Sarah Hays Coomer - Lightness of Body and Mind: A Radical Approach to Weight and Wellness

Lightness of Body and Mind

ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD

Lanham Boulder New York London

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Hays Coomer, Sarah

Title: Lightness of body and mind : A radical approach to weight and wellness / by Sarah Hays Coomer.

Description: Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016 | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2015039178 | ISBN 9781442255081 (cloth : alkaline paper) | ISBN 9781442255098 (electronic)

Subjects: LCSH: Weight loss--Psychological aspects--Popular works. | Food habits--Psychological aspects--Popular works.

Classification: LCC RM222.2 .H324 2016 | DDC 613.2--dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015039178

TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Printed in the United States of America

For Sky

The names and identifying details of friends and clients described in this book by first name only have been changed to protect their privacy. Those mentioned by first and last name have consented to the use of their real names, thereby agreeing to be part of this madness. The events described are as accurate as memory allows. I cant guarantee perfection in the far reaches of my mind, but I can guarantee that I have done everything in my power to bring these stories to life in the most unvarnished, truthful way possible. I offer them to you as a testament to what can be achieved when candor, determination, and foolishness prevail.

How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.

Annie Dillard, The Writing Life, 1989

Like Wall-E, the Pixar robot who roams a vast landscape beset with rubbish, I find myself lately climbing a mountain of half-read weight-loss books and discarded food containers, raising a white flag and calling for a cease-fire.

Im a personal trainer and health coach, but I have to confess that I cringe a bit at the associations that conjures. To be clear: CrossFit makes me wince, and you will never, ever find me training for a marathon. If an activity breaks my body in any way, if it doesnt support my well-being, I want no part of it.

What I wantand what my clients wantis unbridled, pain-free, kinetic, renewable wellness. And pulverizing our bodies doesnt get us there.

Ive been a trainer for twelve years. During much of that time and for more years than I would like to admit, I was at war with my body and losing the battle. I carried around an extra twenty pounds, claiming they proved my commitment to quality of life over superficial concerns, but that was a lie. The extra weight wasnt the result of eating joyfully with people I loved. It was the result of eating too much for the wrong reasons, mostly alone and at night. Food made me feel calm, so I dove in after dark and spent the following twenty-four hours beating myself up over it, before doing it again, and feeling at peace again for a few delicious moments.

The weight felt heavy on my frame, but I couldnt get it off no matter how many lunges or push-ups I did. It was infuriating. I was a trainer for Gods sake! I should be able to do this!

Every day I picked through an avalanche of quick fix promises that poured through my inbox and popped up at the fringes of my web browser. I sifted through research to uncover bits of helpful, new information that occasionally arose amid the wasteland of false leads and passed those tips along to my clients as they struggled with their own roadblocks right alongside me.

As a trainer, I was capable of beating back the fraud, but as a human being, I ached for every high-flying promise to be trueeffortless and effective, once and for all. My clients, friends, and I were all in search of the same thing. We wanted a final solution, and we were willing to do whatever it took. Follow this diet; do this workout. It will definitely work this time.

But, inevitably, the diet was impossible, and I hated the workoutor the workout was okay but the diet made my armpits stink. Whatever. I couldnt stay motivated to stick with it. I understood each plan in theory. Excellent plan! But no. Not happening.

Finally, I realized that the way we were pursuing weight loss was blindly, spectacularly bass-ackward.

No matter how hard we tried, no matter how much money we spent, how little we ate, or how many pounding workouts we completed, we failed to lose weight and keep it off because we were attempting to dominate our bodies, choking them off instead of bringing them to life.

You cant put a vice on your hunger, and you cant wrestle control of your mind to shrink your body. It doesnt work. Weight loss is unsustainable if it comes at the cost of living well. Boredom and frustration dont breed contentment no matter how skinny you manage to get, and rigid, arbitrary weight loss techniques are a steaming, stinking, giant pile of no-fun.

Skinny isnt what were really yearning for anyway. We're yearning for peace in our own skin under easy, unbothered mindsand that kind of peace wont ever be achieved by depriving ourselves of everything we love while performing mind-numbing exercises in our not-so-spare time.

The concept that wellness or lasting weight loss can emerge from blunt force effort is a myth. Its a fantasy we slide into like a warm bath. We jump in with both feetthe best in us wanting to believe we can do it if we just try hard enough. We muscle our way through frustrating diets and workouts, but the whole pursuit turns out to be a pain in the ass. So we quit. With every failure, our confidence takes a hit, and the next attempt is weakened before it even begins.

Limitation and restriction will never inspire you to awaken your body. They will never allow for an uncomplicated relationship with food. They blunt your spirit, deplete your drive, and leave you continually wondering why you have such a hard time following throughbut, under those circumstances, failure makes perfect sense.

After years of useless, unproductive deprivation, our bodies are in full-blown rebellion, hanging on for dear life to every moment of relaxation and grasping at every opportunity for yummy, surreptitious satisfaction. The diets and fitness routines most of us are pursuing have no relationship to the reality of our lives or the passions that move us. So, of course, they fail.

Its a bold and scary thing to let go of traditional mechanisms weve put in place to keep excess weight at bay, but if they dont work, what exactly are we doing? Why do we continue to pummel our bodies into submission when we would get so much further by simply taking better care of them?