Diets I have won and lost...or how to lose and gain in life

This morning I woke up with a new resolve to begin a small portion healthy eating plan so I can lose the weight I gained over the last month or so. The combination of not enough work, too much time at home, winter SAD, builders, upheaval, the arrival of my new food mixer and the rest of my family being home for days on end, has been too much for my emotions and willpower to resist.

My morning resolve lasted long enough for me to cut a slice of the new stollen recipe I baked the other day (why?????), butter it and sit down to read the Sunday papers while I ate. The first article I read was the one about the non-existence of the G-spot.  Do you know what this means? All this time spent looking for the damn illusive thing has been completely wasted.  All those orgasms, for what? a total waste of time. Having finished the stollen I spent a few minutes feeling disappointed that the game of 'hunt the g-spot' will no longer be on the agenda and disappointed that my morning resolve to eat less and eat healthy lasted all of about 30 minutes of time awake,  before I went to make the rest of my breakfast.

Then it really hit me. I am tired of beating myself up for having a bad eating day, for wanting to eat the 'wrong' things and for failing at the diet game. I seem to have been on diets forever, or for at least over 40 years. If I calculate the amount of weight I have lost it would add up to about a small crowd of people.  If I calculate the amount of weight I have gained over the last 40 years it would amount to a larger crowd of people.  I think I am carrying some sort of phantom guilt for losing these people, and then gaining them, but never really having much of a relationship with the pounds lost or gained. Just as I wondered yesterday about what happened to the infants my adult kids had grown into, I guess I also wonder about the thin Cynthia, the thinner Cynthia, the ok weight Cynthia, the slightly overweight Cynthia and finally the really gone to seed, fat Cynthia.  All of these aliases are me.  ALL OF THEM!  Where are they and why do I reject so many of them?  Boy, that is somehow hard to acknowledge.  I really have a hard time relating to the fat me and even I know that the fat me is never really fat, as some would judge it, but just pleasantly overweight.

Who can I blame?  This is surely the perpetual Jewish mantra.

The media?  Well yes, the general view is that women should be a certain size, a certain weight, even height is idealised in magazines and movies. It would be very convenient if we could just airbrush and photoshop ourselves - leave the house in the morning and press the right buttons and bang, you're taller, thinner, face-lifted, botoxed (unless you're attending a funeral and then it would be better to be able to frown and look sad) and ready to face the world.  For me I would have to add the ability to wobble along on high heels whilst wearing designer clothing. Even then, only the celebrity world and the rich would be able to afford the photoshop updates, so they could keep up with the latest trends.

I consider myself an educated and intelligent woman and yet, I read Hello magazine (at the dentist) and comment on who is wearing what and how thin or fat celebrities have become. I fall into the same trap as everyone else though I do manage to take a step back and remember that I am 60 years old, 5'5" tall and have brown hair (with the help of my Clairol friend) and a sallow complexion.  I will NEVER be Elle MacPherson, I will never be 5'9" tall, wear a size 8 and have blue eyes and blond hair. I am ethnically and genetically programmed to eat potato kugel and bake great cakes.  Stop comparing is the big message. Funny how I never compare myself to people like Venus Williams or Kelly Holmes. I know that I will never win at Wimbledon or get Olympic medals for running and I never expect to, but somewhere deep down I guess I still believe that if I lose enough weight, buy the right clothes and wear the right designer gear, I will, by magic, become a 25 year old tall blond model.  I think I have a better chance at finding the G-Spot!

Can I blame my parents?  Yes, for sure. The hard-wired grooves in my genetic memory tell me never to go hungry, always to store up a little bit extra, just in case.  This may be true, but it does not mean that this is the way I need to live.  I have spent years learning not to look over my shoulder, or jump at the unexpected knock at the door.  It is also time for me to accept that I get to choose what I eat, what I do and how I am in the world, not my history.  I have spent years in therapy and a great deal of money to learn to live without fear, maybe now I can learn to live without fear of fat.

Can I blame the process of dieting itself? I think so. These are just some of diets I have tried::

1. The Atkins Diet - first time round in 1968 when I ate so much protein I think I smelled like rotting meat.
2. The Cabbage Diet - the smell of that was also revolting.
3. The Beverly Hills Diet - this involved eating so much pineapple my gums started to rot.
4. The Raw Food diet - tough in winter.
5. The Grapefruit diet - huh??
6. Macrobiotic diet - the food took so long to prepare that I lost the will to live, never mind, the will to eat.
7. Slimfast diet - drinking powdered milkshakes instead of meals  - yeah, sure...
8. Weightwatchers Diet - at least I could feel superior to some of the people at the weekly weigh-ins.
9. Detox diets too numerous to mention - involving a lot of toilet time.
10. The F Plan diet - fart, fart, fart and then re-gain weight.
11. Fat Flush diet - can hardly remember that one - it probably didn't make a memorable dent.
12. The New Atkins Diet - more meat, fat and bacon.
13. Glycemic Index diet - I could never remember what I could or couldn't eat.
14. South Beach Diet - almost ok, but too little cheesecake!
15. Master Cleanse diet - drink clay, eat pills, feel totally sick.
16. Paul McKenna's I can make you thin plan - yes, but for how long?
17. The Yom Kippur Diet - this one involves total fasting and I was never religious enough to do this. 

I googled diets and found at least another 270 diets and weight loss 'systems' so I have years of losing and gaining weight in front of me, or behind me, since that's where I carry most of the weight I try and lose. My eye was caught by the Chocolate Diet, but I'm sure you can only eat a square of it a day and unless the square is at least 12" by12" it would never work for me.

ENOUGH!!

I am beautiful. I am talented and funny and just fine the way I am. There is no blame involved. There is responsibility.  Maybe this is the only New Year's resolution I need to make.  I am me, take it or leave it - this is the woman I have grown into and food is something I want to just enjoy, not agonise over. I get to make responsible choices and be contented with them. I think the other solution for me is to move to Tonga.