Generally, you know you need to diet before hearing it from your doctor. Some signs are obvious - a ballooning gut, increasingly tight clothes, and the inability to climb a flight of stairs without sounding like both partners in an X-rated movie. Yet people are remarkably resourceful at disguising the obvious, both to others and themselves. New clothes and good tailoring will hide a multitude of Twinkies, and elevators have long ago eliminated the necessity of stairs. You can also escape unpleasant facts by reacting to mirrors in the Lugosian manner – simply sweep your cape over your eyes.
Even scales are no hindrance to self-deception. It’s amazing to listen to people who have been math and science phobic all their lives, become physicists and engineers when it comes to measuring their weight. “I don’t trust my scale because…”
“It’s on a carpet. The floor sags. Our house is built on soft clay. It’s so delicate that it’s affected by the tidal pull of the moon. It doesn’t account for variations in gravity due to General Relativity.”
At this rate, you might as well ask some carnival low-life to guess your weight. He also may be wrong, but at least you’ll get a stuffed animal.
There is, however, a day of reckoning when all the techniques of self-delusion falter - the yearly physical. You may be able to fool yourself, but without clothes, it’s unlikely you can slip your bulk unnoticed past your doctor. He or she might be kind or blunt, sensitive or cruel, but rest assured your weight will be discussed. Size-wise, the jig is up.
Good sense would seem to dictate the immediate initiation of a weight-loss and/or exercise program, and if you are new to the game, this might be sufficient motivation. But as a man who has been down this road more often than a long-haul trucker, I know that good sense alone isn’t enough to overcome years of short-lived success followed by long-term failure. According to one source, 95% of dieters put back all the weight they’ve lost1; who wants to bet against those odds? Diets by definition are restrictive, and most folks don’t see the sense in denying themselves when failure is the most likely outcome. In short, why bother?
There is one school of thought that says, "Don't bother. Accept yourself and your body regardless of weight or shape, and societal pressures be damned." To maintain this attitude requires a strong sense of self and immense emotional reserves. Myopia doesn't hurt either. For most of us, however, this approach lasts only as long as it takes someone to yell, "Hey, Tubby! You're blocking the aisle!" This is particularly demoralizing at your wedding.
Which brings us to the first and perhaps strongest motivation to diet - to attain culturally accepted standards of attractiveness. These criteria are simply known as "What 'they' are saying." "They" can be any subset of the general population (parents, friends, coworkers, the fashion industry, the Federal Reserve Board), but given human nature and the predilections of our society, "they" are frequently some actual, potential, or mythical significant other. Of course, seldom if ever do we actually know what "they" are saying. It's often a matter of conjecture based on People magazine…which, of course, I would never buy but only read at the dentist’s office.
Although the desire to look good in the eyes of others is generally thought to be a female trait, I assure you that it drives men just as strongly. We are simply less adept at comprehending and fulfilling this need. We are also more sensitive to being thought conformist or vain, which are, paradoxically, merely other things "they" might say. Luckily, we can hide our insecurity and narcissism behind the facade of health concerns. More on this in a moment.
When viewed rationally, it must seem odd that mature, educated adults are prey to such silliness. Such a perspective, however, falsely presumes that we've actually grown up, whereas in reality, most of us are just inner-children who drive minivans. The taunts, insults and indignities of childhood and adolescence continue to haunt us and govern our destiny as if we still hung out at the playground. It matters not that we pay taxes, attend PTA meetings, or endure gum surgery. The fifth grade bully, brainless high school jock, and sadistic Lolita wield more power in our lives than the combined influence of the President, Congress and Oprah…which, of course, I would never watch except when I’m too sick to work.
Fortunately, there is a general consensus that being overweight is unhealthy which gets us off the hook. It's far easier to say "I have to lose weight because my family has a long history of heart problems, and since research has established a strong genetic link in cardiac pathologies, I must reduce risk factors wherever possible." than "I have to lose weight because that slut Cindy shot me down when I asked her to that dance senior year and went with that jerk Richie instead, so if I look really good, she'll know she made this totally stupid mistake and feel lousy." This doesn't mean that the first statement is false (in my case, it's quite accurate) or irrelevant, only that the latter is more compelling.
How, I am often asked by an incredulous family and disbelieving friends, can anything be more compelling than your own mortality? Isn't being deprived of the joys of life, wife and children or depriving them of you enough to shock you to your senses? Well, yes and no. Obviously, the thought of losing my family is unbearable and the idea of facing the great beyond terrifying, but I'm never going to die so there's no problem. Lest you think I'm kidding, consider this: When we're young, we truly don't believe we'll ever die, and when we get older, we realize that we are going to die someday, but the person who's going to die isn't me now, but some future me. It's a whole different person, so why worry? Besides, I'm hungry.
Hence, the key to dietary motivation lies not in the medical research of 2009, but at the Prom of 1967. The logical mind may have scads of good reasons to lose weight and the heart, figurative and literal, likewise, but if you can't persuade the jilted teenager that it's in his best interest, the whole thing will collapse. Convince him and the rest of the brain and body will come along for the ride.
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1. G. K. Goodrick and J. P. Foreyt, "Why Treatments for Obesity Don't last, " Journal of the American Dietetic Association 91(Oct 1991):1243-47.
