Post: The First

In the LDS church it is traditional that when a new member moves into the ward, the Bishopric and Relief Society Presidencies come to visit and get acquainted. I had barely settled into my new home in November 2009- a 350 square foot studio apartment located above a garage in a small country town south of Portland, Oregon- when the Bishopric of my new family ward rang and asked if they could come visit me.

The awkwardness began immediately when I pulled out my two kitchen chairs (the only other seating besides my bed was a loveseat) and positioned them facing the loveseat, and invited Bishop Milne and Brother Anderrude to have a seat.  “Where are you going to sit?” Brother A. asked.

Thinking it was quite obvious but not wanting to be rude by assuming the more comfortable loveseat for myself, I said “well, I guess wherever you’re not.”  He immediately plopped down on the loveseat and stretched out his legs. Which left me standing, staring.  Was he for real? Obviously I couldn’t sit next to him! It was a loveseat; there would be no couch cushion in between us.  Did I sit next to the Bishop then? Or move the other chair to make an awkward triangle? Bishop came to the rescue, “Ben,” he said, “sit by me.”

The awkwardness continued when they inquired my age (25 at the time) and then, inevitably, why I wasn’t choosing to attend the Young Single Adult ward.  Bishop Milne offered up the excuse “is it because you feel like it’s a meat market? We hear that a lot.” That was only one of the reasons, but yes, I told them, that was surely part of it.

Less than 10 minutes after they had said their goodbyes, I received a phone call from a Brother Hardinger, at that time the Young Single Adult rep for my ward. His introduction?  “Brother Anderude called and let me know you’re new in the ward. I just wanted to invite you out to the YSA ward… don’t worry, I’m overweight too.”

Smooth, Brethren.  Real smooth.

 ~~~~~~~~~~

Being overweight has been a part of my identity since I was very young. When I was 7, my mother re-married and I ended up with two step-siblings. My step-sister was only 6 months my junior and we were in the same grade.  I likened it to the competitiveness and desire to establish separate identities that sometimes accompanies twins, without any of the natural bonding. At one time when we were very young we weighed ourselves and I was 4 lbs heavier than she. I was teased mercilessly by my stepsiblings and even my parents got in on the act.  It seems unbelievable now, that a mere four pound difference could have induced such fat shaming. It did and within a few years that difference had widened to 40 pounds.

By the time I graduated high school I was approximately 100 pounds overweight. It bothered me enough that I was constantly thinking about losing weight and day dreaming about losing weight. But on the whole it didn’t affect my activities of daily living (aside from self-imposed social restrictions) and I didn’t suffer any major, obvious health consequences… so long as I didn’t have to run!

Over the next four years I maintained my weight with two temporary drops due to diets. Then it started creeping up… and up, and up.

With a lack of nutritional knowledge and an excess of desperation for a “quick fix” I have tried so many diets which, at the root of them, were calorie-restricting but not healthy.  They all told me how I must have animal protein.  The “vegetarian” options, when they existed, were dependent upon cottage cheese and beans and/or meat imitation products.  I came to believe that in spite of my dislike of meat, I could not be a vegetarian because of the protein requirement.  Cottage cheese and beans make me gag.

A couple of years ago I stumbled upon Dr. Fuhrman’s website and became interested in his approach because it didn’t require animal protein. However I did find the greens prescription overwhelming and had a very difficult time with the raw salads, which I do not enjoy. Shortly after finding Dr. Fuhrman, I became aware of Dr. McDougall. I kept thinking that maybe I could try his diet after I got the weight off, because *everyone knew* that eating potatoes wasn’t conducive to weight loss.

Eventually, after a great deal of frustration and dissatisfaction with my initial plan I did switch over to the McDougall forums. Through a thorough reading of The China Study I became convinced that animal protein is not necessary for the human body and that dairy is likely the worst possible “food” I could choose to consume for my health.

I am addicted to cheese.

I have struggled tremendously with long-term (or even short-term) compliance to the Whole Food, Plant Based, No-Oil way of eating. My downfall is not, and has never been a home-cooked pot roast, or breakfast sausages, or scrambled eggs. Its definitely not plan old milk, which I gave up six or seven years ago due to lactose-interolerance or even yogurt, which I used to love but haven’t had in… well, I can’t remember the last time I bought Yoplait. Its not really ice cream, even though I’d punish my digestive system for the taste, sometimes. I haven’t had it in over 6 weeks. Its not meat, which I quit eating entirely this summer (I would occasionally have a fast food cheeseburger or corn dog, or eat a turkey or BLT sandwich where I had removed all except the thinnest layer of meat because the taste/texture bothered me). No, my addictions are to fast food (even sans meat), soda and candy. In other words sugar-salt-fat and the combination thereof. Oh, and cheese, cheese being the primary component of all that fast food… along with oil. And deep-fried, processed non-foods-formerly-known-as-potatoes.

So you see its not just a matter of substituting the meat loaf for lentil loaf and increasing the vegetables… for me, it’s a matter of choosing what initially comes off as ‘meh’ or worse, ‘yuck!’, to my highly over-stimulated taste buds instead of ‘super-deliciousness-that-rocks-my-world-for-two-point-three-seconds-and-then-leaves-me-in-a-brain-fog-and-takes-more-and-more-and-more-each-time-to-get-the-same-high.’  You see the dilemma?

For me, the downfall is generally at lunchtime or mid-afternoon (I would say dinner time but frankly I don’t have an established dinner time… I tend to eat a lot mid-afternoon after work and then graze and then sleep. Yeah I know, eat a lot of very calorie dense food then sleep is pretty much a prescription for blowing up like a Sumo wrestler). I can get through a healthy breakfast. But then I want SUGAR-SALT-FAT stimulation! And even though I know this intellectually, it is not what I’m thinking about in the moment that the craving hits, or in the minutes when I’m going through the drive through or scarfing down food that I barely take the time to taste even though taste is what I’m after (and ick, have you ever tried eating fast food without soda? Wake up call: most of it is disgusting!!! Probably this should be a rule of thumb: don’t eat anything you can’t enjoy without soda).

Nine days ago I received a copy of Jane Birch’s manuscript Discovering Words of Wisdom. I read it in about 3 days, finishing last Thursday.  Today is Tuesday. While I can’t say that I had the instant, lasting, no-going-back change of heart manifested through change of diet that Jane did, I will say that her manuscript affected me, and continues to affect me as I ponder on it, profoundly. This is definitely a separate post. Look for it soon.

Today I attempted to start once again. And I was 66% successful (I think that sounds nicer than “I failed”).

Breakfast was awesome! I had a small oatmeal waffle with a fresh peach. A friend gave me some fresh peaches a couple days ago and they are INCREDIBLE! If you’ve ever bitten into a rock-hard peach, you’ll appreciate the comparative succulence of a perfectly ripe, un-bruised, sweet and juicy peach. I also had a Green Smoothie (dearest readers, I am aware that not all of the plant-based docs love Green Smoothies and that many people find they are inhibitive toward weight loss. Call it my transition plan. I love them and they help me).  Today was the first time I’d made one in ages—pretty much since I gave up on Dr. Fuhrman’s Nutritarian plan.  Instead of tofu, I used a whole baked sweet potato, which slid easily out of its skin after being refrigerated overnight. To this I added two fistfuls of frozen kale, an amount of frozen tropical fruit mix (just fruit chunks) that was just smaller than the size of the sweet potato, ½ banana and soy milk (the oil-free kind).  Friends, it may have been the greenest colored smoothie I’ve ever made, but it was also the most delicious!!!  I don’t know if it was the tropical fruit blend, which I’d never done before (previously I always did strawberry/banana) or if it was the sweet potato. Either way, yum. And… about ½ veggie, not including the liquid. So that’s good, right? Right.

I went by the clock for lunch… suddenly realizing it was 12:40 and therefore past my lunch break at work today. I noted that I wasn’t particularly hungry at the time—although I could eat! ;-)  For lunch I had reheated mashed potatoes- 2 cups- mixed with green beans-1 cup. Also a handful of red grapes.  And water. The McDougall plan doesn’t require measuring. I know the measurements because I was curious how much I had made last night when I mashed the potatoes up and measured as I divided it up.  Two cups was a lot more potatoes than I thought it was! I actually couldn’t finish it, feeling rather stuffed toward the end.

And then 2:30 rolled around and I became increasingly bored. Today was a “planning day” at the preschool where I work as a Speech-Language Pathologist and Augmentative Communication Specialist. So, no kids. We had morning meetings until 11a.m. And then I did as much paperwork as I could think of and chatted with my cubicle mate and programmed an AAC system. The problem is I’m new to the preschool-SLP part of my position and I don’t really know what I’m doing yet. So the whole planning day concept felt a little wasted (although I am sure in a few weeks I'll have a mile-long list of things I wish I'd thought to accomplish today). Anyway, by 2:30 I was watching the clock. By 3:30 the idea of getting Jimmy Johns (my latest food fixation—provolone sandwhich donchaknow) had entered my mind. At 4:03 I left work and headed over. After all, it was barely 2 miles from work instead of the 7 from home. Cool, huh? Not so much.

Here is what I can tell you that’s positive:  I noticed it didn’t taste as good or give me as much of a pleasure “rush” as the first time I was introduced to this sandwich shop a week and a half ago. I noticed this last time, too.  The pleasure is decreasing although the addiction remains and my brain still expects intense pleasure from JJ’s.

Also, I felt incredibly sleepy shortly after eating.  I fell asleep sometime around 5:45 and had set an alarm for 7 p.m. so that I could have a nap and still get up and write this blog post tonight. I never heard the alarm, even though my phone was sitting right next to me on the armrest of my chair. I awoke after 9 p.m. to kitty’s insistent yowling.

This is not the first time I’ve noticed that junk food/fast food frequently puts me into a sugar coma. This is definitely the opposite of the promise in the Word of Wisdom to be able to “run and not be weary and... walk and not faint” (emphasis added).

And now its 10:30 and I’m going to post this and go back to bed because I have to go to work early tomorrow. So I can leave early. So I can go to class. Which I missed last week. Because I was asleep. Are you seeing a pattern here?

Here are some questions I’ve been starting to think about:

• How would my adherence change if my priority was living the “dos” of the Word of Wisdom rather following a specific plant-based Doctor's plan?
• In what ways has the Word of Wisdom been a part of my life up to now?
• What does it mean that the Word of Wisdom is “adapted to the capacity of the weak and the weakest of all saints”?
• Given that the blessings of heaven are predicated upon obedience to the law, and the Word of Wisdom explicitly says that it is “given for a principle with promise”, and names the following blessings:
• Run and not be weary
• Walk and not faint
• Destroying angel shall pass by [me] and not slay [me]
• Health to [my] navel and marrow to [my] bones
• Find wisdom
• [Find] great treasures of knowledge, even hidden treasures

…given those 6 (six!) incredible promised blessings, what could they mean in my life? Are these blessings I am in need of? Do I desire them? Am I storing up treasures in heaven, i.e., these types of blessings, or am I instead succumbing to worldly things like addictions?

Food for thought…pun intended.