When I see myself in my dreams, I am always lithe, the perfect size—not fat at all—for some deep twisted joke’s-on-me psychological reason. ’Cause when I awake and plant my feet on the ground every morning, I’m still the same overweight heavy person I’ve been most of my life, many decades now on the planet … with lotsa gravitational pull I’ve found on my aging body.
Like most Americans, it’s close to 75% of us at this point, we who are deemed obese, weighing way more than we ought, I pay attention every time a new miracle weight-loss formula comes along. This time it’s an injection originally for all those Americans with Diabetes II, the type of diabetes that we bring upon ourselves, the one we can prevent for the most part with some willpower and self-discipline. And lo and behold, this injection has shown to work. Everyone in Hollywood is on it. And now our friends and family, too. It’s as if we’ve been told we can eat what we want and take an injection to lose weight and prevent gaining weight.
Pardon me as I remain skeptical, even joking that we’ll learn in time this weight-loss drug makes your stomach fall out your rectum. Funny, huh? Well, it came to mind because of a weight-loss drug in the 1990s that made people’s hearts pump backwards or something. And then there have been so many weight-loss fads (eat only protein), pills (that dissolve fat), surgeries (binding your stomach to the size of a thumb). Why not wear a tight belt?
Meanwhile, I just continue trotting along with some sort of healthy diet and exercise. I’d say today for the most part, I eat better and with greatly reduced calories than I’ve ever eaten my whole life, after Noom reinforced my psyche (for two years; I’m a slow learner) to watch the calories and type of food and reasons for eating. Yes sir, on weekdays I awake at 4 a.m. and get with it at the gym. I’ll admit to skipping the past couple of months due to a severe foot sprain. And as usual when I am forced to go without exercise, I lost six pounds. Wha? Maybe that heavy boot I had to lug around, walking heavily and peculiarly like a suspicious disabled character in a David Lynch movie, gave me some fat-burning exercise.
Diet and exercise. Yeah, right
I have been a regular at local health clubs since I was 21, when I originally got into it during the Jane Fonda hopping craze and heard that women on birth control pills can gain weight. I did NOT want that to happen. I did real good: exercised hard and used weight machines only three times a week and cut calories like a good girl. No sweets. No cheating. Just a half cup of cereal with skim milk for breakfast. Half a sandwich and an apple for lunch with a Diet Coke. Only a tablespoon of vegetables like potatoes, corn and green beans for dinner. No dinner rolls. No butter. A candy bar only once a month. Man was I disciplined … way back then. And it was quite successful. Wish I weighed that 120 pounds today. Sigh.
Do you know when I did lose weight back then, not only did no one notice, but I still felt like the fattest person on earth? My legs, butt and abdomen were still big compared to my female peers and the ones on TV. The first place I lost weight was the bust. But why did I ‘feel’ fat? It’s because in those days, the doctor charts said someone my short stature should weigh 100 pounds. And then a nurse told the nation everyone should weigh 15 percent less than our ideal weight; we’d be healthier that way. So for little ol’ me, er, I mean short me, I should weigh 85 pounds? That was then, the 1980s.
This is now, a century later. Don’t think I haven’t noticed through the years those medical weight charts increased for some reason, allowing me to weigh up to 140 or so. One time I came in less than the chart, having worked very hard to eat only healthy food and exercise heavily after work at night. But … life … has been hard, harder some years than others. All right, it’s been nothing but hard year after year, decade after decade. Sigh.
Epiphany: The weight is emotional! Maybe that’s why I’m lithe in my dreams!
In recent years, I’ve also noticed my various doctors don’t even tell me to lose weight anymore. Never mention it. That’s all I heard them say when I was a chubby kid, self-conscious teen-ager and young to middle-aged woman. Maybe now as a senior citizen, they’ve given up on me. I’ve survived this long with all this weight. I’m still alive and relatively healthy (compared to others my age). I know the score for my generation. I still exercise, and docs tell me hardly anyone exercises.
But feeling as I do about still being overweight, that I need help of some sort, I’ve approached my doctors about weight-loss drugs. (Psst. I believe they’re called amphetamines.) Nothing doing! My docs are not going to allow me to take prescription weight-loss drugs. WTH? One doc told me flatly: Losing weight is VERY HARD, practically impossible. (I knew it!) The trick, see, is to NEVER GAIN THE WEIGHT TO BEGIN WITH. Damn. Damn it all to hell.
The weight-loss shot originally for diabetics (that is supposed to help their pancreas do what it can no longer do due to diabetes) is so desired right now by everybody that the FDA is having to ensure its availability. Americans are the only people on earth who want what we want when we want it.
And let’s face it, that’s the reason we’re so fat to begin with.