By Brian M. Rafferty
I am ridiculously overweight. I have been for most of my life. But I am changing that for good. For the last five months I have been a member of Weight Watchers, and I have lost 10 percent of my entire body weight, putting me well on my way to my goal weight.
It may take two or three years for me to accomplish my goal, but I know that when I get there, I will never go back. I have changed the way that I eat and the way I think about food. I have also changed my image of myself to be more in line with what I really look like.
This has not been easy. I have struggled with my weight for 24 of my 32 years. It all began when I was in third grade. My brother was no longer walking home from school with me, and I would stop in to Cookie Express on 37th Avenue and 77th Street. I grew up in a house with three older brothers. We were on public assistance for a while, so snacks were doled out very carefully. Everything was measured evenly, and every portion was small.
So when money loosened up a bit and I realized that I could spend my allowance on marble cookies, I started sneaking them home with me. I would eat them either on the way home or under the covers when I went to bed. That is when I started gaining weight.
By my junior year in high school I was a 5-foot-10, 255-pound 16-year-old. After an emergency appendectomy in June and 10 days of intensive care recovery, I was released from the hospital at 205 pounds. Within three weeks I was back up to 240. That was when I went on my first diet.
The Rice Diet
The concept is simple—eat plain white rice or shredded wheat for breakfast lunch and dinner. Add in fruits and vegetables, at least two servings with every meal. My doctor modified it, and told me to eat a can of tuna and drink a quart of whole milk every day.
By the time the next school year began in September, I was down to 189, 17 years old, and I had also grown to an even 6 feet. To put in bluntly, I was in good shape.
But I returned to my old eating habits after dropping the rice diet. For the next four years my weight would fluctuate between 185 and 210. By the time I turned 22, I said good-bye to the 100’s for good. As I finished college and went on to work an internship in Albany, my weight went from about 210 to 230 in six months.
By the time I got married, four years later, I was up to 260. I stayed there for a few years, and decided, again, that I had to do something about it.
The Atkins Diet
This is one of the most popular diets in the world because it works—if you are diligent. The idea is to not eat any carbohydrates at all for two weeks. No bread, sugar, carrots, rice, potatoes, apples or anything that contains natural sugars or carbohydrates.
The good news is that you can have butter, heavy cream, red meat, natural ice cream and other food that is supposed to be bad for you.
During the first two weeks, you send your body into ketosis. When your body doesn’t get carbohydrates, your muscles start producing enzymes—ketones—that aid in burning fat. After two weeks, you can introduce a small amount of carbohydrates into your system. This diet was developed for diabetics as a way of regulating blood sugar without insulin. Ketones attack the fat you eat, and then attack your body fat.
The catch is, if your caloric intake shifts to consist of more than 5 or 10 percent carbohydrates, your body will immediately stop making ketones, and all the fat in your diet will work against you.
My wife and I both started this diet in 1999, and within three weeks I had dropped from 275 pounds to just over 250. My wife lost only about 10 pounds, and couldn’t understand why. It turned out that she was nearly three months pregnant (we had no idea), and was ordered to immediately start eating carbohydrates. They filled her up on cookies and fruit juice before she was allowed to leave the doctor’s office. Ketosis and pregnancy do not mix.
Without the support from my wife in what we were eating, I started eating carbs again, and my weight went right back up. By the time my daughter was born six months later.
I lived with it for more than two years. But then I had a vision of the future. At age 32, with a 2-year-old daughter, I envisioned her wedding day. It was beautiful. She was beautiful. My wife was beautiful.
But I wasn’t there.
I didn’t live to age 50.
I started to cry. I wondered what sort of example I was setting for my daughter. I looked back to the eating habits I developed as an 8-year-old. I thought of all that I had been through in the last 24 years trying to manage my weight.
The truth is, I had no idea how to eat well. I needed to learn so that I could teach my daughter. I needed to learn so that she could see my example. Both of my parents are overweight, and I worry a great deal about them. I decided that the chain of obesity that exists in my family has to end with me. If I can’t control it, what sort of life will my daughter have? Who will she turn to for fatherly advice if her father isn’t around to give it?
In January I joined Weight Watchers.
Weight Watchers
People have told me that they don’t understand how I can count points for every meal I eat, and measure everything out. “Isn’t that a pain,” they ask. But now I know what I’m eating. Now I am in control of it.
With Weight Watchers, I can eat almost anything I want. Everything has a point value, and I am allowed up to 32 points a day. The more weight I lose, the more that point total will drop. A slice of pizza is 7 points, 4 oz. of orange juice is 2 points, turkey meatloaf is only 3 points a slice. Most fruits and vegetables are 0 or 1 point per serving.
I just have to be sure to keep an eye on my portion sizes, and make wise choices. A cup of regular Häagen-Dazs vanilla ice cream is worth 8 points while a cup of Breyer’s light vanilla is only 2 points. Naturally, I have developed a taste for the Breyer’s light. I just have to be sure to eat my fruits and vegetables before I can enjoy a point-laden treat.
So where am I now. In January I weighed in at 288.2 pounds. This past Sunday I was 260. My goal is to lose 100 pounds, and I am already 28 percent of the way there.
The good news is that it is going to keep getting easier. At my weekly meetings I am learning more about how to eat and why bad habits exist. I am getting the training I have so sorely lacked all my life. My group leader, Marianne, has been an inspiration. She lost more than 100 pounds over the course of three years, and has kept it off for more than 10 years.
And best of all, I will teach my daughter all I learn. She will turn 3 in September, and I will weigh less. By the time she turns 4, I should be very close to my goal. And by the time she gets married, I will be the sharp looking guy in the tux walking her down the aisle.
