My Way Is Not The Highway

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Almost forty years ago, in my first 30 minutes in the US, while taking the bus from the airport to the hotel, I met the most overweight person I have ever seen in my life.

I was in my early 20s, and I had never seen a person with so much extra weight. I felt sorry for him, and I wondered what terrible disease he had that had made him so big. In the first four weeks in the US, I saw many more heavily overweight people, and slowly it dawned on me that perhaps it wasn’t a disease at all but something else.

Months later, when we entered a Chinese restaurant and I saw a buffet in the middle of the room, I didn’t know what to make of it. Why was there so much food, I wondered, and I asked for the menu instead. My husband laughed and explained to me that it was “All you can eat!”

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I thought he was joking, but soon I saw people juggling plate after plate from the buffet. Many of them were heavily overweight. It looked like it wasn’t an offer, but an order for many.

The American breakfast was too much for me. Why were they serving dinner for breakfast? And again, I wondered why the plates were so big and so full. While I ate a toast with jam and drank coffee, the people around me ate scrambled eggs with bacon, and omelets with a side of fried potatoes. It had been dinner when I grew up.

I didn’t understand any of it.

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A large size of soda was now declared ‘normal’, and when we ordered, we were often asked to supersize. We drove everywhere, even if the store was only a few blocks away.

Of course, I adjusted to the American way of living, and quickly I gained weight as well. You can’t eat that much and so often and sit around in the car, in the office, or at home and not gain weight.

I learned about the American comfort food, which is translated to “home-cooked meals” in other languages. “Made from scratch” sounds so different then using the word ‘comfort’ with a meal. Comfort! It does sound a bit like an emotional blanket made out of food.

The brutal reality is, in Europe, obesity is far from normalized. I honestly can’t remember seeing someone there who was truly morbidly obese. (They have overweight people too, of course.) I think this social pressure alone plays a big role. If there isn’t a big people shop at every corner or a plus-size department in every store, life gets harder.

But there are also much stricter laws about what can be in food. A product in Europe can have five ingredients, while the same product in America has 15 (many of these ingredients are added for palatability). One of my best friends works at a lab for a food company, famous for coffee and marmalades, and jams. Of course, they make other things as well, and that’s when the laboratory comes in. They are trying to add the right chemicals that make people addicted to the product. Like a potato chip or a chocolate, you can’t just eat one piece.

Decades ago, I did what I normally do when I get lost or lose my way. I hit the brakes — and I regrouped quickly.

The solution was simple. Smaller portions, back to my own habits. Small breakfast, small lunch, and small dinner. No more seconds, no more large oversized plates. It didn’t take long, and the weight came off.

Of course, I enjoy an American breakfast, but it’s really not breakfast, but brunch on the weekend.

Then, ten years ago, I got diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder, and I got introduced to a new form of pain. I didn’t like it, but the way it looked, it would be my companion for the rest of my life — that and a combination of pill bottles. I had to take steroids and gained weight from it. Oh, it angered me but there was not much I could do. I ate like a chipmunk.

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I hit the brakes again. Monitored my eating habits, wrote food-and-pain journal, and counted calories. No day over 1200, and it hurt. When a medication makes you hungry, it’s quite a rollercoaster.

The weight came off.

Nowadays, I follow a very strict diet and yes, of course I fall off the wagon occasionally — and with gusto if I might add — but never for long.

Actions have consequences, even if these actions can only be found on a plate.

I live dairy-free and gluten-free. I eat healthy, and I eat by season. I don’t need strawberries in winter. I am mostly vegan, and if I choose to eat meat, it’s the healthy, expensive kind, the one without antibiotics and without saline injections. It’s a treat, not a must.

How do I like it? I love the way I live, even on days when I curse it. 🙂

It’s my body, my disease, my life, and in the end, it’s my choice. I don’t want to inject myself with the miracle drugs they advertise on TV every night. A drug that comes with a long list of side effects, one of them being death, which always stuns me. Who in the world would take these? Well, whoever wants to take this can, but I choose not to. At least not for as long as I can help it. Maybe one day I will run out of options, but may this day be far away or perhaps never come.

I take a low-dose chemo drug once a week, six small yellow pills that I don’t like. They make my life easier and more enjoyable, and I acknowledge that. I have been slowly tapering down from eight to six …so far, so good. My doctor doesn’t always agree with me, but she lets me lead occasionally. Perhaps she has learned to let me feel my own mistakes? Maybe she truly admires me for my discipline — or pities me :-).

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I start the day with 40 oz of water, try to drink 100 oz a day (at least) to flush out all toxins in my body. I am older now, and I need nutrition and electrolytes.

I know what I wrote might sound cruel to many, perhaps even judgmental, maybe even arrogant, and I didn’t mean any of it.

I am very fortunate, I have lived both ways of eating and living (the European and the US way), and I saw and felt the consequences on my own body and felt them in my mind. I am blessed that I can search and research all over the world, and I can compare the studies.

I now can feel when I eat “wrong,” I get rewarded with extra pain, like my body is telling me: You asked for it! You know better.

RA and Celiac disease, the autoimmune disorders I am dealing with, react to food. Unhealthy ingredients lead to inflammation. Inflammation causes pain. It’s a no-brainer!

I am in control for now! May it stay this way!

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