Battle of the bulge: Grin and bear it or try spiritual path
New guidelines from the powers-that-be in D.C. admonish us, as a nation, to watch our ever-expanding waistlines. Eat your greens. Avoid sweets. And exercise at least an hour a day to keep those pounds off.
Unfortunately, with all the technological advances that now make it possible to work 24/7, most us don't have time to sleep, much less exercise. Is it any wonder many of us opt for a quick-fix cure?
Dieting is, at least in theory, simpler than changing an already pressured lifestyle. There are plenty of options; from Weight Watchers to Atkins, from South Beach to the Pritikin Plan. Some work. At least in the short term. I've tried a few myself, so it was with trepidation that I opened Mireille Guiliano's "French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure." I was pleasantly surprised to find that Guiliano, who is the CEO of Clicquot, Inc. (yes, the champagne company, can anyone say "product placement"?) is delivering a commonsense message.
As an exchange student in Massachusetts many years ago, Guiliano adapted to our native customs a little too well, packing on the pounds. Her father's comment on her arrival home fell far short of the diplomatic. He compared her new "Americanized" figure to "a sack of potatoes." Could a weight-loss program be in the cards? Our author visited a Dr. Meyer, who she insists on calling "Dr. Miracle," a slightly affected nickname. "Be master of both your willpower and your pleasures," he tells her. Meyer insists she keep a food diary, then has her ingest leek soup three times a day, for several days to jump-start her diet. Following his advice to a T, Guiliano sheds the unwanted pounds, and makes sensible eating into a lifelong habit.
This book is filled with simple recipes, from homemade yogurt to baguettes. Guiliano offers tips on how to shop, choose natural rather than processed foods, and fresh fruit in season, rather than canned and sweetened. The book encourages its readers to change their eating and living habits in minimal ways, touting moderate exercise such as walking and climbing stairs whenever possible. If you follow her regimen you're allowed good food, alcohol, even chocolate. Now here's a diet I can get behind.
Of course, many of us can never hope for svelte and elegant. We're lucky if we fit into our old size 14 clothes from last summer.
Meanwhile the standards for beauty in this country seem to shrink by the second. Wendy Shanker writes about weight in her aptly titled "The Fat Girl's Guide to Life." But don't mistake this for a 10-step self-help program. Shanker's mad, and she's not going to take it anymore. Whom does she blame? The diet industry for starters. According to Shanker, "There's a Big, Fat, Matrix-size conspiracy behind making Fat Girls into Skinny Chicks. I don't think I'm being overly paranoid when I say there are an awful lot of people who make an awful lot of money trying to make you thin." She's also got a beef with diet purveyors, advertisers, pharmaceutical companies, fat farms, fat doctors, insensitive parents, insensitive friends, stunningly insensitive strangers.
There are many things to like in this book. The writing is witty, the arguments cogent, and Shanker presents a winning persona. Her message is empowering: "Fat Girl, it's time to come out of the closet," she admonishes. "Stop hiding. Stop sucking it in. Stop dieting at work and gorging at home." Unfortunately, what this books lacks is cohesiveness. By the time I finished reading, I wasn't sure what the major points were -- there were way too many of them, and some seemed contradictory. The book, for all its many strengths, ends up sounding more like a rant than a well thought-out argument.
These two books seem to offer contradictory messages, yet both encourage forms of self-acceptance and self-empowerment. For some, it may come with subtle lifestyle changes, others may simply learn to love looking in the mirror. But what of those who find contentment the old-fashioned way, I wondered.
What could be more old-fashioned than the Tao? Twenty-five-hundred years and counting. William Martin's "A Path and a Practice: Using Lao-tzu's Tao Te Ching as a Guide to an Awakened Spiritual Life" offers his new translation, with guided interpretations. "Why do people become restless and discontent?" Lao-tzu asks. "Because those in power try to control/every aspect of their lives." Hmm. Does he mean the diet, clothing, and food industries? Or is that being paranoid?
The final entry in the Tao says it all. "Though the world is filled/with sights we haven't seen/we die content because/we have truly lived." If following these teachings would bring that sort of peace, they might be worth pursuing, although, frankly, I'm not the most spiritual person. Still, any choice we make is a leap of faith, right?
Naomi Rand is an author whose latest work is "Stealing for a Living" (HarperCollins).
