Diet is the worst kind of four-letter word for many women, and who can blame them? Diets don’t work, or at least they don’t last. Only an estimated 12 percent of Americans who lose pounds on a diet maintain the weight loss for one year.
So it doesn’t matter if “diet” translates to 1,200 calories per day or say, three eggs over easy with six slices of bacon (but no carbohydrates, please) for breakfast. If it’s strictly about watching calories or fat grams or carbs or whatever, forget it–it won’t work, not for long, uh-uh.
What’s needed is an overhaul of your thought process as much as eating patterns. Rather than thinking diet, think about eating for health. Instead of losing weight, focus on boosting your energy level. Shush anyone who wants to talk about, ugh, swimsuit season.
Eat food to feel better, and looking good will come along with it.
Here’s one strategy: Figure out if everything you consume has some nutritional value–even dessert can be healthful–then allow yourself some splurges to satisfy your sweet tooth and help you enjoy life. Find a happy medium; look for real life on the menu.
That’s just one Real Solution from Real Women. Here are lots more. Bon appetit, and bon voyage to diets.
SUZANNE KEERS
When she stopped thinking about losing weight, that’s when the pounds dropped off for Suzanne Keers.
“I’ve had a weight problem since I was a teenager,” says Keers, 41, who lives in the city. “I have been 15 to 30 pounds overweight most of my life.”
Her weight peaked whenever her schedule in a former job as a consultant was busiest. Commuting between New York and Chicago, plus the requisite entertaining of clients, left her feeling fatigued most of the time. There seemed no chance to eat right or exercise. She regularly visited a physical therapist, chiropractor and massage therapist to “keep it together.”
By spring of last year, she was too worn to even work. She decided to quit the consultant’s life and take six months off. One of her first moves was to see a nutritionist, Susan Allen, then at the American Whole Health clinic in Lincoln Park and now working for Northwestern University’s Center for Integrative Medicine.
Allen and the AWH clinic’s holistic doctors recommended testing for food allergies as a possible source of the constant fatigue. It called for a highly restricted diet. By her own admission, Keers was fretting about not getting to eat cookies and other favorite foods.
“Susan said, `Look, do you want to be healthy or not?’ ” Keers recalls.
“It hit me that I was not holding myself responsible for what I was putting in my mouth. I did want to stop being so tired all of the time. I wanted to live a longer life. I realized it had nothing to do with cookies.”
Keers stuck to the restrictive diet by cutting back significantly on foods that were prepared outside her home. Cooking and even putting together snacks provided Keers with greater control. She started eating more organic foods and making batches of such meals as stir-frys she could reheat during the rest of the week.
As it turns out, Keers tested negative for all food allergies. But she didn’t revert to her junk-food habits. Instead, in a new job as chief operating officer for a Chicago-based Internet design company, Pyxis.net, she has established a policy of healthy snacks in the break rooms. That goes for offices in Prague, Zurich and Hyderabad, India, too.
“We have lots of fruit, nuts and definitely no candy,” says Keers. “(Web) developer types want their `toys’ and food and stuff, but everybody’s pretty much on board eating healthy. Of course, we have great coffee, too. The developers in Prague love it when we bring them Starbucks coffee beans, because they can’t get it there.”
Another big change for Keers is reducing her alcohol intake. Now when she joins a friend for dinner, she declines splitting a bottle of wine.
“I suggest we drink by the glass, because I can really feel the effects of just one glass,” she says. “I’m drinking less and less.”
Keers is weighing less, too. She has dropped 35 pounds in the last 12 months.
“I never intended to do so,” says Keers. “By last August I just starting losing the weight.”
JENNIFER DELISI
You would be amazed at what one might hear discussed at a Brownie meeting, says Jennifer Delisi. Amazed and discouraged.
“I hear the girls discussing a snack as having too much fat in it or they aren’t looking forward to a family vacation because they will have to get into a bathing suit,” says Delisi, 38, a Brownie leader and mother of two girls in La Grange. “These are 8-year-olds.”
Delisi compares her daughters’ diet with her own meat-and-potatoes childhood in the Beverly neighborhood of the city.
“We ate a lot of starchy, sugary foods,” says Delisi. “I make salmon for our kids in ways that it tastes good to them. I want to encourage them to eat it. We’ll eat some red meat but make it lean and broiled. We always have vegetables, too.”
Delisi wears a size 8 to 10 these days and feels comfortable enough in her own body to be a positive role model for her daughters and maybe even some of those Brownies. Finding a comfort zone has been a gradual journey that started when she decided to quit smoking and eat more sensibly after finishing college in 1983.
Many of her nutrition habits have become part of the household eating plan. She doesn’t buy Doritos or M&Ms because “I might eat half the bag.”
Dessert in her house is most often frozen yogurt or “Go-Gurt” pops, though small servings of ice cream are allowed for the occasional treat.
And her kids get some concessions, such as breakfast cereals with some sugar in them.
“There’s always room for improvement,” she says.
Nonetheless, in Delisi’s mind, every meal is an opportunity rather than a nutritional write-off.
“Tonight we are joining another family at a restaurant with typical menu fare for kids, such as chicken tenders, burgers and pizza,” she explained recently. “I will ask for steamed veggies on the side and some glasses of skim milk.
” As you get older, you can get smarter.”
DEBORAH BARRY
As a nurse, Deborah Barry says she knew better.
“We women always think dieting will take us to a happier and healthier place,” says Barry, 44, a mother of four (ages 6 to 22) who recently left her nursing to spend more time with her younger children. “My last diet was the Atkins program two years ago.”
Rather than follow yet another diet regimen or, better defined, the restrictions of a weight-loss plan, Barry determined about two years ago that “feeling good about what I eat” would be her simple approach.
“When I get home from a late-afternoon workout (she lifts weights, uses cardiovascular machines and has been running more lately), I might have a piece of fruit and yogurt, throw some smoothie ingredients in the blender or eat a salad,” says Barry.
“I used to eat because I was hungry, now I think about eating because my body needs the fuel.”
Barry takes specific action steps to support her dietary straightening and narrowing. If her kids are in the kitchen snacking on chips or M&Ms, she steps out of the room for a few minutes. She does the same if the yogurt, smoothie or salad don’t do the trick and no one else is in the kitchen.
She strives to eliminate processed foods from her family’s table, and tries to eat foods that require using a fork rather than just fingers. She takes a walk after supper, forcing the issue by putting on her shoes before eating.
What’s more, Barry doesn’t get on a scale much, even though the reading of 120 to 125 pounds on her 5-foot-3 1/2-inch frame is positive by her.
“I know a woman who ruins her entire day by getting on the scale,” says Barry. “I wouldn’t call myself thin, but I look healthy.”
ROSANNE PASCHAL
Always an ambitious person, Rosanne Paschal earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees and a PhD by attending school part time for 18 years.
“So when I finally decided to lose weight, I thought to myself, ` can’t take a year to do it?’ ” says Paschal, 50, who lives in Naperville. “I figured it was time to stop putting it off.”
More than patience and willpower helped Paschal, a radiologic technologist whose role as president of a national professional organization requires her to attend many banquets. She educated herself about the right foods to eat by paying for the weekly consultation of a registered dietitian. Perhaps more important, she afforded her body enough time–four months–to “learn” what to crave.
“It took at least that long to feel satiated by real foods like fruits and vegetables rather than sweets,” she says. “I would recommend you stick it out and you will be amazed. A clementine satisfies my sweet tooth now.”
Other practical tips from Paschal: She eats yogurt for dessert and brings a bag of bite-size lettuce rather than chips on car trips. Pass on the gravy boat at banquets. Ask for fresh berries or some other low-cal dessert when everybody else is eating cheesecake just because it is placed before them. She packs fruit for the movies. She skips white bread and eats whole grains, which helps chase the hunger pangs. She still eats one of her favorite breakfast meals–a fried egg sandwich–but only cooks up the egg whites.
Paschal’s daily calorie count since January 1999 has been a nutrient-dense 1,400. Her cholesterol has decreased from a high-risk 297 to 197. She has lost 117 pounds and her blood pressure is normal. She’s not quite at her ideal weight, but is much closer and far less fearful.
“What finally scared me into doing something was my cholesterol readings and high blood pressure,” notes Paschal, who adds she now has regular urges to go running after a rough day at work or in the early morning before her husband wakes up. “Plus, my doctor told me I was a potential diabetic. That’s when I figured I would wait until next year for my Valentine’s Day or Easter candy.”
CATHY CRUTCHFIELD
When she was younger, Cathy Crutchfield says, she could always lose five pounds in a week. So she ate what she wanted, when she wanted, and crash-dieted if she didn’t like the way she looked.
“But I can’t do that any more,” says Crutchfield, 54, director of the occupational health program at Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood. “I haven’t been able to do it for seven or eight years.”
Before that, Crutchfield says, she “mostly felt good” about her appearance. But once her lose-weight-fast-and-easily strategy vanished, so did a significant amount of her self-worth. “I wasn’t liking the way I looked most of the time,” she recalls. “I was so disgusted with myself. I didn’t want to come to work because I felt so heavy.”
It took Crutchfield about five years to act on her self-criticism.
Meanwhile, she was gaining 30 pounds over the eight years.
“I was never a healthy eater,” she explains. “I didn’t like fruit or vegetables. Plus, I didn’t exercise, I hate it.”
Crutchfield started her action plan more than two years ago by joining the fitness center at Loyola. She “exercised like crazy” but didn’t get results. About 18 months ago, she decided eating more sensibly was the missing ingredient.
“I realized feeding my body correctly was the only answer,” says Crutchfield. “I figured out the fruits and vegetables I liked enough to eat regularly.
“I stopped eating sugar, which is hard because there are always cakes and muffins at the office. I don’t buy anything in Fannie May (candy stores) because I know I will eat the whole thing.”
Then Crutchfield took an unusual step. She joined a national weight-loss program, but only to make herself face the group leader who weighed her every two weeks.
“I don’t stay for the meetings and I have never listened to the spiel,” she says. “But I would be personally disappointed if I hadn’t lost some weight each time, and I didn’t want to be embarrassed in front of the leader.”
As it turns out, Crutchfield lost weight every two weeks for a year, dropping 37 pounds overall. These days, she is happy with her 120 pounds on a 5-foot-4-inch frame. She has added muscle definition by working out on weights with a personal trainer for a half-hour three times a week (she also does 30 minutes of aerobic exercise on machines during the same sessions).
With her success–about which she is quite modest–Crutchfield now allows herself to “cut just a piece” of some office goodies. She isn’t worried about overdoing it.
“I feel so good about myself now,” she says. “I will make lifelong habits of my exercise program and the way I eat.”
