DIET | DETECTIVE^®

Today is the 40^th anniversary marking the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. At the present time in our history, an African American male is a Democratic contender for the 2008 presidency. Indeed, our attitudes and behaviors as a nation have evolved in forty years, slowly but surely. And slowly but surely is the key to moving forward – in evolution, in life, in weight loss and maintenance.

When I was seventeen, I graduated from high school. I can taste the day of my last final exam; the prospect of being able to move forward in life lifted one hundred pounds from my spirit. Five years of parochial high schooling would be ended with an exam in Yiddish. How irrelevant! We were permitted three hours to complete the exam; well aware that I would never get these three hours of life back, I finished the exam first. No more Yiddish! Mr. Silverstein, my English teacher and exam invigilator cautioned – there would always be another Yiddish.

And he was right.

As a Hebrew school student, many of my peers shared in my experience of having grandparents who survived the Holocaust in Europe . Instilled in my memory is the motto accorded to the movement – “remember never to forget.” How could we?

History never ceases to repeat itself, unless there is an intervening factor. We have learned this in books and through observation. It is for this reason, that I have illuminated the issue of race in our modern history – not for my African American friends, nor for my fellow Jews. As people, we are more alike than we are dissimilar. Dr. Maya Angelou was right!

Sustainable change occurs slowly; relationships model the ones before it, and we are fortunate that as human beings, we bare the capacity to change. I know this to be true. I remember never to forget every time I open the fridge, step onto the elliptical machine, or take note of my faded stretch marks. I am a survivor, too.

For weight,

the person who overeats has developed a history of behavior that perpetuates diet failure. For substance abuse, the addict has developed a history of behavior that perpetuates addiction. The pathways to be illuminated and followed for us are often self-selected, but no more innate than our DNA.

In ten years, I have opened many doors. When doors have closed, my instinct no longer directs me to food, but instead, to escape routes, the closest windows and available tranquilizers. When doors opened, I learned new lessons. Vodka could lubricate a latch just as well as WD-40 or a pastry.  

I did everything I had set out to do during the past decade of my life, rightly or wrongly, but I have learned from my experiences.  I have lost 135 pounds and the pattern of behavior that got me there. I am completing my PhD. I moved away from winter’s wrath and into Miami ’s. I followed the path I had illuminated for myself, and I chose to eat life rather than have it consume me.

As I approach the finality of my formal education, still euphoric at the thought of this door closing, and of moving forward, there is no path to be followed, no prescription. I am just as lost in translation, but my Yiddish is serving me well.

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