Alcohol: Death to a Diet

I don't care what the justification is, alcohol truly is death to dieting.  Usually, you don't just stop at one, and before you know it, on a "night out," you can spend over a thousand calories in beer alone, and if you are drinking sugary tropical drinks, well, you may go into the thousands of calories - just by drinking.  Do you realize how much "smart food" that would be?  A lot.  A whole lot.  Why do you think they call the distended belly due to alcohol a "beer gut?"  I know this well.  I loved my beer once.  And tequila.  I quit  alcohol over two years ago, and within the first 4 months, I lost 35 pounds.  I wasn't dieting.  In fact, I ate MORE, because there were grumblings in my belly: "Feed me Veronica!"  But, the weight I lost was a LOT of water and sodium.  I also wasn't ingesting a ton of sugar from the alcohol, so that wasn't turning to fat in my body.  Even one cocktail party on the weekend is enough to trash your diet - or live-it.  :)  If you're going to have one from time to time, then make sure you drink a ton of water and exercise to get it off ... just like food.  I've found that I really don't miss it.  Food tastes so much better, and it doesn't give me a hangover.  :)

The "Dolly Parton" Diet

Years ago, when the movie, "Steel Magnolias" came out, Oprah had the whole cast on her show - except they did it as a location interview.  Julia Roberts, Dolly Parton, Sally Field, Daryl Hannah, Olympia Dukakis, and Shirley MacLaine were all cozy on couches in a fancy schmancy hotel room.  Dolly used to be overweight, but many of you may not remember that.  Well, when she surfaced for this film, people went crazy, because she was not just smaller, but teeny tiny - particularly for having a Mae West type, figure eight, stacked and packed shape.  I was a figure 8 as well.  I was also short like Dolly.  She's shorter, but I don't have many inches on her.
     When Oprah asked Dolly how she lost all that weight, Dolly answered in her blunt and charismatic way, "I just stopped being a pig."  Since NO woman would really ever say that about themselves, the ladies gasped and giggled a bit.  Julia interrupted, and she told Oprah that Dolly still eats biscuits and gravy, fried chicken, etc..., and Oprah was shocked.  How could you eat all that and lose weight?  Dolly piped in with her natural exuberance, and explained, "I just don't eat as much.  I eat whatever I want, but less.  I realized I didn't need to eat everything I was eating, but I didn't want to give up my favorites.  It's what I grew up with."  Oprah was shocked at how small Dolly have become.  Dolly said, "I was always small.  I'm really petite.  It was just covered in fat!"
     I appreciate Dolly's candor.  It's true.  Once I realized that I was stuffing myself for many reasons: emotional, escape, celebration, disappointment, and just about everything but fuel - then I realized how Dolly had looked at it.  She just started using food for fuel and didn't give up everything.  That's how she's probably kept it off.  She doesn't work out much.  She claims in interviews that she hates it.  Now, I know I have to exercise and I can't eat gravy every night, but I like Dolly's philosophy.  Don't strip everything, because of course you'll crave it.  Cut portions first.  The easiest way to do that is to eat 6 small meals a day.
     Grazing throughout the day on healthier snacks, or just smaller versions of favorites at first, will keep you more filled and will prevent a pig-out at night.  I don't chow like a maniac at night anymore because I've deprived myself.  I just eat a handful of this, a bagel, a sandwich, salad, etc.  One of those every few hours keeps me going.  I don't starve and I'm actually losing weight.  I feel it.  My clothes are smaller.  I can't wait to go to the doctor.
I think I'll write Dolly when I'm all done with this loss.  I owe her one!

Overeating and Starving

If there's one thing most all dieters know, even though they may not be anorexic or bulimic, is the vicious cycle of overeating and starving yourself.  It's so natural to think you must deprive yourself, suffer, and take things away in order to be rewarded with a great body.  I would starve myself to lose weight, not realizing that I was throwing my body into crisis and it was actually holding on to the fat, because it was scared it would never get another meal.  I was too~  Of course, my body would get frantic, my blood sugar would drop, and I'd pig out on what? Carbs.  Katie will tell ya all that medical stuff, but basically, I was messing up my body for years in the cycle of starving and feeding.  And - the greatest sin of all when you're fat is to eat like a pig in front of other people.  You hide that!  That makes you depressed, you want to eat more, and then it forces you to isolate because you hate yourself so much.  It's really unfair when someone thin can pig out and people say, "My you're hungry!"  However, if a fat chick like me were to do that, I'd get, "Honey, do you really want that?  Do you think you ought to be eating that?  Do you want to die like your father?"  Ugh.  It's so funny too, because I'm referencing things like Thanksgiving dinner, where my thinner sisters and Aunt can pack a couple of plates away, and I can rarely finish one plate.  AND that's when I started noticing: my body didn't really want all that food.  Ever.  So, I put myself on the Dolly Parton diet.  More tomorrow ...