Watch what happens

When I was just out of high school and all my friends were crazy about the Beatles, I was listening to Bossa Nova. Yeah, I was a bit out of step with my peers. A favorite song, called “Watch What Happens,” still has great meaning for me:

Let someone start believing in you,
Let him hold out his hand
Let him touch you and watch what happens…

I was desperate for my adult life to begin and bring my first real romance (it did), but now the song means something else for me. It’s about starting to believe in myself. And right now, that means believing I can lose weight. Lots of weight.

Like millions of other women, I’ve had this obsession since I was a teen, just beginning to hate myself for being only twenty or so pounds overweight. Back then, I read an article about Judy Garland’s battle of the bulge, and how she conquered it with a trendy new weight loss program that only rich people could afford: she went to a clinic in Switzerland, I believe, and they put her to sleep for a month or more, feeding her intravenously. When she woke up, she was the skinny Judy you may remember from her final few years. I’m sure such an extreme measure is vastly unhealthy but sometimes, I still wish I could do that.

I also fantasize about going camping far out in the wilderness, away from all fast-food temptations, hiking with Scout every day, and not coming back to civilization until I’m a size 10. But temptation is everywhere.

I tried to lose weight following the recommendation of a reader but I didn’t last long. I did manage to quit drinking Coke, though, and lost about five pounds just from that, so yay. Then, I tried a friend’s method that worked for her, intermittent fasting. I’m still doing it, but apparently I’m not strict enough. The scale has stayed the same. On the other hand, the scale has stayed the same.

What I need is a way to change my brain, a way to stop wanting to overeat. So I googled self-hypnosis, but I don’t trust myself to be disciplined enough to stick with it.

Finally, I wondered if my meditation app, Insight Timer, has any guided meditations for weight loss. I’ve used a wonderful one for creativity so there must be one for compulsive eating. I opened it up and found a ten-day course of short audios by Julie Reisler called, “Hungry for More: Overcome Food Addiction”. I bought it ($4.99) and the very first session brought tears to my eyes.

I realized this was exactly what I’ve been missing.

Turns out I’ve been approaching this from the wrong end. Instead of outside-in, I need to go inside out. Reisler’s premise is that to conquer food addiction, we need to figure out what we’re hungry for—love, worthiness, security, etc.—and give that to ourselves.

I admit it—whenever I see another Facebook meme about loving ourselves or body positivity, I wonder why so many of us feel so wounded that we need these reassurances and flock to life coaches and gurus, to fix us. Then I feel superior. I don’t need no stinking gurus. I don’t need no stinking self-love. I’m just fine.

But I’m not fine

• If I were fine, I wouldn’t hate my body.
• If I were fine, I wouldn’t constantly beat myself up about my weight (and every other flaw I can come up with.)
• If I were fine, I wouldn’t procrastinate endlessly about doing the things that I actually love—things that would make me healthier and happier, like writing, yoga, making my rolling shelter a real home that gives me ease and comfort, and eating healthy (for me, that means a daily green smoothie.)

In other words, if I were fine, I would have some fucking compassion for myself.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m on the right track

Living in nature, traveling, seeing so many of the friends I’ve made in the past few years—all those things are self-love in action. But I need to do more.

I was thinking about this yesterday as I drove to Algodones, Mexico to see a dentist. (I came into a bit of money last week and had to choose: Emergency fund? High top on the van? Or fix my teeth? I almost went with the high top but then I remembered how embarrassed and ashamed I am about my teeth, so I’m loving myself with the gift of the beautiful smile I once had. An emergency fund would be more practical and a high top would make life easier, it’s true, but they can wait a little longer.)

Anyway, as I thought about loving myself in the ways I know have made me happy in the past, I wondered how I could remember to do them every day. (I do tend to get distracted, you know.) Then I remembered how I keep a short shopping or to-do list in my head with mnemonics.

I list, then rearrange, the first letters of each item until they turn into an easily recalled word. It doesn’t need to be a real word, but it needs to sound like one. These words—WRITING, HOME, and YOGA—serendipitously came out as WHY. Perfect. I can even use Simon Sinek’s thesis that we need a good why to persuade others (and also to motivate ourselves.)

But when I added the S for smoothies, it became WHYS, which was even more meaningful when sounded out: wise.

I like that

Having compassion for and taking care of myself is a very wise thing to do. So I will keep at this, not from the outside in, but from the inside out.

Watch what happens.