In no particular order of importance:
1) I feel desperate and terrified of never getting this under control. I don't want to be 60 years old and watching every bite that goes in my mouth and every pound that shows up on the scale. I am sad, and tired, and desperate.
2) I feel like I have tried everything. I have so conscientiously done Weight Watchers, South Beach, Jillian Michaels, Intuitive Eating. I have tried exercising like a maniac. I’ve tried moderate exercise. I have tried cutting calories in a responsible way. I have tried cutting calories and exercising at the same time. Hell, I trained for a triathlon. I did Jillian Michaels’ online exercise program five days a week for 70 minutes a day for six months. I lost 10 pounds. Do you know how insanely hard that exercise program is? I felt great, I felt strong, and I felt accomplished. I even felt a tiny bit smaller. But it would take me more than three years to lose the weight at that rate.
3) I keep getting injured, which slows down the fitness part of losing weight. Two years ago, when I was training for my first 5k, I started to have terrible shin and heel pain. I went to see a sports medicine doctor who said I had stress fractures in my shins. You know, from RWF (running while fat). I was so heavy that the weight of my own body was causing tiny, tiny fractures in my shins. That was a proud moment. I had a bone spur on one heel and plantar fasciitis on both feet, also weight related. Those injuries healed, I dropped 15 pounds and started training for a sprint triathlon (300 meter swim, 12 mile bike, 5k run). Three days before the race, I tore two ligaments in my ankle while riding my bike. I am confident that my weight made the injury more severe and made recovery take longer. As I’ve started training again, 4 months after the injury, I know that my weight makes me more susceptible to a repeat injury. My ankles are carrying around 60 pounds more than they should have to.
4) I’m so tired of feeling ashamed. I’m so tired of feeling repulsed when I look at my naked body in the mirror and wondering if my husband feels the same repulsion.
5) I feel like this diet could actually give me the brain space to think about the binge eating in a way that no other diet ever has. When I was on Weight Watchers, I thought about food all.the.time. When I was on Jillian Michaels 1400 calorie diet, I wondered if I should trade my 7 almonds for an extra ¼ cup of cottage cheese. Eating five to six times a day is hard. That’s five or six times a day you have to think about what you can and can’t have. On this diet, you eat so little food and you have so few choices that I have a sneaking suspicion that it might actually be easier than eating more calories with more choices.
6) Seeing quick results might just provide me with the inspiration to keep it off. It’s hard to maintain enough strength and willpower to lose 60 pounds when you’re losing at a rate of 10-15 pounds per year. There are a thousand choices a week that can set you back or keep you moving forward, but you get no instant gratification from those choices, while you do get instant gratification from just eating the damn candy bar. If I can lose 20-30 pounds on the first round of this diet, I will look and feel so much better. That could take me from a size 18 to a size 14. Knowing I’ve had success, knowing how good I feel may just be enough to help me make healthy choices without having to wait weeks/months/years for the payoff.
7) What if there is something to this HCG thing? I must admit, while the scientific evidence isn’t convincing (it doesn’t actually exist, for that matter), the anecdotal evidence is very compelling. And I’m an English major for heaven’s sake, not a scientist. Homeopathic teething tablets worked on my kids when they were babies, and that couldn’t have been psychosomatic because they didn’t know they were supposed to work. I don’t really believe in reiki but my first and only formal reiki session was so healing and transformative, it made me a believer. Some shit works even if you can’t explain why it does.
8) I have three friends who swear by this diet. And no, if they jumped off a bridge, I wouldn’t also jump off a bridge. But these are people who really get what I’m going through in a way that people who haven’t had lifelong weight struggles just cannot understand. It is hard to resist when they talk about how wonderful and easy it is. These are not people in infomercials trying to sell me something. These are my friends who have done it themselves.
9) What do I have to lose? I had my scientist friend check it out, and look, it’s not unsafe. The homeopathic HCG has basically no HCG in it. It’s possible I am blowing $60 on a placebo, but I’m not going to get cancer or something. The low-calorie diet is not going to starve me or give me a heart attack. There are a couple of worst-case scenarios as I see them, and neither of them is dangerous or devastating: either a) I can’t hack the 500 calories, I am miserable and starving, and I quit OR b) I succeed in losing a bunch of weight but gain it all back.
10) It might just work.
1) I feel desperate and terrified of never getting this under control. I don't want to be 60 years old and watching every bite that goes in my mouth and every pound that shows up on the scale. I am sad, and tired, and desperate.
2) I feel like I have tried everything. I have so conscientiously done Weight Watchers, South Beach, Jillian Michaels, Intuitive Eating. I have tried exercising like a maniac. I’ve tried moderate exercise. I have tried cutting calories in a responsible way. I have tried cutting calories and exercising at the same time. Hell, I trained for a triathlon. I did Jillian Michaels’ online exercise program five days a week for 70 minutes a day for six months. I lost 10 pounds. Do you know how insanely hard that exercise program is? I felt great, I felt strong, and I felt accomplished. I even felt a tiny bit smaller. But it would take me more than three years to lose the weight at that rate.
3) I keep getting injured, which slows down the fitness part of losing weight. Two years ago, when I was training for my first 5k, I started to have terrible shin and heel pain. I went to see a sports medicine doctor who said I had stress fractures in my shins. You know, from RWF (running while fat). I was so heavy that the weight of my own body was causing tiny, tiny fractures in my shins. That was a proud moment. I had a bone spur on one heel and plantar fasciitis on both feet, also weight related. Those injuries healed, I dropped 15 pounds and started training for a sprint triathlon (300 meter swim, 12 mile bike, 5k run). Three days before the race, I tore two ligaments in my ankle while riding my bike. I am confident that my weight made the injury more severe and made recovery take longer. As I’ve started training again, 4 months after the injury, I know that my weight makes me more susceptible to a repeat injury. My ankles are carrying around 60 pounds more than they should have to.
4) I’m so tired of feeling ashamed. I’m so tired of feeling repulsed when I look at my naked body in the mirror and wondering if my husband feels the same repulsion.
5) I feel like this diet could actually give me the brain space to think about the binge eating in a way that no other diet ever has. When I was on Weight Watchers, I thought about food all.the.time. When I was on Jillian Michaels 1400 calorie diet, I wondered if I should trade my 7 almonds for an extra ¼ cup of cottage cheese. Eating five to six times a day is hard. That’s five or six times a day you have to think about what you can and can’t have. On this diet, you eat so little food and you have so few choices that I have a sneaking suspicion that it might actually be easier than eating more calories with more choices.
6) Seeing quick results might just provide me with the inspiration to keep it off. It’s hard to maintain enough strength and willpower to lose 60 pounds when you’re losing at a rate of 10-15 pounds per year. There are a thousand choices a week that can set you back or keep you moving forward, but you get no instant gratification from those choices, while you do get instant gratification from just eating the damn candy bar. If I can lose 20-30 pounds on the first round of this diet, I will look and feel so much better. That could take me from a size 18 to a size 14. Knowing I’ve had success, knowing how good I feel may just be enough to help me make healthy choices without having to wait weeks/months/years for the payoff.
7) What if there is something to this HCG thing? I must admit, while the scientific evidence isn’t convincing (it doesn’t actually exist, for that matter), the anecdotal evidence is very compelling. And I’m an English major for heaven’s sake, not a scientist. Homeopathic teething tablets worked on my kids when they were babies, and that couldn’t have been psychosomatic because they didn’t know they were supposed to work. I don’t really believe in reiki but my first and only formal reiki session was so healing and transformative, it made me a believer. Some shit works even if you can’t explain why it does.
8) I have three friends who swear by this diet. And no, if they jumped off a bridge, I wouldn’t also jump off a bridge. But these are people who really get what I’m going through in a way that people who haven’t had lifelong weight struggles just cannot understand. It is hard to resist when they talk about how wonderful and easy it is. These are not people in infomercials trying to sell me something. These are my friends who have done it themselves.
9) What do I have to lose? I had my scientist friend check it out, and look, it’s not unsafe. The homeopathic HCG has basically no HCG in it. It’s possible I am blowing $60 on a placebo, but I’m not going to get cancer or something. The low-calorie diet is not going to starve me or give me a heart attack. There are a couple of worst-case scenarios as I see them, and neither of them is dangerous or devastating: either a) I can’t hack the 500 calories, I am miserable and starving, and I quit OR b) I succeed in losing a bunch of weight but gain it all back.
10) It might just work.
It feels terrifying even to type that. What if it just works?
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