The seven pounds weigh me down and ground me to the rose-colored cement sidewalks of South Beach . I can say this onboard a flight back from visiting Montreal – the place of my birth and of my girth. Now, it is where I can lose seven pounds in five days of visiting with family and friends. South Beach and its namesake diet pin me down under a cavalcade of tourists and perversions. Easy come and easy go more easily makes me grow.

There is a theory in psychology of fight or flight; when faced with challenge, our instincts direct us to one or the other. For me, my flight away from what was once my home has been a fight. The irony is that I had fought hard to fly high and moved to Florida to attend graduate school. South Beach quickly became a school of hard knocks. In struggle, I have grown – emotionally, and with seven pounds. The pounds keep me humble; the fight is not over and the flight to a next destination is yet unknown.

Maslow - renowned for his concept of a hierarchy of psychological needs, had claimed that safety and security are base needs that must be met. Without these needs being satisfied, one cannot progress forward toward other levels of satiety. Family, community, stability in relationships, employment, finances – these all contribute to a sense of well being. This is one rationale for why group approaches to weight loss bare greater success; group meetings and group support form a kind of community and in-group.

In South Beach , I am a tourist on a prolonged stay. I have sampled the carry-out selections many times over and I have consumed the experience, still hungry for something. I have consumed every kind of bread at Publix – my comfort food - and my discomfort food. I am uncomfortable with the seven pounds and then some; each one is a symptom. Weight is not the problem; it is a solution.  

Comfort food is a fraud for me. I can barely experience the pleasure in eating it. Like a medication, I swallow it. Inevitably, it swallows me. I hear my father’s words from my childhood; a moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips. He lied, and I find my truth comforting. My hips don’t look so terrible.

I am still searching for my own realization of Maslow’s basic safety and security. I am insecure that I may not soon find it, but I do know that the seven pounds look better on someone else.

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