Laura's Diet History

(Written in June 2002)

The first time I thought about dieting, I was 11. In retrospect, I realize that I was beginning my pubescent growth spurt. Although I was never a tiny child, I was not overweight, although I may have felt large in relation to my peers. During adolescence, I was probably a few pounds overweight, although not as nearly so much as I thought. At 5' 71/2", I was in the 140-150 range. Each attempt at weight loss, of course, caused by weight to go higher.

Attempts at weight management over the years has included the following:

- Behavior modification (as a subject in psychology research)
- Weight Watchers (twice)
- 1200 calorie Diabetic Exchange diet (MD supervision)
- Reading books on "emotional causes of overweight"
- Psychotherapy (twice)
- Focus on healthy eating - included 11 years of a vegetarian diet emphasizing whole grains and legumes, and short bouts with variations such as a vegan diet. Mostly, it involved variations of low fat/high carb diets
- Various "conscious eating" approaches, often in conjunction with the above. Included Geneen Roth's "Breaking Free from Compulsive Eating" workshops, and the "Thin Within" Seminar. I also facilitated a support group which spun off from "Thin Within" for 2.5 years.
- Overeater's Anonymous
- Very Low Fat diet approaches, including the "Entemann's Diet", when low fat snack foods were starting to appear on the scene, and healthier versions emphasizing whole grains
- Fat Acceptance, often in conjunction with "healthy eating" approaches. I went in and out of this. Reading obesity research usually sent me running back to this.
- Zone diet - this was the most successful for me, as far as how I felt while losing weight (much more on this later) and how I felt physically
- Gluten-free diet - while on the Zone a doctor friend helped me realize that some of my symptom relief could be due to gluten intolerance - this turned out to be true. At that point, I stopped doing a controlled-carb diet, and devoted my energy to learning how to cook and live gluten-free. I didn't feel I could deal with doing both at that time. And over time I gained all 40 lbs back plus an additional 6.
- Tried several times to go back on the Zone, but wasn't getting the results I got the first time (now I realize that my body had changed, perhaps due to approaching menopause, and I couldn't tolerate as many carbs as before).
-And now, trying to pull it all together, using Health Journaling as a guide.

Doncha love the assumption that fat people are lazy??

Observations: I tended to feel obsessed and constantly hungry on low-calorie diets, and regain is rapid once I let go of iron-will control, which became more and more difficult to maintain. Almost always, I ended up at a higher weight than before I started to diet. Pure "conscious eating" approaches got sabotaged - I still seemed to have "urges to eat" that were not hunger-related. This all went away when I went on the Zone diet the first time - but the cravings didn't seem to be totally relieved on subsequent tries.

The miracle of eating fewer carbs for me is that what I thought was compulsive eating vanishes. So, whatever I end up with, I know there will be fewer carbs in it than the Standard American Diet or the Food Pyramid. Of course, I always continue on a gluten-free diet. The rest - we shall see!

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