Why No Diet Living?

Have you ever been on a diet?  If you’re the odd man out and say ‘no’, then ask around.  I would guarantee a large majority of the people you ask expel a defeated sigh before saying, ‘yes’.  They’ll say yes because we are inundated with ads for miracle diets, weight loss surgery, and diet pills.  Fitness gurus promise the loss of 20 pounds in only a few days…for only $39.99.  Magazine articles reveal the ultimate 5 exercises to get your body bikini ready for Summer.  Everywhere you look “enhanced” images of our favorite film stars wearing next to nothing, sporting bodies that are clearly not their own.  I’m sure this is stuff you already know.

In my opinion, miracle diets are marketing inventions designed to force us into striving toward an unreasonable ideal of perfection. I’m going to break out my dictionary here.  Merriam-Webster defines perfection as “the quality or state of being perfect…freedom from fault..flawlessness.”  Can you imagine? Being without flaw.  How boring would that be?  A guy on the bus has a crooked tooth. That bank teller has a pimple on her forehead. The girl in history class has freckles on her nose. There’s a pro football player who weighs only 200 lbs. That singer has only a two-octave range.  The concept of perfection is purely subjective.  Of course, there are examples of (near) perfection in the world, but human physicality is definitely not one of them.

According to the U.S. Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, at my height a healthy weight range is 107-135 lbs.  For those who don’t know me personally, a decade ago I weighed nearly 3 times the upper end of that range. The daunting task of losing nearly 250 lbs. to get to that prescribed  “ideal”  was discouraging, demoralizing and seemed simply unattainable.  At that weight, life was rather limited. I didn’t travel, except by car. I ran out of breath walking up a flight of stairs. I couldn’t go to my local mall and enjoy window shopping. When you can fit into clothes sold in only one (maybe two) stores, it pretty much limits the number of windows.

So at some point in the last decade, I realized that physical perfection was not my destiny. EVER!  I finally had a simple epiphany — I am me, and only I could change me.  I could allow people to influence me. I could allow advertisers to nudge me toward a new cucumber-melon shampoo. I could even allow a Facebook friend to “make me” an addict of cat videos. The pattern here, as I’m sure you noticed, is that I ALLOW all these things.  I control ME.

So the decision was made. No Diet For Annette!

…to be continued…Click HERE to read “Why No Diet Living? (Part II)”