Meet BC, A Moderator Really In The Zone

Submitted by BC on Fri, 11/22/2002 - 06:00.

Mine is not a particularly dramatic story. It's ordinary enough to be a fat kid, a chubby teen, a yo-yoing adult whose self-worth swings with the dial on the scale, and the dial keeps going the wrong way.

But in early 1998 my Mother died. I'm sorry to say that's what it took for me to take a good look at myself, and to decide, at age 49, that life was too short to be fat. How much more time would I have?.. How many more chances?.. I knew if I was ever to become serious about reclaiming my physical and emotional health, much less my figure, it was time.

It's so easy to say; so hard to do when you've failed as many times as I have. When your whole identity is one of being overweight, out of control, hopeless and chronically depressed, it takes courage, whether it's 10 pounds, or a 100, or more.

But I promised myself ONE MORE TIME. ONE LAST TIME.

I already knew that anything I'd ever tried before didn?t work. So I read and reread most of the popular diet books, and realized that some version of a lower carb diet had to be my last chance answer. Protein Power, Atkins, Carbohydrate Addicts, Zone, all made some sense to me, and I was determined to go through them all if I had to, until I found something that would work.

I picked the Zone to try first. The book was tough sledding, but I liked the science behind the Zone, the idea of using food in a precise way for health; and that gave me an idea.

Eating anything at all had over the years become charged with emotion and laden with guilt. What if, just what if, I could divorce the emotion from food, just for a while, and consider my body a science experiment? What if I could stay on the Zone six weeks, a reasonable time to test the hypothesis of the plan? What if I logged my data, made my observations, and decided based on results whether to continue or to try another plan?

That mental shift, along with the discipline of the Zone worked. After only two weeks I felt wonderful and suddenly had hope. I knew I had found a way to salvage my physical and emotional health, and maybe shed some pounds, too. I had tasted a different future, with energy enough to renew old interests and friendships and begin new ones. And with the courage to reclaim the essence of who I really am.

I begin strength training, reshaped my body and spirit, and yes, slowly but very surely lost almost 70 pounds.

But frankly, what I've gained is more important than what I've lost.

BC (Brenda)
172/105/105
LC (ZONE) since 4/98