Gregory Freeman: Some Of Us Never Get Chance To Rest In Battle On Bulge. StL P-D 6/30/1998

Headline: SOME OF US NEVER GET CHANCE TO REST IN BATTLE ON BULGE
Reporter: By Gregory Freeman

Publication: ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Last Printed: Tue., Jun. 30, 1998
Section: METRO, Page: B1, Edition: FIVE STAR LIFT

Fighting to lose
   This is a difficult battle. A fight that never seems to end. The stakes are high and the challenge is great.
   It's my battle with weight. It's been a lifetime war for me. Right now, I'm winning. Since June 1, I've lost 17 pounds.
   That may not seem to be exciting news, but for me it's thrilling.

Regular readers know that weight loss is one of my goals in life. It's up there with being the best father I can be and winning the Missouri lottery. It's pretty important.
You see, I've always been a big boy, or as one cousin calls me, a big 'un. Tiny I'm not.

Of course, I've been bigger. Much bigger. Four years ago, I weighed 60 more pounds than I do today. I was just this side of the Goodyear blimp. People I haven't seen in several years still comment about how much weight I've lost.
That's because I joined a Weight Watchers program in 1995 and lost lots of weight, some 80 pounds, in fact. And that's where I went wrong.

I began to like the way I looked, and with that came overconfidence. I figured I didn't need to be in a weight-loss program anymore. I could do it myself, I thought, so why spend the money?
   As it turned out, though, I couldn't do it. Without the program's reinforcement, my weight crept up as I fell back into my old habits. I started eating whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted it.
   For some, that's fine. A friend of mine eats like a horse while I pick through a salad, and he doesn't gain a pound. All I need is salad dressing that isn't fat free to make my bathroom scale hit those higher numbers.
   But it was more than salad dressing that made my weight shoot up. I stopped watching what I ate. The pounds started to pile on again.

Over the years, I've tried all sorts of things. Eating less. Getting more exercise. Drinking glass upon glass of water daily. Cutting back on salt.
While these things have worked to some extent, none of them alone has been the key to permanent weight loss for me.

Remember nearly 10 years ago, when Oprah Winfrey lost all kinds of weight? That's when she celebrated by bringing onto the stage a wheelbarrow full of chicken fat, representing the amount of weight she'd lost.
   Winfrey had gone on a liquid protein diet. That's the diet where you eat no food, and only drink several special shakes a day.
   After it worked for Winfrey, I went on that diet, as did a couple of my colleagues at the newspaper. For a while, all of us looked great. For me, it meant weeks where I'd lose 10 or 12 pounds at a time. I could barely contain my excitement.
   But after being on the diet awhile, I learned that there's something wrong with liquid diets: You eventually want to eat.
   I did. So I started eating. Not a lot at first. Little by little. But before I'd known it, I began ballooning. Before I knew it, I was nearly as large as I'd been before.

So I'm back at Weight Watchers, and pretty pleased so far. I've lost 17 pounds since June 1.
Part of my problem is my genes. My grandfather was a big man. He was shorter and fatter than I. He died when I was about 10, but I remember that there was barely room enough on his knee for me to sit because of his stomach.
I don't think I'm close to that yet, but if I'm not careful I could be well on my way.

I'm not just blaming genes, though. That would be too easy. It would be like saying that I'm heavy because I'm "big boned, " or something like that. In fact, I don't know that my bones are any bigger than anyone else's.
I don't work out nearly as much as I should. I have a membership to a health club, but getting there seems like such a chore to me. I have to psych myself up to go. Once I'm there, I'm fine. The problem is finding the motivation to go there in the first place.

Other activities should be considered good for fat burning as well.
I'd love to pick up a book of the number of calories burned when doing regular activities and find:
  "Raising your fork, 10 calories."
  "Picking up a glass, 20 calories."
  "Bending over to take a pie out of the oven, 162 calories."

Until that happens, I guess I'll just have to stay on my weight-loss regimen.
Salad, anyone?

Daniel Schesch - Webweaver

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