From Dolphin to Whale and Back, 8/23/09

May 2009, was pretty busy; I celebrated my first year ever without smoking, lost 45 pounds & umm, oh ya, earned a Ph.D.

In May 2008, I weighed 180 pounds, 80 more than when I re-entered college in 1996. I was desperate to lose weight!!!

But, to get from whale back to dolphin proved to be an impossible challenge, until the elliptical that I ordered arrived. In spite of my aspirational goal of 15 minutes, I was too weak to work out longer than 2, a pathetic performance indeed.

My wobbly legs and unwielding body angered me and created a will so strong I could hardly believe that it was me. Not only was I of whale-like proportions, my lungs were too compromised to exercise on my brand-new, extraordinarily expensive, elliptical. Ironically, after 59 years of smoking, and hundreds of failed attempts at quitting, I was forced to admit that I was in denial, and that these coping mechanisms, which may have been useful at one time, were no longer required. That is, I needed to surrender the irrational fantasy that my addictions were somehow equated with my creativity, and I would have to re-learn the art of working without stimulants.

By placing my weight-loss goal at the top of my to-do list, my love for both cigarettes & white wine became more than obstacles, they went straight to the top of my #%&# list.

It never occured to me in the past that I might have to "trick" my brain to re-invent the new me!

However, when Nicorette failed to do more than create a new addiction, and diet pills caused my heart to race, do flip-flops, and in general cause binge attacks, I grudgingly decided to give exercise a try, after all, if that failed, I could always start smoking again. I actually told myself that, and by prioritizing my challenges, (placing weight loss over smoking cessation) I succeeded in refusing to boo-hoo over the loss of my best friends (cigs & white wine).

Yup, that's how I tricked myself into losing 45 pounds; gaining the discipline to lengthen my work-out time to 45 minutes twice per each day (burning 500 cals each) and now have just 35 easy pounds to lose. I will never smoke again and although I'm not sure why I stopped drinking, as I thought alcoholism was extremely difficult to control, apparently my particular brand of binge drinking was tied to smoking, making the transition easier than most. I then created a delicious menu of wacky recipes to fit into my microscopic budget. More later