Balance

My father has been a serial dieter his entire life. He was the sixth of nine kids, the first eight of whom were boys. They all played sports when they were young, so meals were mostly functional - time to refuel. Always meat and potatoes, and always lots of both. My dad's specialties were football and track and field. He was a big, strong guy in high school, and so he ate a lot. But he was also very self-conscious, so his off-seasons were filled with exercise and rigid diets to try and feel better about the way he looked. After high school, he went right into the work force and although he still played some sports with friends socially, he wasn't playing nearly as hard as he did in school. Unfortunately, his eating patterns stayed the same, and it lead to weight gain.

He would try diets every now and then, and they'd work temporarily, but then he would fall off them and regain everything. Growing up, my sisters and I always heard the story about the time he went on Weight Watchers with Nana (his mother) and lost 40 pounds. Even though he gained it all back and more, he was always so proud of that accomplishment. I'm not sure if that's just the way Weight Watchers was in the late 70s, but he told us the key to his success was that essentially all he ate was "chicken breast and bags of scum mix."

A brief aside:
I'm not sure who started it or exactly when we started calling it "scum mix," but in our house growing up, scum mix was the bag of frozen vegetables with lima beans in it. I believe there were also the standards - peas, carrots, and corn - but all I distinctly remember are (a) lima beans and (b) no one ever eating it even though it was always on the table.

With my own dieting past, I've always tried to emulate the success my father told us about literally thousands of times. I would convince myself that only eating a piece of broiled chicken and a bag of steamed mixed vegetables could be quite delicious ... and my diets would usually last about a day and a half before I cursed it and ordered takeout.

It never really occurred to me that despite his 40 pound loss, it couldn't have been too great of a plan if he eventually broke it. It reminds me of a conversation I had with my sister Katie a few months ago. One of my favorite foods is cereal (seriously, any kind), and I was talking about how I would eat only cereal for the rest of my life if I could. Kate was a considerably better student in science than I was, and she told me that I would die if I did that. Even if your body is full of food, you can die of malnutrition. You have to have a balance of protein, carbs, vitamins, and minerals. It's like your body is a car, she said - if your car has a full tank, that's great, but it will only work if the tank is full of gas. A full tank of milk isn't going to get you anywhere.

I think one of the keys to staying on track is maintaining a balance. I try to make sure that I am eating enough of everything - not all one thing or another - and it prevents me from getting bored. By not getting monotonous with the foods that I eat, I am less likely to want to binge. I eat chicken, but I also have pork, turkey, and fish - and lots of non-meat protein sources. Once a month I eat red meat, and I am okay with that. And there's a whole world of vegetables outside of the frozen food aisle! Trying new recipes helps, too - it's great to know that I can lose weight and eat delicious and interesting foods. I'm not condemned to a life of plain, unseasoned chicken and scum mix!