The Longest Journey Begins with One Small Step

by Pamelagrace Beatty

I decided to do something about the pound or two that I gained from being so inactive this past year. Although I did incorporate two zoom cardio dance classes in my week, I still am not as slim as I was before this enforced timeout gift. My doctor said I should try a Mediterranean diet. I asked, “What is that?” He answered, “Google it.” He’s a very young doctor so of course he would tell me to Google it!  So, I did. I didn’t like it. But I asked myself, “OK, what can I take from this because, clearly, in spite of my exercising I am not losing weight, and I would like to get back down to that other dress size.”  So, here’s what I did: I looked at the principle behind the Mediterranean diet, which was the same principle that’s behind every diet I’ve ever heard of, which stresses fewer carbohydrates, no sugar, less red meat…basically.

What I’ve learned from trying other diets in the past is that the minute I say ‘diet,’ my mind goes into brain freeze. My life suddenly feels totally deprived. I can no longer eat all of the stuff I love, which of course is all of the wrong stuff. However now that I am older and wiser, I have learned not to go from one end of the spectrum to another. In other words, I don’t just jump directly into the diet and make that all I do, because what it does is it sets up a longing for everything that’s not on my diet. All I think about is the foods I can’t eat.  All I want is chocolate, cheese burgers with fries, pizza, peach cobbler, and ice cream.  I torture myself trying to resist these cravings. So, ‘dieting’ doesn’t work for me. I finally give in and eat whatever I’m dying for, and feel so much better – and fatter. Mission Unaccomplished.

What I am finding works much better is to gradually shift my eating habits.  Go ahead and have a cupcake, but only quarterly (Yes, I can do that – keep it to every three months!).  I have added more vegetables, in my case at least a salad once a day. I know that doesn’t sound like much of a change but for a carbs and meat enthusiast, it is. And I took the sugar out of my coffee and tea, except when I feel I just have to have some in there. Oops, at this writing, I have put the sugar back in.  Decided to eat cupcakes every six months instead, to make up for it. I’ve read that being healthy isn’t so much a product of going on a diet, but more of a lifestyle change so that it becomes permanent. Needless to say, when I’ve dieted in the past I have gone right back to my bad habits.

In the process of adding more fish to my meals, which is something the Mediterranean diet recommends, I went to my favorite app, Tasty. I have not cooked fish often and don’t know much about how to cook it. I do know that simmering fish with no seasoning – as one friend of mine was fond of doing, was boring as heck. I would just as soon gain weight. But my trusty tasty app had a recipe for fish tacos. I have never eaten fish tacos but I’ve seen people eat them, and they seem to enjoy them, so I thought “Hey let’s give it a try!” I had tortillas already and some of the other ingredients the recipe listed. All I had to do was find tilapia (what is that?) and red cabbage (cabbage?). Those ingredients were not on hand.  Off I went to QFC to find tilapia. They had none. I went to Safeway. They had it, but it was frozen. I got it anyway. I followed the instructions on the app, and they recommended various spices to flavor the fish. The app recipe said to sauté the fish and then pull it apart with a fork, and put it into the tortilla with shredded cabbage mixed with sour cream, and some other stuff. Then top the taco with fresh cilantro and squirt lime juice on it. OMG, it was delicious! And since I had so much cabbage, onions, cilantro and tortillas left over I pulled some frozen breaded fish out of the freezer and used that in place of the tilapia that I had used up the first night I made the tacos, and had it all for dinner the second night. It was just as good except that the fish which had a batter on it was easily identified in my mouth. I liked that. I found no other use for shredded cabbage in sour cream. I recommend only shredding a cup of the cabbage.

I am now finding that rolling fish into my diet is easier than I thought it would be. Too bad I didn’t discover the Tasty app 20 years ago! Oh, it wasn’t around 20 years ago… I’m finding that making this change in my diet is fun and I feel less like I am depriving myself when I ease into it, versus dropping into the middle of it. I have stopped buying my favorite cupcakes for the most part. If I really have to have one, I’ll buy them. They come in a six-pack. They are gourmet vanilla bean cupcakes. I love them. I don’t buy them very often and I never eat all six! There are some changes that one has to make cold turkey immediately; end of story; no easing into it. However, for things like changing your diet, if you’re a person where dieting has failed in the past, making a gradual shift might help you be more successful.

This idea can be applied to anything you’re trying to modify. If you want to bring something new into your life, or you want to have better relationships, or you want to be more creative, or you need to look for a job, being patient with yourself and gradually making changes in your life can help get you there. It also helps to be kind to yourself when you miss a step and succumb to buying that favorite, fattening food or take the guy/girl back, etc. So, you fell off the wagon.  Just get back on it again.

And finally, there are some who spend a lot of time examining why they eat what they eat.  They try to identify what “triggers” them. They ask themselves, “Why, or why can I not stop myself from eating the wrong foods?” I’ve done that.  It did help to understand that sometimes I eat certain foods because I am upset, and these foods comfort me.  They remind me of a brighter time in my life.  I give myself permission to do a little of that. In the long run I have found that when it comes to eating the stuff that isn’t good for me (or doing the stuff that isn’t good for me) the best advice I know came from Dick Van Dyke who played a psychiatrist on the Mary Tyler Moore show back in the dark ages of television.  When a client was complaining to him about how he kept doing something he shouldn’t do, and asked the Doc what to do about it, Van Dyke said, “Just stop it!”

I think I made my point, and I’m done here.