and refusing to be that person anymore. It was like I was wearing someone else’s clothes, or a rented suit that was never mine. I felt like it didn’t quite fit, and that I needed to turn it back in. 

I QuitEvery time I thought about what I was about to begin, I felt as if I had put in my 2 week’s notice at a job I never liked but had been doing for a long time. As I’d get my plus size clothes out of the closet, and zip on my jeans that were just a bit too tight, or think about the life I’d been living, I felt the same as if I’d just decided to quit a dead end job and move on. Every thought was a farewell, and every meal was a strange goodbye. It was like I didn’t belong there any more, I didn’t really serve a function in the office because my replacement had already started, and I was just going through the motions until my last paycheck was handed to me, and I took the box from my desk and left.

Moving OutThrough the first few weeks, and even now, I also felt like I was moving out of a crappy apartment. I didn’t mind that I didn’t like it anymore, because I didn’t have to stay. I didn’t mind that it was the wrong size, wasn’t presentable for guests, or didn’t have any meaning to me anymore, because I was packing and leaving. I didn’t have to care about the bad paint choice in the living room, or that the bathroom door stuck, or that the kitchen faucet leaked anymore, because I wouldn’t be around to have to fix it. I was moving out and on and up. Suddenly when I see myself in pictures, it doesn’t bother me anymore because I know 2 things: a) since whatever picture I was looking at was taken, I had already lost weight, and it was no longer a picture of me, but of the me I’d left behind, and b) it was a picture of a person I’d never be again, and I didn’t have to own her anymore.

Breaking up
Lastly, after my first week of dieting came my mother’s birthday at Extraordinary Desserts—OMG. What bad planning—I actually thought “why did I start my diet this week??” because I knew that I would not be able to, or want to, cheat. I told my doctor that what stressed me was that my farewell tour of food had felt like I had broken up with unwise eating, and now I was going to have to see him for the first time at a party, and it was going to be super awkward. Don’t make eye contact. Don’t let him see you uncomfortable. Don’t look like you’re having too much fun or he’ll know you’re faking. Don’t talk to me… pleeeasssse don’t pretend we are still friends, and for heaven’s sake no one make me join a conversation he’s a part of. Inevitably, though, you always have to face them eventually, and if you handle it with grace and don’t take it too personally, it ends well enough, and it is easier the next time.



All in all, my reflections helped me really encapsulate experience and make it more tangible, and much easier to handle in general. I hope you found something here that has meaning for you!