The switch

Today I read an article about Valerie Bertinelli. Her story is interesting. In spite of her life in the spotlight for many reasons, she has always seemed to be down to earth and someone who we can relate to. They focused a lot in the article about her recent weight loss. She was explaining where her head was before she started to get healthy again, and they asked her what the turning point was. It seemed that she surprised them with her answer when she said that there wasn't one single turning point, just a whole lot of things along the way that added up to make a difference.

I was out walking afterwards and this really stuck with me. I thought back over the last 5 years and all of the times I said to myself, or to someone else, that I knew what I was supposed to be doing, I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I couldn't make the turn; I couldn't find the switch - as hard as I looked, I could not find that thing that would go "pop" and change everything and I would be in control again and doing what I was supposed to. I would be on the other side, the good side.

The more I looked for it and couldn't find it, the more I asked myself what is the matter with me, and the more I convinced myself there was something deeply wrong. Why couldn't I just do it...just delve back in and be good. I'd done it before! Once I'd lived on just 2 bags of pretzels a day, and damn I looked good. I'd done the 3 packages of Lean Cuisine a day, and the Carnation Instant breakfast, and the Special K diet, and even tried South Beach - for a day and a half (I must say I did like the pureed cauliflower substitute for mashed potatoes). And, I'd taken that really big step and walked through the door of Weight Watchers once before. For 10 months I'd lived in the good world and out of the bad. Even in my bad state, I still knew how to count points, I knew where the rice cakes were in the grocery store, I knew how to make those fake ice cream sandwiches with graham crackers and fat free cool whip, I knew how to make 0 point soup, I remembered how I had liked getting my 5 pound achievement stars! Why couldn't I do just do it???

It feels like people are fascinated by those of us who live on the bad side of food - whether we eat too much of it or too little of it. They wonder what it must be like to think so little of yourself that you could do this to yourself. When you do "succeed" and are in the "after", they seem to vicariously ask the turning point question - when were you able to flip that switch? Do tell us!

I related to what Valerie Bertinelli said because, so far, this journey has been a series of little steps. I can't find a certain starting point, and I am not sure I want to, because it would validate the notion that we are either being good or bad, that we either have ourselves together or we don't. All of the articles are written that way; all of the weight loss systems ads are geared that way. I was especially happy to read the article about Ms Bertinelli because she seems to have come out of the weight loss systems world and into the real one. I do not mean to disparage these systems; clearly, they work for some people. Clearly, they didn't work long term for me.

Right now I am taking things step by step. I am trying to eliminate the notion of the good side and the bad side of food-related issues because I think they are a reflection of something deeper than the food. I am hoping that these things I am learning along the way will add up to make a long-term difference. There is no single switch, and I wish I hadn't spent so much time looking for it, worrying about why I couldn't flip it, and worrying what is wrong with me. It just compounded things.