The Best Intentions

The Best Intentions
By Sue Phillips

Tomorrow I shall rise at six
and walk three miles or more
eat bran flakes laced with vitamins
drink orange juice galore
at noon I’ll dine on celery
then touch my toes for hours
deep breathing techniques I’ll perfect
while contemplating flowers
Fresh fish baked without butter sauce
shall be my supper fare
I’ll follow with a journey
on a bike that goes nowhere
Yes, tomorrow I’ll begin my plan
you must make no mistake
For now, I think I’ll celebrate
Please pass the chocolate cake

Every January, if you belong to a gym, you see the “best intentions” people. We, the people who have been going to the same gym for many years, call them the “rank amateurs.” They are the people who have made the sure-to-fail New Year’s resolution that this year is going to be different. This is the year that they are going to commit to a new year, new me! They fill the gym, bursting with gusto and determination. They grab the weight machines, fumble with the panel on the treadmills, whiz along to nowhere on the stationery bikes. They sweat as they listen to their ipods, their faces a mask of beet-red determination to stay the course. There will be no calorie unburned!

As I watch them, I feel nothing but compassion. Yes, OK, it’s a tad annoying, I admit. They’re hogging the machines. They’re grabbing my favorite lane in the pool. They’ve overtaken the only locker I can find without my glasses. But, I know, by the end of February, at the very latest, the “best intentions” folks will be gone. The gym will return to normal. Those of us who always show up day after day, year after year, even if we never truly look like the ads you see on TV, well, the dedicated few will always remain.

In Sue Phillips delicious poem, “The Best Intentions,” she sums up all of our most earnest desires to make the commitment to exercise, to eat right and to finally lose the weight. We all know where the path of good intentions leads us, don’t we?

All diets start with the best intentions. We resolve that this time, despite all of our previous failures, this time it will be different. Only, it isn’t different, is it? Within a matter of months, or weeks or days, we fall off the wagon. It might be that bag of chips that was hidden in the cupboard and just seems so right after a miserable day at work, or too many hassles with naughty children. It could very well be that piece of chocolate cake, well, just one slice to soothe ourselves. If we’re honest, we know we can’t eat just one slice. It turns into two, or more, or eventually the whole cake, but who’s counting? Before we know it, all of our resolve, all of our best intentions fade into oblivion. We’re back to overeating, ignoring our food choices, forgetting that walk before work or the gym membership.

By this point you may be asking yourself why some people can lose the weight and keep it off and other people cannot, despite their best intentions? Ms. Phillips makes it clear in her poem. An intention is only that. It is not follow-through. It is not focused. It is more about that imagined, thinner, healthier, better self. It has nothing whatsoever to do with reality.

Diets are my favorite recipe for disaster. As I tell my clients, “Diet is a 4-letter word.” We never use the D-word because it describes failure, misery, weight gain instead of weight loss, self-denial and an utter lack of reality. Diets only benefit the multi-billion dollar diet industry. Diets make other people’s wallets fat. They will not help you to lose weight and keep it off. If diets actually worked, new diet books would not sell. Diet groups would have no new members to enroll, specially-prepared and expensive portion-controlled meals would not be delivered to your door.

Well, if diets are a recipe for failure, what works? I’ve already given you the first 2 steps in my program. First, you must begin to exercise and stick to that exercise. Your program needs to be realistic. For example, can you park your car farther away from your office? Can you take the stairs instead of the elevator? Can you challenge your children to shoot some hoops, or take a brisk walk with the family dog? Can you incorporate exercise into your daily routine? And, yes, housework counts as exercise.

Step 2 of my program involves some form of weight training to build more muscle mass. The more lean muscle you have, the more efficiently you will burn calories. Yes, muscle weighs more than fat, but it’s the secret weapon of weight loss.

Step 3, which I will discuss in my next post, is all about habits. Yes, habits. The good news is that unhealthy habits can be changed into healthy habits. But, that takes time, and it takes work. Our brains control whether we eat, or not. Our brains control what we choose to eat. Those well-worn pathways in our minds that tell us to grab that chocolate cake because we’re happy or sad, angry or elated, frustrated or bored, these are the powerful and overwhelming emotions that trigger overeating. We get into the habit of comforting ourselves with food. We seek emotional gratification through eating. It’s a short-cut to feeling better, which, in the end, always leads to feeling worse. In my next post, I will be discussing how to break the unhealthy habits that trigger overeating.

Take the time to either think about or write out a journal entry on your “Best Intentions.” Losing weight is about learning new habits and substituting those good habits for the bad habits of the past. Losing weight is about living in the real world of temptation. Losing weight is about self-acceptance and self-nurture. We do not lose weight when we feel deprived, which is the essence of all diets. We lose weight only when we feel self-fulfilled.

Sue Phillips, who resides in Massachusetts, is an award-winning poet, graphic art designer, and budding fly-fisherwoman. Ms. Phillips academic posters will be featured in an upcoming episode of House starring Hugh Laurie. The episode will be shown on September 21, 2009. Check your local time and listings.