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January 2, 2006

But Save Ourselves When All Portents Point to Fail

I am a huge fan of a show on my local NPR station, WHYY, called "Voices in the Family." The host is Dan Gottilieb, a local psychologist (or is he a psychiatrist? I really should know...) and while my best friend and I have been known to kill an entire lunch hour making fun of his views on what makes a person emotionally "healthy," I really enjoy the show. He often has insightful guests, and he has one of those soothing radio voices that even my giant howling tabby cat finds restful.

Today, appropriate for New Year's, his show was on how and why and if people change. His guest talked about people she sees in her psychology private practice who want to change, and they surveyed psychologists and psychiatrists about whether or not they thought change was really possible.

Their prognotstications, I'd have to say, were rather dim. They were very negative about the potential for real change, and a considerable portion of the show was dedicated to blaming the urge to change, the feeling that we are imperfect as we currently are, for the discomfort felt by so many people in our society.

"Hmmmm..." thought I. Anyone who has lived with me can attest to the fact that I frequently think, "Hmmmm..." This is a giant step up from my cats, who frequently think, and articulate, "MEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!" This is tons of fun at two am, I assure you.

Real change, lasting change, is hard. I have meditated a great deal upon the fact that most of the successful CR practitioners I know came to CR through a crisis of some sort. For the president of the CR Society, Brian Delaney, author of The Longevity Diet, it was a crisis around severe food poisoning that made him contemplate his own mortality. For another long term CR practitioner I know well, it was a health crisis brought on by malnutrition that he misdiagnosed at the time as aging.

For me, it was an intersection of crises. At 29 I weighed more than I ever had in my life. You've heard the stories: feeling winded upon climbing the two flights of stairs to my office; seeing dark circles under my eyes for the first time; trading in my size fours for size eights. It was also a spiritual crisis: realizing that for ten years, my entire adult life since graduating from college, I had put my work as a union organizer so far ahead of any other aspect of my life that I had neglected my health in order to care for the caregivers, the nurses I organize.

Real, lasting change takes commitment. And a genuine knowledge that the alternatives are much, much worse. I knew that it would be worse to gain weight and feel terrible than it would be to turn down the nachos at the Mexican restaurant. There is nothing more powerful than a firm decision.

Our culture stigmatizes self-discipline. The inner power to resist a "treat" is considered odd, un-American, even pathological. And yet, why should we eat things that don't nourish our bodies? I often do so in order to fit seamlessly into social situations... I am such a Southerner and such a girl that I fear offending my hosts more than I fear a gruesome death of aging. Yet I admire my Orange One, who eats exactly what he thinks he should, no matter what. Erica Jong once wrote that we are attracted to men because we want to be like them, and this is certainly the case for me and my Orange... I seek to imitate many of his qualities, from his legendary self-discipline to the orange color of his skin. Who wouldn't want to be a highly self-disciplined carrot? I ask you.

These waters are hard to navigate: the needs of family and friends, the constraints of budget, the time pressure that we all face as we try to get through the day, make a living, and provide for our families. I put on my make up at traffic lights and say my prayers in the shower. And I don't even have kids... I don't know how you moms do it! If I wore a hat, it would be off to you. These choices aren't easy, and one of my main purposes in writing the blog is to provide you with options, short cuts, and just plain clever ideas to solve your "I have to have a healthy dinner on the table in five minutes" problems. I hope it's working. Nothing makes me happier than seeing my readers take control and get healthy. One of my readers has lost twenty pounds since January, and you can bet I'm thrilled. We're all in this together... and isn't it time that we women helped each other?

It was almost two years ago now that I began the process of saving myself, and it has been riddled with mistakes, disasters, some comical, some just sad. I am so far from perfect that I often despair of being even passable. But I remind myself that I am on the right track, I am trying, I am not content to live with the ill-health and destruction of my vitality that an ad lib diet would cause. I have a choice, and I make it every day. The most effective method I've ever found of making change is to make a firm decision and stick to it. Every day, I decide how many calories I will eat, in what form, and I stick to it. This month, I'm eating no more than 1300 a day. There is no "if" once a decision is made... as Yoda so memorably said, "Do or do not do: there is no 'try.'"

I believe that human beings are capable of change. My work as a union organizer is predicated upon the belief that people can claim the power that is theirs as workers and make positive changes for themselves and their families and those they serve. As a CR practitioner, I believe that I have control over what I put into my body, and that through my eating and lifestyle I can exercise some control over my aging process. And as a member of the Mprize Three Hundred, I believe that my small but steady contribution, when combined with the small and steady contributions of many like-minded people, will eventually provide the inspiration that scientists and those who fund them need to study the real causes and cures of aging.

I've dealt with a lot of what I can only call "survivor's guilt" as I have gone about the process of taking control of my life and health. Contemplating a world in which my friends who refuse to take such steps will no longer be alive is hard. I am constantly, abidingly grateful for the presence of my Orange One in my life -- a fellow-traveller to the coming age -- and more importantly, someone who enjoys my cooking! But I am saddened by the plight of those who still struggle with the demons of addiction: to cigarettes, alcohol, overeating, etc. I've always thought that we're all addicted to something, but better to have it be cruciferous vegetables and coffee and some plant that will slowly kill you like tobacco.

Like the widow in Suzanne Vega's "Widow's Walk," I saved myself when all portents pointed to fail. I had to make a decision: and in doing so, I quoted a Tracy Chapman song that influenced so much of my young life:

Leave tonight or live and die this way.

There comes a point when you have to make a choice. You can be a prisoner of your appetites, the needs of others, and convenience. Or you can fight your way free. It's not simple, it's time-consuming and hard and you might be hungry or frustrated or feel weird when everyone else is behaving differently. But really... how do you want to feel in twenty years? I decided that I could not go on the way I was, so I changed. The inspiration of a strange orange Canadian man's writing carried me forward as I changed my life and gained a level of health I had never known. Eventually, I lost forty pounds, took the boy home, and learned how to make an excellent eggwhite frittatta. This is my fairy tale; yours will be different.

But don't stop believing in your own fairy tale. It's New Year's -- let's indulge the part of ourselves that believes in change! If I can do it anyone can. Let 2006 be the year when you become the person you know you really are... wouldn't that be fun?

I prefer to live in a universe filled with possibilities. If it weren't for believing in possibilities, I would never have pursued my Orange One, would never have changed my diet in hopes of slowing my own aging process, and would never have bothered putting my giant cat on a calorie-restricted feeding plan. Change takes a leap of faith, but really, what else are you going to do?

I'm off to make something with brussels sprouts... go eat something cruciferous, would you?

Posted by april at January 2, 2006 3:07 PM

Comments

Posted by: zeynep at January 2, 2006 9:43 PM

Posted by: Gregg M. at January 3, 2006 10:37 AM

Posted by: zeynep at January 5, 2006 7:35 PM

Posted by: zeynep at January 5, 2006 7:36 PM

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