Keep Calm And Carry On?

I know the Boot Camp's only been open for a few days, but I hope we already know each other well enough…

We all have to periodically ask ourselves one big question: why am I bothering with this diet thing in the first place? You know your reasons for sure, but it does none of us any harm to check back from time to time and see if anything's changed at all, if these reasons are still as valid as they used to be, and assess whether they still carry the same emotional and moral weight as hitherto.

What we're really doing, unless your life is in turmoil (which most of us manage to undergo at some time or another, sometimes without really noticing - we find it pleasant to delegate that task to other people) is pulling back into focus all the little taken for granteds that can easily slip into the corner of the frame and get dusty unless we consciously take stock, recognise their value, and take care to keep them centred - where they should be.

So, having checked back on the negative and positive of a) what you don't like about your life and your behaviours and b) the solid, strong, real, empowering, and life-affirming reasons why you're doing dieting, I believe you've got all the information and motivation you need for a spot of ac-centuation and elim-I-nation (leaving sufficient energy left over to mess with mister in between, should you happen at that moment to feel so fired. There’s nothing wrong with it).

Wherever you stand in relation to your target weight - be it thirty pounds distant, or 300 - you, and only you, can get you there, and the sooner you get it over and done with, the better, and the better you’ll feel about you. Same goes for all of us. Being slim isn’t the answer to all life’s problems, but it’s an issue which gives everyone round here pause for more than a moment’s passing thought

Given the long-term implications for our lives, it seems pointless to me even acknowledging silly cravings for this or that, and it seems at best ridiculous giving in to the things. It's a bit like the old saying 'don't vote. It only encourages them'.

Cravings just want to be given in to. That's their raison d'etre. They love it. Except you have inside you the strength to be stronger than them. Just say no, keep saying no, and they will die. You won’t. Or at least, probably not for longer than if you had.

I certainly understand precisely what it's like to say 'I've fallen off the wagon so I might as well stay off the wagon'. As W C Fields said in The Temperance Lecture, 'It's easy to give up drinking. I've done it a thousand times.'

[On this drinking point, parenthetically, I've given it up twice. The first time lasted for eight years. Then a dozen years of resumed and dedicated drinking. Now back to abstinence, which I can assure you will continue as long as I live, irrespective of whatever this life chooses to hurl at me, since I know much better than most that there is no answer in the bottle, whatever we imagine to be the question. Nor is there emotional sustenance to be gleaned from gorging ourselves, but we maybe don't like being reminded of that. He who ate all the pies is not necessarily a happier boy; far from it.]

No question but a more enlightened and adult response to tumbling from the tumbril than throwing your hands up in despair is 'Don't start over, just continue', except for one thing:

ὁ δὲ ἀνεξέταστος βίος οὐ βιωτὸς ἀνθρώπῳ

(I just enjoyed a mischievous thought that I'd finish at that point! But I'll overcome that particular craving, and rant on.)

Socrates, who we can probably agree knew some stuff, said 'The unexamined life is not worth living for a human being.' And the real problem with 'just continuing' is that it gives us the opportunity to conveniently avoid that powerful and valuable introspection, since it is only by understanding why, for instance, we came off plan when we did, that we can avoid doing it all over again ad infinitum. Of course I accept that just continuing is better than reverting to the old destructive behaviours, but it does sort of tend to tie you to the wheel, instead of freeing you up to some kind of (in this case) weight loss nirvana. Because ONLY in understanding lies the ability to address and adjust those destructive behaviours which hurt us (and those around us).

At the drop of a hat, any one of us can come up with a million reasons for what we have or haven't done, but justification is too often a cloak that barely covers the immodesty of excuses. Instead, I think there are issues regarding priority and accretion, with too few of us prepared to engage in the auto-archaeology needed to come to terms with root causes of our behaviours. While we're down in the labyrinth engaging with the Minotaur, everyday life has indeed to go on. In our case, it has to go on knowing full well that there's no Theseus coming along in a minute to rid us of this monster. We eaters really do got a monkey on our backs, and a jones is, always, a jones. Without coming to understand the nature of our personal beast, however, the best we can ever say is that we 'know something is happening, but (we) don't know what it is'. Do we?

So the smart strategy has to be to say, OK for the next few weeks, I'm doing this, and just not allowing yourself to deviate from whatever plan your chosen diet determines. And that's all it is: a few weeks from and for a healthier and longer life, committed, determined, maybe not easy, but think about how you’re going to feel when you get there, and then maintain. Triumphant, victorious, and whole.

Really, anyone can do it, but only if they give it sufficient priority and convince themselves that they MUST do it. While that's happening, we owe it to ourselves to come to probably uncomfortable terms with that noisy plethora of overlapping 'whys' that dumped us down on this cold and rocky shoreline in the first place, 'and by opposing, end them.'

Otherwise we will indeed ‘just continue’, dilettante dieting.

Till the next time.

Your old pal,


Fred