Working Hard for a Weight-Loss Miracle

Although I am planning to lose 100 pounds this year, I'm not anticipating a substantial change in my diet. How can this be? Am I dreaming? Perhaps I am... but I know a few things about how my mind and body work, and unfortunately also about how they don't work.

I know a lot about nutrition, too; I have taught it at college level. However, knowing what to eat, being able to afford what is right to eat, and having the willpower to stick, for the most part, to what is good to eat are three different things. If all three elements are not aligned properly, an attempt to lose weight by diet regulation alone has as much chance of succeeding as my losing it by holding my breath until the scale rethinks its reading. In fact, losing weight by diet regulation alone isn't a great idea even if those elements, my sun sign, moon sign and rising planet are all aligned, because how my body spends the portion of fuel with which I provide it makes at least as much difference as what kind of fuel I'm pumping.

Thus my diet plan for 2011 has only partly to do with my diet. It has a bit, also, to do with what I plan to make my body do with my diet.

First of all, I have begun to take a medication called Alli (Orlistat), which claims to prevents the absorption of a quarter of the fat I ingest from being absorbed and processed in the usual way by my body (it doesn't sit around unabsorbed, thinking about ways to get into trouble; it passes out of my system along with whatever else my body doesn't need). Alli's website encourages Alli users to make dietary adjustments (reduce calories, reduce but do not eliminate fat) which I am not prepared to make at this time. Frankly, I rarely overeat. When I have cravings, they are more often for protein than for sweets. However, my fiance likes for me to bake (and I enjoy that activity myself) and it is very difficult to bake and then refrain from tasting the results. I must disappoint him rather often this year.

Secondly, I have begun to exercise, albeit sporadically -- not because I am lazy, or even forgetful, but because fibromyalgia and arthritis conspire together to prevent me from doing everything I want to do when I want to do it. When I am able to work out on my HealthRider, I do so. I've already (as of the second week in January) worked my way up from two minutes per session (between zero and three sessions a day) to three and a half. Does that sound pathetic? It's fabulous! Until 2011, my average time on the HealthRider was zero minutes and zero seconds. I have to inhale albuterol before I work out, or my asthma kicks in, and my arms (particularly affected by the fibromyalgia) ache for days from a short, "easy" workout. When arthritis freezes up my hands, I am unable to hold onto the handlebars of the Rider. Three and a half minutes is a miracle, and it will lead to four, and four and a half... eventually burning up a calorie or two.

Speaking of miracles, my goal for this year is 100 pounds. I may not know exactly when I hit that mark because I own no scale; I may have lost (or gained) something already. Before the month is out, I will have visited my primary care physician and informed her of my plans (she approved of and prescribed the Alli quite a while ago, but my insurance provider of that time decided that although I am morbidly obese, which exacerbates the effects of my arthritis and could tip my pre-diabetes over into full-blown diabetes -- they could not possibly cover medication designed to combat that condition. After all, we fat folks are just stupid and lazy; it's our own fault we're overweight, right? Okay, the excuse they gave was that Alli is available over the counter... to those who can afford it, which I could not. Undeterred, I convinced my fiance to purchase some for me on eBay -- and then I neglected to use it. I am determined to conquer my neglectfulness now, and well before the year is out I shall know by how my body feels and operates, not to mention how clothes do or don't fit, what measure of success I have achieved.