Workin’ On It
I’ve written about my weight loss journey on this blog before.
For those who don’t know, I was never obese by any means. Relative to many of the people in this country who struggle with their weight (and there are many of them, because this is America after all), I didn’t have a drastic amount of weight to lose.
Following a sobering diagnosis a few months ago, no pun intended, my doctor advised me to lose about 10 pounds. Again, it’s not an insane amount - it wasn’t even five percent of my body weight at the time. But it would still require some lifestyle changes as any weight loss does.
Over the last few months, I’ve been learning new things about my body and weight loss more generally. For instance, most people do not see results from their new lifestyle for the first several weeks of it. That was me. And then one fine morning, I stepped on the scale to find that I’d lost nearly 4 pounds in the previous week. Needless to say, that’s when I first knew I was making progress.
There have been setbacks along the way. It’s important to view it as a lifestyle, not a diet, even though those words were actually interchangeable in Ancient Greece. (That is not, of course, the way most people think about them today.) Most notably, even if I’ve committed to a new lifestyle, I still have my weaknesses when it comes to temptation. Cheese and crackers are possibly the most difficult such weakness for me to overcome.
I’ve also grown more grateful for the air fryer that sits in my pantry. That thing is pretty amazing, and my father loves it the most. He loves sweet potato fries, but for health-related reasons, he doesn’t want to eat them from a restaurant anymore. There are other ways to make them, however.
All you have to do is take a sweet potato, peel it, and then cut it into your desired shapes and sizes. You can sprinkle them with salt and pepper, then douse them in olive oil. You throw them into the air fryer for anywhere from 10 to 15 minutes, depending on how crispy you like your fries. And then you’ve got a healthier alternative to one of the most common problem foods.
To be clear, nutrition is not the only reason an air fryer is valuable. It used to be the case that people overlooked the abysmal quality of food at McDonald’s because it was at least cheap and convenient. But it’s no longer cheap, as The Damage Report poked fun at in the funniest way possible. Fast food prices have gone up, while fast food quality has, if anything, gone down. Eventually, the air fryer will pay for itself, and depending on how much you like fries, eventually might come sooner than you think. Especially since these days, you can often get one for under $100 USD!
Yesterday I decided to step on the scale first thing in the morning. I can’t tell you precisely what possessed me to do that. Maybe it was a sign from the universe. But I stepped on the scale, and for the first time in about three years, the number that greeted me began with a “1” rather than a “2”. In other words, I am once again under 200 pounds! I’m in what they call Onederland!
Now, I’m not naïve to the fact that my weight loss journey is not over. If I were to go back to eating the same way I did during college, I would almost assuredly gain that weight back, quite possibly more. I will need to maintain this lifestyle for, well, life if I want to keep the weight off. And that’s why it’s important to find a regiment that works for you, that you can maintain in the long term. That’s why those “fad diets” are generally to be avoided.
One thing I didn’t fully appreciate until I needed to lose weight was the fact that it’s difficult in this country. Yes, there are plenty of fat people elsewhere, but it’s particularly challenging when, thanks to the lack of mixed-use zoning, grocery shopping is often done in bulk once a week as opposed to a little every day. This puts pressure on meal planners to think many days in advance, and, all else being equal, more people will decide to get fast food or takeout because it’s more convenient. That is to say nothing about all the additives in American food that are banned in the EU.
Additionally, I am lucky to live in a part of the country where there’s ample access to grocery stores. Don’t get me wrong; there are plenty of unhealthy things at my nearest store if you want them, and nobody, including your doctor, is going to physically force you not to buy them. There are plenty of affluent Americans who struggle with their weight, and there are some poor Americans who maintain a healthy BMI.
But there’s a reason why the term food desert gained popularity in recent decades. Even so, many food justice activists no longer use that term. For one, “desert” implies a geographical location, but the average person’s ability to purchase plenty of nutritious food can vary wildly even within the same city. More importantly, deserts occur naturally, even if climate change risks expanding their reach. The inability of some people to acquire healthy food was and is a result of policy choices.
It’s for that reason that food apartheid has become a preferred term among many of today’s food justice advocates. Yes, it’s got a pretty extreme connotation, but this systemic inequity is very often based on class, which is very often based on race in the United States. If I were on the wrong side of this food apartheid through the cosmic lottery, it might have been far more difficult for me to shed the weight I have.
Of course, I don’t mean to sell myself short too much. Even if you have the means at which purchasing healthy food is trivial, there are still mental barriers one must overcome. As stated above, you need to accept that you’re going to have setbacks. And when they occur, you need to learn from them so that you don’t make the same mistake again, but also be kind to yourself so you don’t get demoralized.
The anthem for my weight loss journey, to the extent that it has a “theme song” , has been “Workin’ On It” by Andy Grammer. The song is about overcoming bad habits. As corny as Andy Grammer’s music can get, it very much works in this case. It might be takin’ forever, but it’s better than never!
The song resonates with me to no small extent. After all, we’re all “workin’ on it” to some extent. We’re trying to be the best versions of ourselves we could be.
How often have I thought, I could be so much more productive if I didn’t spend all damn day doomscrolling? To be fair, I haven’t been able to make much progress in that regard, mainly because I can’t convince myself that I shouldn’t spend every waking hour on Reddit. And I have to stay informed, no matter how painful it might be, because as they always say, the German people were probably completely sick of politics in 1938. But that didn’t mean politics were sick of them, and we all know what happened next.
More to the point, weight loss is something that’s within my control. At least, to some extent. And amidst a world that seems like it’s crumbling all around me thanks to my country’s actions, this is one thing that’s actually gone right in my personal life.
In terms of eating healthily, I have not given up the fight; I’m in control. I can manage my lifestyle from the inside out. And unlike the insanely creepy song that the previous sentence is paraphrased from, I don’t mind having this mantra stuck in my head.
