What’s your Vitameatavegamin?

Posted on March 15, 2010

Every now and then, I find myself missing Lucille Ball, and since “I Love Lucy” reruns aren’t on TV often enough, I get my needs met on Youtube, where I found one of my favorite scenes from her lexicon of physical comedy: The Vitameatavegamin episode. In it, Lucy realizes her longtime dream of being on TV and schemes behind Ricky’s back to be the spokes-model for a vitamin elixir. Problems arise when she has to ingest heaping spoonfuls of it on the air…and make a convincing case for being in love with the way it tastes. Yesterday, as I watched Lucy swallow, wince, and lie right through the twinkling smile she manufactured for the camera, I was struck with revelation: I’ve played a similar game for years, and it’s a big part of why I ate my way to 345 pounds.

Swallowing something I detest and pretending to like it is something I did so many times, it became knee-jerk. It became so automatic; I didn’t realize how blithely I tolerated backstabbing bosses and co-workers at a toxic job or an insulting remark from a ‘well-meaning’ friend.

But nowhere was this coping mechanism more pronounced than at the molten core of my personal life. Anyone who’s familiar with my writing career knows about the opinion essays for magazines, newspapers, and public radio. Many of them dug deep into personal topics that were sometimes painful to reveal publicly: my weight, love-hate affair with food, my father’s decline into Alzheimer’s, size bigotry. But the one topic I steered clear of was my relationship of nearly 20 years. That’s right, I said 20.

“You know,” a close friend pointed out one day after reading one of my revelation-filled essays. “You treat your relationship as if it doesn’t exist.”

An awakening thud to the gut seven years ago. And still, I did nothing about it. Why kick up the mud that I willed so hard to settle at the bottom of my psyche? I thought I’d devised a brilliant way to keep the waters muck-free: Ignore the things that my gut (always golden in its accuracy) was telling me. It’s not that I didn’t hear my gut when it sent distress signals to my brain. I always hear…but do I pay attention? For 20 years I convinced myself that sexual compatibility, intellectual chemistry, and standing on common moral ground were insignificant over the long haul. Can you imagine the energy this took? It may sound small potatoes but it turned out to be a lot of burden to live with.

This was my Vitameatavegamin: spending nearly half my life with a man I was never in love with. Trite as it sounds, the reasons why I stayed so long were, ahem, complicated. It wasn’t a horrible relationship. If he’d been abusive it would have been a no-brainer. There were the Christmas Eves we watched “The Little Drummer Boy” by the light of the tree, both of us crying at the end when the drummer boy’s lamb is healed at the manger. The strawberry birthday cakes I baked for him every June. And the ‘Very Important Person’ certificate he surprised me with in 1992 when I was unemployed and felt like a complete loser.

To this day he remains one of the sweetest people to have ever come into my life. And I’ll never stop being grateful for the way he was able to love me. During our two decades together he saw me gain an alarming amount of weight. He knew my history of emotional abuse and never once said an unkind word to me about my size. No one, and I mean no one (except my dogs) have given me that kind of unconditional love.

And about that triple-digit weight-gain: part of it I’m sure was me trying to prove that I was unlovable. If I got fat enough, even he would throw in the towel. I don’t think he ever would have. But that was only part of the eating equation. My other reasons were to smother the feelings of emptiness that came with being in a romantically loveless relationship. I thought a lot about the validity of simply going through life with a companion. It’s a gift that some never get, so why should I complain? Passion is intoxicating, but it fades, it’s childish, it’s an unnecessary prop. Besides, I wasn’t that unhappy. I simply liked food more than the average person. So l lived on Italian bread soaked in melted butter. No one’s perfect. It had to count for something that we cared about each other. It did count. But it wasn’t enough.

I became pretty good at lying to myself. But there’s some sort of gravitational law about truth. It can be sequestered, reconfigured, and smothered, but it has a way of winning in the end. It would pop up in front of my face when I least expected it, scaring me like a jack-in-the-box: Looking at photos of us doing our best to look the part of a happy couple, my escalating binge-eating, his attraction to gambling which had long ago spiraled out of control. Like a lot of couples in crisis, there was the phase where I took refuge in declaring him as the source of all my misery. But he wasn’t the problem. It was me and my choice to live a lie.

Then, a year ago, I did what I thought I’d never have the courage to do: I told him. It was hard, even a little painful. But not nearly as brutal as I thought it was going to be. He might not be a white-collar brainiac, but he happens to be a highly intuitive soul who knew I was telling a simple truth: I wasn’t happy. He also knew that I didn’t hate him and there was no other man standing by in the wings, waiting to pull me onto his stallion and whisk me away to a magically new life under the protective cover of his cape.

And because I was able to finally admit the truth, it left me able to appreciate him without the entanglement of pretense. He and I are friends now. Something I wasn’t sure would be possible. It’s not always easy. I was born with a uterus, which means sometimes my sense of duty and guilt can be exponential. He didn’t want our relationship to end and I know there’s a part of him that’s hurting because of it. Sometimes that weighs on me…And there’s not much I can do about that other than live with it.

I’m at peace now with releasing that burden I carried for so long. Not surprisingly, taking the big risk was followed by a torrent of weight melting off of me. And while it’s a major part of the puzzle, it’s only one. That’s what I’m learning through all of this: health and balance are multi-faceted. I can’t just focus on one area: food, feelings, exercise, relationships, desires, passion, calories, it’s all part of the picture. Knowing which area needs my immediate attention is a learning process.

Who knows, maybe I could have let it slide for another 20 years, but I don’t think so. January 2009 brought to my doorstep some profoundly life-changing moments and this was one of them. Something in me had reached the limit. I couldn’t do it anymore and the time had come to make a choice: Live for me or live for someone else.

Having this new physical and emotional freedom is gratifying beyond words. But the best part is hearing what people tell me over and over about my eyes: they have life in them again. Hallelujah. It’s about time.

Alive, Well, and Denial-Free

Alive, Well, and Denial-Free

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I Wanted Carrot Cake and A Few Bags of Lindt Truffles…Here’s What I Did Instead

Posted on February 25, 2010

Here’s a longstanding myth that needs to be busted: just because someone loses the equivalent of three Victoria’s Secret models in body weight does not mean the passionate, sometimes dysfunctional tango with food is over. It never ends. No matter how low the numbers get on the scale. If you remember nothing else, promise me you’ll start to ponder the fact that shrinking in size doesn’t vaporize any pre-existing problems from your life. Hey, I LOVE being down 12 sizes, but I’m still me. I still wrestle with moments of wanting to gallop to the nearest supermarket and have my way with the potato chip aisle. So there may be no magic formula for dropping weight, but I hope the following helps in some way: Mood swings can strike without warning, physiological hunger is a regularly occurring fact of life, and so is a desire for food (which feels remarkably similar to hunger) that’s rooted insidiously in psychological yearnings. I experience all of the above much more acutely during winter, when my serotonin levels plunge in tandem with the mercury.

If it were as cut and dry as diet and exercise, I’d simply hand the baton to Jenny Craig and blog about pink lipstick. Going the distance with a new way of life can sound exciting on paper, but the unglamorous reality involves slogging through the mud of resistance and negotiating the tightrope of temptation. Depending on how well stocked with options my pantry is, sometimes I’m lucky enough to walk the high wire with a net.

So this afternoon, after doing a heart-thumping session with the YRG Double Black Diamond DVD, a craving for sweets came a-knocking. My strategy for managing sudden desires like this centers around a “know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em” philosophy. In other words, I’ve realized there’s a time for molasses cookies, pavlova drizzled in chocolate sauce, or one of Angella Cole’s astoundingly delicious gluten-free cupcakes (her cookbook is in the works)…and there’s a time to take a pass on the decadence. I weigh the severity of the craving against questions like, how stressed am I? Is this about emotional turmoil (big or small) that I’m trying to ignore? What does the rest of my day look like in terms of food intake? Or, is it art? Sometimes because of superior ingredients, presentation, or both, food qualifies as art and sometimes for that reason alone I dive in and enjoy it. But today, an honest look at the checklist had me falling with relief into the safety net instead. Since I always make sure my pantry is packing protection, I was able to assemble a little spontaneous gratification out of homemade cranberry sauce*, a one-ounce bag of pistachios, and some unsweetened coconut. The combination may seem odd, but it had a magical effect on the sugar craving.

That’s the other thing I’ve learned. When I’m craving something sweet, it doesn’t necessarily mean I want a banana split or glazed donuts. Yes, Virginia…sometimes something much lower on the food chain actually does it for me.

* See blog post: Unbelievably Easy Cranberry Sauce…Sans Sugar

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Unbelievably Easy Cranberry Sauce…Sans Sugar

Posted on February 25, 2010

Cosmopolitan magazine…circa 1988. It’s the last place I ever thought I’d find a usable recipe. But I did. And it was so simple, I committed it to memory in the confines of that sweat bath of a studio apartment I rented on the upper west side that summer.

There’s no sugar in this, which is amazing for a cranberry recipe. Use it any way you like: in yogurt, oatmeal, on ice cream, waffles. No rules. Except one: don’t under any circumstances leave the stove while this is simmering. You haven’t really cleaned until you’ve cleaned molten cranberry sauce off a burner.

I’m naming this concoction in honor of the woman who (on some level) must have given it the green light:

Cranberry Sauce A La Helen Gurley Brown

1 bag fresh cranberries

1 can frozen grape juice concentrate (100% juice)

Place both ingredients in a sauce pan on medium heat and cover. Cook about 5-10 minutes, or until it begins to simmer. Uncover and turn heat to medium-low. Let simmer for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Let cool before serving or storing. Keeps for several weeks in the refrigerator. Months if frozen.

Bon Appetit!

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Better Than Chef Boyardi

Posted on February 11, 2010

A big part of the reason I’ve dropped 135 pounds in a year’s time is the fact that I’m gluten-free…and I avoid cow dairy (notice I didn’t commit to saying I never eat cheese?) This means I eat as though I’m celiac and lactose intolerant even though I’m neither. I adopted these changes at the urging of my fitness guru, Diamond Dallas Page (www.yrgfitness.com). There was some initial resistance on my part (especially where dairy was concerned). And yes, I still miss cheese sometimes. You know, little things like the way it oozes across my tongue when it’s melted and warm. But the fact is, I’m down 12 sizes, so it’s kind of a fair trade.

Spaghetti I crave occasionally, and when I do, I thank GOD for the creation of Rice Pasta, which is actually quite good if it’s cooked properly. So when I get the urge for that canned semolina indulgence from childhood, I know exactly what to do. Did you know that unlike the fictitious Betty Crocker, there actually was a chef named for that line of cans filled with unspeakably mushy pasta? The guy’s name was Ettore Boiardi. He emigrated from Italy at age 16 and immediately launched into a cooking career. According to his story, the spaghetti and sauce he served at his restaurants were legendary and demand eventually drove him into factory production (and the phonetic spelling of his name). And we all know how far south the quality went. I’m not saying the stuff didn’t taste good. Man, some of my most memorable binges involved family sized cans of his ravioli, microwaved and blanketed with slices of American cheese and eaten in a semi-conscious state in front of a ‘Bewitched’ rerun. Those were the days.

But with the passage of time has come the evolution of my pallate. Which has resulted in a nouveau version of the stuff I grew up on.

Aside from using rice pasta, what makes this recipe different is cooking the pasta risotto-style. When you do this, the starch from the pasta doesn’t leach out into the boiling water and eventually poured down the drain. Once you cook pasta this way you’ll probably never want to go back to boiling. It’s a little more time-consuming but worth it. I hope wherever Ettore Boiardi is now, he’s proud:

Risotto-Style Rice Pasta with Marinara

1 pound rice spaghetti

1 large can of tomato juice

1 32-ounce can tomato sauce

2 TBS. extra virgin olive oil

Grated sheep’s milk peccorino cheese

Pour the tomato juice into a large sauce pan and cover, heating on medium heat until bubbling. While juice is heating, break spaghetti into 3-4 inch sections. (Cooking pasta risotto-style requires pasta that’s already small, ie, penne, or made small by breaking. Too much stirring involved). Add the oil to the juice and stir, followed by the broken spaghetti. Continue stirring until the pasta softens. Eventually, most of the liquid will absorb into the pasta. If you like a generous backdrop of sauce, add all or part of the can of tomato sauce. Continue stirring often or else the pasta will stick together (I find rice pasta to be gummier than semolina). When thoroughly heated, serve and sprinkle with peccorino.

Bon Apetit!

By the way, I still can’t hear Elizabeth Montgomery’s voice without getting a Chef BoyArDee craving. Thank God ravioli was as hardcore as it got for me.

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Dead Dieter Walking

Posted on January 9, 2010



I don’t recommend watching this entire clip, but it’s all I could find on YouTube. A 90-second glimpse is enough to paint the emotional picture of the dread that’s coming. In spades. A clear sense that someone’s life, in no uncertain terms, is on the verge of being brought to an end.

Uncountable times, I’ve lived this dread. Perhaps not quite to the excruciating extent that Sean Penn portrays so brilliantly, but I’m familiar with the soul-sucking rhythms of the ‘dead man walking’ ritual.

It’s the pre-dieting rite of passage that’s every bit as bitter as it is sweet. Card-carrying dieters…you know what I’m talking about: the last meal. Or, more accurately, the last good meal we’ll ever have…a passionate good-bye kiss to the foods we actually enjoy eating.

Because it’s all about extremes, isn’t it? What else is there? What is this thing known as the middle road? I couldn’t be trusted with food. So lockdown was imposed. The ironic thing about brute force is, it doesn’t work. It doesn’t reform prisoners and it doesn’t cure dieters of what truly ails them.

The groundwork for extremes was laid early for me – at age 10 when I was put on my first official diet, courtesy of our family doctor, whom I’ll refer to as Dr. No. My father loved Dr. No’s philosophy because, in addition to a strict, nearly fatless diet, he prescribed a two-day binge to precede the part where we’re stripped of dignity and personal freedom. I lost track of how many times my father and I jumped on and off the Crazy-Wheel. But the bulging paper grocery bags we’d haul home after a visit to Dr. No’s office were filled with the building blocks of our two-day farewell feast. Things we promised (more adamantly each time) we would never eat again: pork chops, potatoes with butter, creamy cascades of Stouffer’s chipped beef over toasted white bread, chocolate marshmallow ice cream, crowned with a fluffy head of Cool Whip.

48 hours later, the menu did a 180: dry string beans and a soft boiled egg for breakfast; tuna splashed with cider vinegar for lunch; and a dinner of poached chicken breasts and iceberg lettuce. Halfway through the day I was dazed with both hunger and depression.

Why hasn’t anyone been more vocal about stating what’s obvious? That diets are just plain mean?

I could recite a laundry list of why dieting hasn’t worked for me, but probably the biggest clue that they’re a monumental set-up for failure is the way they begin: with a ‘life is over’ implication that’s about as appealing as being led to the execution room.

Somewhere along the way, I realized that this method (that is still inexplicably embedded in our collective psyche as a viable answer) is really the definition of futility. If dieting could have killed the part of me that loves food, is drawn to it, wrings pleasure from it, dieting would have done it…the first time around. It wasn’t until after my second 100-pound gain-back that I decided I would not be going back for more. That was in 1990. Not knowing what else to do, I did what I always did when I wasn’t dieting. I ate. A lot. True, I got bigger each year, but not having the schizophrenic agony of the crazed ‘in and out/off and on’ cycles to contend with brought a welcome sense of peace.

So no one is more surprised than I am that this past year saw a torrent of personal transformation that included dropping 130 pounds. This time though, I did it through listening to the intelligence of my body. It’s probably hard to believe, but I actually forgot that my body is intelligent. I also did a lot of listening to Diamond Dallas Page of YRG Fitness (www.yrgfitness.com), Terri Lange, an amazing woman who has kept her weight off for 8 years, and nutritionist Bernadette Saviano of Atlanta, Ga.

I get asked lots of questions now about how I did it. And last week someone wanted to know if I had a ‘last supper.’ When I began this new way of eating, this new relationship to food, that didn’t even occur to me. In my mind, it would have been too much of an implication that I was beginning a diet. So there was no burgeoning banquet table awash in ‘parting is such sweet sorrow’ sentiment.

That’s because the foods I love have all been invited along for the ride. Yes, I’ve relegated them to a different position in the pecking order…downgraded their ticket, if you will. But they’re still in the picture. It’s a full picture now that includes exercise, feeling the feelings, experimenting with new flavors and textures (mashed rutabaga is actually really goooood), and respecting who I am: someone who loves fried chicken. There I SAID it. Man, it feels good to be out of the closet.

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