For Weight Loss There Is Always Hope
Feb 29, 2008 
Lisa Delaney, a former fat girl, was 70 pounds overweight with a spluttering career and a non-existent love life when an epiphany involving a half-gallon of mint chocolate chip ice cream made her vow to change it all-- for good. That was 20 years ago. Today she is a successful writer and editor at Health magazine and the author of Secrets of a Former Fat Girl. Lisa has also held positions at Cooking Light and Prevention magazines, and has added to Vogue, Men's Health, Men's Journal, and Reader's Digest.
There’s been a lot of talk about hope lately: new hope, false hope, hope backlash, hope-aholism. I have no idea whether a surplus of hope can change the direction of our nation, as a certain presidential candidate suggests. But I do believe that hope, and its cousin, confidence, is the answer to what is arguably our nation’s number-one health problem: the obesity crisis.
I am not a researcher, a health “expert” with a ton of academic credentials. What I have is a “ton” (pardon the pun) of personal experience on this subject. See, I am a Former Fat Girl. I am the girl who used to eat till it hurt, who smuggled Oreos up my sleeve to devour them in secret, who asked to be awoken in the middle of the night to eat the spoils of my college suite-mate’s midnight shift at McDonalds.
And I am the girl who finally lost the excess 70 pounds I was carrying on my 5’4” frame, and has kept it off for 20 years now. It wasn’t a magic diet or a perfect fitness routine or a little white pill that made the difference. It was a heavy dose of YES, I CAN.
I had tried everything (short of surgery and amphetamines) to shed the weight. But it was only when I started believing that I was someone who could be successful at weight loss that I saw any real results on the scale. Part of the key for me was to focus only on exercising at the beginning. I was not an active type at all—my favorite sport, aside from eating and baking, was reading. But as I developed this exercise habit, first through a twice-weekly Jazzercise class and then through running on a quarter-mile track, I started to believe that maybe, just maybe, I could.
Looking back, I realize now that dieting is all about NO. No, I can’t have a burger and fries. Chocolate cake? Not on the menu. All-you-can-eat pizza? Fuggedaboutit. What a negative way to live! Yet the first thing we do when we vow to lose weight is clean out our pantries, cross favorite foods off our grocery lists, deny our appetites. We think exercise is so hard. But what is really hard is saying no to foods we have grown to love for many different reasons. Food isn’t just a vehicle for carrying calories and other nutrients--it’s about memories, about giving and receiving love, it’s about basic pleasure. Who wants a life without these things?
The confidence I built through exercise gave me the strength to eventually tackle my diet. To see that I could find pleasure in healthful foods. To see that overeating wasn’t really a form of indulgence; it was a form of abuse. To see that sometimes, I used food not for pleasure but for punishment. And to finally do something about it.
The obesity crisis is a crisis of confidence. Every time we hear about a new study that shows that diets don’t work, a voice in our head says: You can’t do it. Every time we see a Kirstie Alley gain it back, despite the hundreds of thousands of dollars (maybe more) she stands to lose and the hundreds of thousands of watchful fans (maybe more) she stands to disappoint, we hear: It is not possible.
Well, I say: Yes, you can. It is possible. Since “coming out” as a Former Fat Girl, I have met and heard from many women who have lived journeys parallel to mine. Who know that it’s not as simple as lists of good foods and bad foods. Who know that permanent transformation, the transformation we all seek, starts on the inside.
So, the latest man from hope* may have something. Our beliefs can hold us back or move us forward. Every day, really every moment, I have to choose between the two, even now after 20 years of living lighter. And more often than not, I manage to push down my doubts and inch my way along. You’re welcome to join me.
* Explanation for my obscure play-on-words: Hope, Arkansas, is Bill Clinton’s hometown.
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