To change or not to change

Dec. 14, 2006

Dear Leslie,

Boxers weigh in before getting in the ring. Over the past 20 weeks, DC and I have weighed in weekly in a fight to reclaim our healthy bodies.

On our wedding day 13 years ago I was a slight 137 pounder, in boxing terms a junior welterweight. Earlier this year the bathroom scale said I weighed exactly 60 pounds more. I was a junior heavyweight only a few pounds shy of qualifying to be pummeled by Muhammad Ali.

How did that happen?

I think it happened because I wasn't paying attention.

How to undo it?

I tried veganism and immediately lost 10 pounds, but no more. I cut out foods containing flour and sugar. No change. I stopped going to my favorite restaurant because of its fried temptations. My body said "Eh." I worked out. Same "Eh."

One day at the driving range I noticed that the golf pro looked different. He'd lost weight, but more than that he looked healthier. He looked happier, too.

He and his wife were in a medically supervised program in which they consumed packets of nutritionally dense meal replacement powders instead of regular food. DC usually doesn't go for quirky experiments in diet, but the science behind this one impressed her.

Twenty people showed up the first night of our class back in August. Many had health problems caused by food choices and lack of exercise. My own numbers for good and bad cholesterol were sorry. My liver was a bit dysfunctional.

Fortunately, we had a coach, Raina. She is a dietitian whose natural humor made losing weight more fun than you'd think.

She still had to convince people used to consuming thousands of calories a meal that we could survive on 800 calories a day, the amount in five meal replacements.

Raina shocked us with numbers. For instance, a Dairy Queen Mocha Moolatte drink contains 590 calories, almost three-fourths of our daily intake of calories, but little nutrition.

She taught us about the crucial relationship between the number of calories we consume and the number we burn. I now pay attention to both.

Raina did not sugarcoat the difficulty of permanently changing our attitudes toward food and exercise, especially for those who had been overweight much of their lives. This would be a lifetime change or eventually we would go back to the way we were, she said.

The way was fraught with missteps and misgivings, booby-trapped by well-meaning friends and family members who thought were were just fine the way we were. We also were faced with one of the most provocative challenges of being alive: to change or not to change. The choice is always ours.

We learned to be patient with ourselves when we ate off the program, as everyone did at one time or another.

Some who started the class dropped out. Some had to go home and cook for family members who weren't changing their eating habits. This was hard and heroic work.

We graduated from the program last night. Raina showed our before and after pictures on a big screen. Everyone looked very different. One man had lost 70 pounds. I lost 32.

But the biggest difference was the smiles in the "after" photos. Everyone looked empowered. We knew how we'd done it and we knew how we could keep doing it.

Love, Sam

Sam Blackwell is managing editor of the Southeast Missourian