Joining the Thin Club

Shake Up Your Exercise

I don't know about you, but I've become a bit of an exercise nut since losing the weight. Not only is it an important element of keeping the weight off, it's really become a highlight of my day (and yes, I really do exercise every day!). It's part of my day that's just for me, where I can escape the daily grind of work and the everyday stresses of home life. Depending on the kind of exercise, I can let my mind wander or make myself focus 100% on my physical movement.

That being said, any routine gets to be a little boring after a while. If you're feeling the exercise blahs, don't let it sap your enthusiasm. Try something new.

How many of the following have you tried?

-Kickboxing

-Ballet

-Yoga and Pilates

-Distance running. Maybe a marathon is the new goal you've been searching for?

-Pole dancing. Yes, really. A lot of exercise clubs are starting to offer classes!

-Joining a softball or other sports team

-Swimming

-Ballroom dancing

-Surfing

-Belly dancing

-Skiing or snowboarding

-Hiking

-Rock climbing

Give something new a shot, and you'll find that you're back to your high-energy self in no time.

Party time

There's always a flurry of articles around the holidays citing scary statistics on holiday weight gain. But if you're like me, any party, no matter what time of year, can be a challenging food situation.  Here are a few of my best party food tips. I hope they will help you as much as they help me.

DO eat a healthy meal before going to a party, so you aren't tempted to binge on the rich and high-calorie party treats.

DON'T position yourself near the buffet table, lest you find yourself unconsciously grazing.

DO take a small plate and make good choices (crudite is good for you, but that high-fat dip isn't!). Eat slowly so you aren't tempted to immediately return for more.

DON'T make a production of your health-conscious decisions. You may make others uncomfortable if you are vocal about how bad for you most party food is!

DO think about bringing something to share. This is a trick I picked up from my vegetarian friends, who know that bringing something to a party guarantees there'll be at least one thing there they can eat! Just be sure to check with the host or hostess first, as you don't want them to feel offended.

DON'T forget to give appropriate compliments on the items you enjoy. Your remarks should be specific, but should definitely not reference your weight watching. Say, "Sarah, the salsa on the veggie plate is fantastic! Is it homemade?", not "Sarah, the salsa on the veggie plate is fantastic. Plus it was SUCH a relief that there was something there I could eat!"

DO make sure you have a drink in your hand. Club soda has gotten me through many a social occasion, when I didn't want to deal with the calories of alcoholic beverages.  (Double bonus: since most of us aren't coordinated enough to juggle both a drink and a small plate at a cocktail party, you'll eat that much less.)

DON'T drink to excess-- this is a bad idea both calorically and otherwise. It's common sense, but something too many of us are inclined to disregard when we're in a festive mood.

DO enjoy yourself and have a great time!

Other Resources (these are good year-round, not just at the holidays!):

Walking.about.com How far you must walk to burn off calories from various holiday foods.

Weightloss.about.com  Top 5 tips for avoiding holiday weight gain.

Weight Watchers tips on recovering from post-holiday gain.

Coping with Underminers

There's a very funny column that ran occasionally in The New Yorker for a couple of years called "The Underminer." The gist of the column is that the Underminer, the unnamed first-person narrator of the column, would run into a friend or an acquaintance, and over the course of their conversation would completely crush the other person's self-esteem by comparing said person's (sometimes modest) accomplishments with his or her own totally outlandish ones.

The column worked because we all know someone like that, who seeks to deliberately make us feel bad about ourselves.  (I noticed when I did an Amazon search for the Underminer book that a book called The Sociopath Next Door came up as a Related Title, but that's a discussion for another day.) 

Undermining takes a lot of forms, all of them dangerous. For me it was the friends who seemed to want me to stay fat. Most of these friends were fat themselves, and maybe in denial about it. These were friends I used to spend lots of time with. We loved going to restaurants together, watching movies (with lots of snacks!) at each other's houses, and so on. People I'd known for years. But when I started to lose the weight, and started to make permanent changes to my lifestyle, these friends seemed to take it as a personal attack on them.

How does that work, exactly? Because I was doing something, finally, about not just my weight, but my health, I was snubbing them, or making a comment about their choices?

Because we'd been friends for so long, I sincerely tried to keep the friendships going.  But while I was enjoying my new, more active lifestyle, my friends wanted our time together to be like it used to be, complete with the calorie-fests that just do not fit with my new life and my new figure. And when I would try to tell them that I couldn't go back to my old ways, they would make rude and derogatory comments. It became clear that I couldn't be thin and be their friend.

Given how incredibly unsupportive my friends turned out to be,  I decided I didn't need them in my life anymore. It was a very hard decision to make. But losing weight was without question the best thing I have ever done for myself, and anyone who can't understand or embrace that doesn't belong in my life.

Being thin inspired me in ways I'd never imagined were possible. As I started to lose weight, I began to feel not only better about my appearance, but more powerful. The sense of control over my own body made me want control over my life. Losing the weight indirectly empowered me to finally leave my abusive marriage.

You don't have to be overweight to find yourself in an abusive relationship, but I do think that the low self-esteem that often goes hand in hand with a weight problem makes it harder to find the strength to leave.

It took discipline, motivation, and courage you probably didn't think you had to lose the weight and join the Thin Club. Now that you're in, use that same courage to achieve the personal relationships you know you deserve.

They make it sound so easy

Here is an interesting article from Real Simple magazine last year called "The Secrets of Thin People."

I have mixed feelings about articles like this. On the one hand, there's some good (and possibly counterintuitive) information to be gleaned:  how many of us lifelong dieters really believe in our hearts that skipping meals is bad? 

On the other hand, the point that many thin people are just naturally, genetically thin is news to no one, and possibly disheartening to those of us who struggle with our weight. And it's all too easy to decide that since body type is to some extent genetic, some of us are naturally overweight and therefore there's nothing we can do about it.

As a Thin Club member, you've probably worked very hard to get to where you are now. And after all that hard work, it can be incredibly daunting to find that-- maybe even without realizing it-- you've put on a pound or two, or even ten. (I hope not!)  Joining the Thin Club, though, means a permanent lifestyle change. That can be a real challenge, especially at first. But it's so important to stick with it. 

I recommend treating articles like this as a "cheat sheet." What kinds of behaviors and techniques do "naturally" thin people seem to do automatically, and how can we make them part of our own, new, routines?  How can we change our old ways for the better for good?

Here's the real money quote from the article:

For the thin, feeling strong, healthy, and, yes, slim are powerful rewards — and their chief motivation to continue, as Anne Fletcher, a registered dietitian, has heard from dozens of people. “More than 90 percent of those who have mastered weight maintenance feel like they’re not dieting,” she says. “It becomes a way of life.”

That's good enough for me. How about you?