Weight Loss

I feel too old to fall for the newest fad, and yet….

Photo by Diana Polekhina on Unsplash

I’ve watched weight loss trends all my damn life and believed most of them at the outset.

It started with my mom. She felt fat and joined Weight Watchers back in the early ‘80s. My older sister went with her, if my memory serves me right, and I wasn’t invited along, but I watched them and absorbed as much information as I could.

Because if they were fat, then I must be fat too.

Before this point, I’d only been vaguely aware of my shape compared to other girls. I noticed they were getting taller and willowy, while I stayed short and squat.

I have a vivid memory of music class where I compared the spread of my thighs on the chair to all the other girls around me. My thighs were the fattest and spread the farthest. No amount of repositioning could change this fact.

I’d love to be as fat as I was when I first thought I was fat. I’ve pretty much doubled in size since that music class.

At home, I watched my mom and sister measure out one teaspoon of butter and attempt to spread it on bread. It didn’t go far.

I watched them weigh foods, buy thin bread, and forgo butter or gravy on potatoes.

Every diet from that point forward seemed to be about restriction. Count your calories, don’t eat fat, don’t eat carbs, don’t eat red meat, don’t have dessert, don’t don’t don’t.

All of this was possible in the short term, but some raging monster within me gobbled chocolate the instant it was within reach and screwed up my careful eating streak.

Now that I’m older, my metabolism has slowed, and my body seems to want to cling to the pounds.

The newest weight loss system seems to be Ozempic and Mounjaro. These two apparently get rid of “food noise” and slow digestion.

Three people in my world are taking these or variations of them. Two of the people are tangential in my life; one I’m close to.

The two tangential ones announced their successes on Facebook. Well, one did, the other one honestly startled me one day as I scrolled through and saw pictures. I went to her profile and saw that she’d been steadily losing weight for about two years, with a dramatic loss in the first year. If I’d run into her on the street, I wouldn’t have recognized her.

The one close to me has lost something like 40 pounds in three months. Not as dramatic as some others, but still significant.

There’s a part of me that’s itching to get the shot. I’d love to shed pounds with barely a thought. I’d love to wake up thinner. I’d love to fit into smaller clothes.

But I know that my skin will not shrink. It will not snap back and give me a toned appearance. If I lose weight too fast (or at all, really), my skin will sag like clothes that are several sizes too big. I know this because I’ve lost and gained the same damn 30 pounds over and over.

I also strongly suspect that I would gain every ounce back — plus some — the instant I stop taking the medication, so what would be the point? If I haven’t learned how to eat mindfully, or restrict my portions, or not eat when bored, or stuff my feelings down with cake by now, what on Earth makes me think I would after these meds?

I suppose I could dream, though.

Or just learn to be happy with my flubby folds.

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