Focusing the beam

It would certainly be reasonable to ask why, if I know all this, if I understand it with such deep conviction, I am not already at my goal weight. It's all fine and well to go on and on philosophically about the efficacy of meditation and these teachings, but where is the proof that they are effective if I am still a fat guy?

I think we all know that wisdom, if that is indeed what this is, quite often precedes the actions that demonstrate it, for one thing. But even more important to me is the fact that I have seen the usefulness of these philosophies in other people and in other areas of my life, and it is in that understanding that I put my faith.

Another factor is that in addition to the ability of meditation to help create the consciousness that can set us free from the hegemony of mind, it and these teachings can also help us develop a more sophisticated ability to focus our energies. To borrow a metaphor from the meditation teacher Rodney Smith, awareness is like a flashlight beam. Our default mode is to cast the beam about more or less randomly, flitting from thought to thought without discrimination (the mind constantly scanning for threats). Meditation allows us to gradually develop the skill to focus that beam of light on a single area of thought or consciousness. This allows us to have a great deal more clarity, as you can imagine. Rather than trying to perfect myself all at once (the mind insists that I must do so immediately or I will die), an effort doomed to failure in any case, I can focus the beam of my awareness on the development of consciousness and let any changes in my heart, my body, or my mind take place organically. Or, to put it in more straightforward terms, I have been working on other aspects of my life, and it was only when the impulse to make a concerted effort to lose weight floated to the top of my awareness that I was able to apply myself to this project without using guilt or shame to try to force myself to it. Or, to put it even more simply: until now I just wasn't ready.

I mentioned guilt and shame in the paragraph above, and this is another reason why I have waited to begin this quest. I have entirely given up self-loathing; I just don't willingly give that feeling any space in my head or heart any more. Of course the mind, trying to protect me by repeatedly bringing up past failures and current inadequacies, will ask me to feel self-loathing quite often, but I know that this is a reflex action and that I need not pay it any heed. Until I reached the point in my maturity where I could take on this effort without even a smidgen of self-hatred, including hatred of my body as it currently is, I refused to go ahead. I would rather die of the effects of obesity than go through life thinking that I am unworthy if I am overweight and that the only way to change that fact is to do battle with myself. Acceptance is not acquiescence; in fact, the only way to change anything at all, as far as I can tell, is to first thoroughly accept it as it is in this moment.

I also feel quite fortunate, in a way, that I can share this journey from its beginning, rather than from some sort of spiritual hilltop after the fact. As we learn in recovery, the only person to whom we can readily relate is one who has been there and is facing the same struggles we are. I experience a feeling of joy when I think that there may be others who are on a parallel path.

Meditation, too.

 So, what does all this meditation malarkey have to do with my relationship to food, you might ask? How can 15 or 30 or 45 or even 90 minutes a day of sitting and watching my breath do anything to overcome the compulsion to eat in response to emotion? The connection is far from clear, you say. I think it is necessary to dig a bit deeper into the derivation of these compulsions.

One little piece of housekeeping first: I have used the term "ego" up to this point because it was useful and a term most people understand easily. But the usual term for this constellation of thoughts, habits, instincts, and impulses is mind, at least in most discussions of the dharma. So, I intend to use the term "mind" in place of the word ego from now on (at least for the most part). I haven't used that term up to this point because most people think of their minds as being who they are, and it can be quite threatening to think there is something other than this identity. But I hope we are past that by now.

So, all of this talk of meditation and compulsion goes back to the idea that the mind is our protector, responding to every situation that is in the least uncomfortable with an action of some sort. This is all the mind knows to do. As I have said before, what mediation does is create a space in which the mind can operate in its habitual mode, but still allow us some choice in what we do, to decide whether following the dictates of the mind is useful or not. This space we create is usually called consciousness, and is the self that is aware of the workings of the mind without being a part of it. This is a tricky concept to grasp, but not really all that obscure.

Nirvana, a term which is thrown around a great deal, really just means having found the state of being in which consciousness is always present. The Buddha called Nirvana "the end of suffering". (Can you imagine the end of suffering?) The reason I bring up Nirvana is because we have all been there. Now, I don't mean we have all been there in previous lifetimes or some such thing. Rather, we have all experienced fleeting moments of Nirvana in our lifetimes. Any time you have been totally present in a moment, without any egoic interference or input, you have been totally in consciousness, and therefore in a fleeting slice of Nirvana.

Some of the more common moments of pure consciousness: gazing at a newborn, sitting by the ocean, at the top of a mountain, beside a stream, with a loved one, or listening to a great musical work. You can recognize this drop into pure consciousness by the utter calm enveloping you in that moment. Unfortunately, for those of us who have not yet reached a lasting state of Nirvana this state cannot be made to last. Our attempts to grasp it and get it to stay or to replicate it are doomed to failure, since the grasping itself is a form of the creation of suffering. Still, we have all felt it.

Meditation allows us to know that there is a space that is not dominated by mind. When we turn our awareness from the chattering mind to the breath, it is a movement away from this domination and into consciousness. And it is only in this consciousness that true and lasting peace can be found. When we look outside ourselves for peace, we will be constantly disappointed. Even if we achieve it for a moment, it will then inevitably change and move away from the perfection we thought we had achieved. If we then try to reproduce the conditions that seemed to create that perfection, we doom ourselves to further frustration and eventual despair. What else have we been doing with our addictions but this very thing? The problem with getting tastes of Nirvana is that the mind then tries to take control of the process and replicate that which it cannot even hope to understand, nonetheless build. But the more we use the tools of meditation and the teachings of the Buddha to expand consciousness, the more joy and openness we feel.

When we are uncomfortable in any situation, we are faced with a choice. We can take a habitual action, or we can take an action born out of conscious awareness (which is often no action at all). Our addictions are all habitual actions run by the mind on a more or less constant loop. To break that loop and come to a realization of the presence of a different way of responding, we must practice what is known in some circles as "the holy pause". We must see our compulsion for what it is, and realize we have a choice, rather than plunging headlong into it. Sometimes we will still choose that second slice of cheesecake. So be it. There is no right or wrong in this, merely awareness. And if the cheesecake causes us to suffer more than it causes us joy, with consciousness we can take this into our hearts as an experience from which we can learn. Guilt and shame really have no place here; these are efforts to control through violence, not accept and change through love, which is the only thing worth doing. The violence of shame is a function of the mind; the gentleness of acceptance and love is a function of the heart, where true peace and consciousness reside.

This is hard

Harder than I thought it was going to be. I am feeling a bit unhinged with everything that is changing in my life and this is just one more thing, this trying to confront my overeating. This blog adds a bit to that stress; even though I know there are not that many people reading it, the very existence of a place where I have pledged to be entirely honest about things and to write about what matters most to me fills me with dread as well as joy.

Someone close to me may have cancer. It doesn't look good. (It's not my wife, for any of you who know us, so don't worry). Life is so fragile, yet it also amazes me how much punishment a body can take before it gives out. I certainly punished mine enough, yet it continues to serve me well. Cancer is such a wild card, it can pop up in anyone anytime. Of course, this person is quite old, but still....Another friend, somewhat younger than I am, has already been diagnosed with breast cancer and gone through the mastectomy. Yet here I sit, a tubby 55-year-old alcoholic who smoked a pack-and-a-half a day for 20 years, and I am doing fine. Not that I am looking for justice; God knows, there is precious little of that to be found in our world.

So, I went to the Harry Potter movie today. I love movie theater popcorn. I looked it up on the web, how many calories and such I would have to count. Jeez. I didn't get any popcorn; I took my own snacks. I will confess that I'm not sure I can be so pristine about all of this forever, but today I jumped a hurdle. Not that it's my first movie without popcorn, but I have to say that it wasn't easy. (I loved the movie, by the way. A wonderful ending. I am a sucker for a tidy fantasy).

On the other hand, it also wasn't particularly hard. That's really part of the point I'm trying to make about meditation and all that. What meditation does is create a larger space, so these feelings of grief and loss and deprivation and anger don't eat me up and make be believe that I must DO SOMETHING about them. That is one of the biggest fallacies under which we labor, that when we feel badly, something must be done. It just isn't so. I do not need to eat or drink or yell or escape or shop or run or play a game or write or read or do anything to remove these feelings. They simply are, and cannot be gotten rid of. What I can do is exist in a plane where they do not have the power to control my life. And one big part of that is allowing myself to simply be with them. When I do that, among other things it causes me to realize that they cannot kill me; in fact, they cannot even really harm me, unless I let them.

I am aware that I promised to return to the subject of meditation, and I will do so tomorrow. It really does have everything to do with this compulsive eating thing, I promise. If you are following this blog at all, or have read up to this point, I assure you there is a comprehensible way of living and eating that can grow out of this. Obviously, I am not there yet, or I would already be at my goal weight and there would be no need for this blog. But I am thoroughly convinced that it is there, and that we can go on that journey together, if you wish.

Meditation

The simplest way to access the expanded space that will allow you to make room for your ego without letting it be in control is through meditation. If you are new to meditation, please don't abandon this post quite yet. Before you say, "Oh, I have tried that and it didn't work" or "I can never sit still that long" or "I actually feel more agitated after I do that" or "My mind just keeps racing and it won't stay still" allow me a few words to convince you that meditation can benefit you and may not be at all what you think it is.

First of all, to respond to the argument that you could never sit still long enough to meditate, I would say this: if I offered you a million dollars to sit still for 15 minutes and just try to follow your breath, don't you think you could? You wouldn't even have to succeed in following your breath, you would just have to try. Since I don't know anyone who wouldn't answer yes to that question, then I would further put it to you that what meditation has to offer is worth far more than a million dollars and therefore perhaps it's worth a try.

Let me also quickly respond to the objections having to do with the fact that you might not become calmer, that your mind might not stop its chatter, and all that. These are expectations and are ego-driven. Having a set idea of what meditation is or will do for you is sitting smack-dab in the middle of ego, and the goal is to place yourself outside of ego. There is nothing in particular to do in meditation, and there is nothing in particular it will yield to you. To think you know in advance what it can and cannot do, or what you can or cannot do is (what else?) pure ego. So try to let go of all that, because letting go is what this practice is all about.

Here is the practice in its simplest form, though when I say that it is simple, I don't mean that it is in any way inferior to some more complex practice. At the risk of repeating myself, most of the more complicated forms of meditation are egotistical attempts to make the practitioners of those forms seem more sophisticated than you and me. Needless to say, such attempts work directly counter to the very work that meditation is trying to accomplish. So, the practice:

Find a comfortable place to sit. It doesn't have to be quiet or the perfect temperature. You don't have to buy a bunch of cool-looking meditation supplies and cushions; a chair is just fine. (There is no evidence that enlightenment is more likely to happen near the floor). Set a timer for a specific time; try about 15 minutes to start. Close your eyes, or not, whatever works best for you, but closing your eyes removes one source of distraction. Pick a spot where you can feel your breath; the nostril is the most common place, but the movement of the abdomen works fine, too, as does the upper lip if you feel it there. Then try to follow your breath as it goes in and out. Keep doing this until the timer goes off. That's really all there is to it.

What is likely to happen? Well, your mind will supply you with nearly endless entertainment if you let it, but remember that this is the ego trying to regain control. Don't chastise it (it's doing its best to make you happy, remember), simply set it aside and return to the breath. Sometimes you may be lost in thought for minutes at a time. I have been known to set my timer for 45 minutes and never watch a single breath. There is no judgment here; we simply rise from the cushion and take the resolution to pay more attention the next time. Try not to make meditation a new problem; it has the potential to be the best friend you have, especially if your quest is to lose weight or control compulsive eating. I will talk more about that in my next post.

The source

The structure of my beliefs centers around a basic, dharmic premise: that the ego is a fairly primitive if well-meaning vestige of our prehistoric heritage and, if allowed to run the show, will inevitably lead us into dissatisfaction. The ego's response to this dissatisfaction will nearly always be destructive, in ways ranging from subtle to blatant, from overeating to war.

Allow me to expand on this and explain myself a bit more clearly. In our species' early phases we discovered a rather unfortunate truth: we were weaker, slower, and smaller than most of those animals who wanted to eat us. Hiding wasn't an option, since these behemoths were also the ones we wished to kill for our food. Bummer. What did we have going for us in this situation? Really just two things: we were smarter than our predators and we could plan ahead, anticipate the outcomes of certain actions and take those that were safest, avoiding those that harmed us in the past. Thus, to survive we became constantly vigilant and perceived everything as a potential threat. Now, there may well have been the kind and the generous, the deep thinker and the philosopher among these early humans. But if one substitutes contemplation for constant vigilance when the sabertooth tiger is around, one becomes lunch. So all of those (entirely theoretical) deep thinkers did not survive to pass their genes along. In this way, the constant perception of threat became adaptive and was passed along as part of our primal structure.

Of course, there are many ways of looking at and defining the ego, and many theories about ego formation. But I think the model I have outlined is extremely helpful to bear in mind. Because what causes me to have the impulse to overeat is this feeling of threat. Whenever my ego feels there is any imbalance in its universe, the immediate impulse is to fix the imbalance in any way possible or I AM GOING TO DIE. That is what the ego thinks. This is still a useful tool, of course, when faced with a raging maniac or a flash flood, but actual threats are pretty rare in our modern lives. When was the last time anything tried to eat you? Still, the ego persists in perceiving any and all depredations or deprivations as an imminent threat about which something must be done RIGHT NOW.

One of my favorite dharma teachers, Heather Martin (who is British) said something I loved about all this; "The ego is actually quite dear." The ego is really doing its very best to keep us safe. But like a small dog with lots of teeth and a loud bark but not much in the way of discrimination, the ego will attack anything unfamiliar. So, what are we to do with this useful but dysfunctional tool? Struggling against it only leads to more and greater suffering ("bad dog!"). The solution is deceptively simple. Rather than try to diminish the ego, we can expand the space in which it operates.

The first thing we must do is recognize that the ego's has good intentions, but is often misguided. This leads us inevitably to the realization that there must be some part of us that is not ego, since there is some part of us that is making these realizations about the ego. The next step is to become very clear that the ego is not in charge. This is a decision we can make. It is not difficult. Remember the old bumpersticker, "Don't believe everything you think"? That's the basic idea. The ego will throw all sorts of roadblocks in the way of being taken out of the driver's seat, but we simply cannot afford, as individuals and as a society, for the ego to continue running the show. Otherwise, we will all wind up like Congress, flailing about to prove that we are the top dog while destroying the very fabric of what we are sworn to protect. If we let the ego run the show, we will always be seeking for the next fix for this feeling of dissatisfaction, and always feeling that the final and complete sense of security is just around the next corner. I have bad news; it's not. But there is something much, much better: the ability to expand our consciousness to include the ego without making it the lord and master. And as it turns out, this is not so very difficult.

Just want to eat at them

I am tired and stressed. I want to eat AT all these stressors. I want to eat at the asshole security guard at work today. I want to eat at all the unreasonable patients I had to deal with. I want to eat at our idiotic work computer systems. I want to eat at the fact that we will now be without a car. Wouldn't ice cream make all of this better? What's a few thousand calories between friends?

I used to like to drink at people, situations, and things, too. Didn't work then, either. I'm sure that the ice cream would, indeed make me feel pleasure and indulgence and like I'd earned this damn thing. But, just like the drink, the eventual outcome would be less than desirable.

Don't get me wrong. The last thing I intend to indulge in is wrapping myself in either guilt or self-pity. I don't see how I can maintain positive self-esteem if I am constantly be saying how bad I am or how shabby it is that I can't do anything I feel like doing. That's not my way of doing things anymore. I deserve all good things in life. I deserve to feel good about myself. But I also deserve to live out my life without diabetes or hypertension or exhaustion, and that's what I get from overeating. Guilt, shame, and remorse may feel like they should be motivating, but they aren't, not ever. They also are not kind, and I have no intention of being unkind to myself.

Part of the problem for me is that the consequences of drinking were so readily apparent, whereas the consequences of overindulging in food don't show up for a while. I have even been able to deceive myself from time to time that there are no consequences if I happened to hit a low point in my weight on the day I weighed myself after a weekend binge. "I see no problem here. Carry on." And carry on I did.

So I won't overeat today, I will write about wanting to instead. A huge part of the philosophy of the Dharma is that simply acknowledging something, without judgment, without trying to either push it away or cling to it, weakens the power of that thing. The Wizard of Oz was just a little man behind a curtain, and my big, bad need to find a solution to every bad feeling is just a chimera, too. I feel frustrated, exhausted, and stressed. There is nothing wrong or bad about that. There is nothing that needs to be fixed. I can breathe in and know that I am feeling these things. I can breathe out and know that I am feeling these things. They only have the power over me that I give them.

Polly : - {

This is a photo of our beautiful little Polly back in her garage, at least for a little while. She is still marginally drivable, but could conk out at any time (sounds like how I feel sometimes). I just knew you couldn't live without seeing a picture of her.

Weight lost, car lost, sun lost.

As I do every Monday, I weighed myself today, and am down to 214 pounds. Three pounds in one week is pretty good, but I know from experience that weight I gain quickly usually comes off quickly (I began this blog right after vacation). When I get under 200, we'll see what happens. It usually comes off a lot more slowly then.

I promised to say something about what happened yesterday when I wasn't counting calories; I didn't do too badly, actually. I probably could have had just one popsicle and not two and, man, I really like chips! I tend to eat the more healthy kind of chips (pita chips, Pop Chips, rice chips, that sort of thing), but that can be deceptive; if I eat enough of them, they sure aren't healthy any more! But I had only a single helping of the great paella I made, and one of Kathy's potato salad, which was pretty restrained for me. Not bad.

Today we got the news that our Subaru is dead. This is very sad. We bought Polly (yes, we named our car; didn't you?) new in 1996 and she has been a stunningly wonderful car for us. She has about 182,000 miles on her, nearly all of which we put on (she's been driven a few times by friends). She has been through thick and thin with us, and it has been a grand ride.

Another element that adds a special flavor of apprehension to this news is that Kathy and I determined some time ago that when Polly bites the dust, we are going to go without a car altogether. Yikes! Now the reality is here. Of course, we have many options, including Zip Cars quite nearby and a pretty good bus system, as well as light rail coming close to us within five years or so but, still...not to be able to just zip out to the garage and get something I forgot from the store, that sort of thing, not to mention the fact that she has been such a reliable, beautiful presence in our lives is a cause of some actual grief.

I came home today and really wanted to throw caution to the wind and just eat whatever I wanted. It was cloudy and dark after a weekend of sun, I was tired from work, and my car had died, with all the complications that entails. Mostly what restrained me was the knowledge that I would then have to write about it here! This kind of accountability, as I said earlier, is one of the main reasons I started this; thanks, blog (and all of you who read it)!

Sundays

Finally we have a weekend in Seattle that feels like summer. It's a beautiful day, and yesterday was too. I feel blessed.

Sundays are always a little tricky when I am trying to adhere to my regimen (by the way, you will note that I never call this a "diet". I will write more about that later). There are two reasons for this. First of all, after Kathy and I went to Paris last year we agreed that we really enjoyed cooking and eating together and decided we would set aside Sunday dinners for this. So we plan, cook, and eat a meal together, but it is usually something a bit too complex for me to figure the calories. For instance, today I am cooking risotto (Kathy is at a meditation retreat all day), with something like 20 ingredients. Way too much work.

The other reason is because I like to use Sunday as a psychological as well as a physical day of rest. I think we all need this as we gear up for the return to a working world. But how can I take a break from the rigidity of my nutritional plan and avoid self-indulgence? My answer is to use Sundays as a different way of looking at eating, not so structured but even more self-aware. Because I don't use the restraint of a calorie count, I have the opportunity to use this day to examine more closely my motives for making the food choices I make. I'll let you know how it goes.

A little shock

I just added up my calories and discovered that, with the exception of the milk and yogurt I eat every night, I am done with eating for the day. I didn't go over my 1800 calories, though; that's a good thing. But now I get to practice what I preach and just BE with the urge to consume. Damn.

The plan and the deeper reasons

In the past, what has worked for me to lose weight is this: I restrict my calories to 1800 per day. That's it. This is based on an ideal weight of 180 X 10. My source for this formula is a nutrition book I used in nursing school over 20 years ago, so I can't attest to its scientific accuracy. It has worked in the past, although I have been tracking my weight for some time and the thinnest I have gotten in the past four years is 195 pounds. I have hit a few plateaus, but for the most part my lack of further progress is almost always because I get off-track with this plan for one reason or another, usually because of a "special event" that is used as an excuse for self-indulgence, somehow gets extended for days or even weeks and then I am right back where I started. If I hit a true plateau I may have to reassess this formula, but that's a problem I would love to have.

Oh, and I am a vegetarian (those factoids just keep on coming!). I have also discovered that, like many people, I do not absorb nutrients (including protein) well from soy products. So, I keep close track of my protein intake as well. I am not a vegan and love dairy products and, to a lesser extent, eggs, so getting adequate protein is really not that difficult. My goal is 80 grams of protein a day. I eat yogurt twice a day (plain, low fat) for the probiotics as well as the protein.

Of course, that's not quite all I do to keep myself healthy. I love walking and this is my primary exercise. I walk about 70 minutes four days a week and 60 minutes once a week. These may seem like odd durations for my walks, but I work four days a week and walk 35 minutes both to and from the shuttle that takes me to work, and on the weekend I have several hour-long walk routes mapped out near my house. My job is also a physically active one; I work as a staff nurse in an HIV clinic (another little fact about me).

A healthy body is very important to me, but what matters most in all this is what happens when I don't have food to fall back on to comfort me when I am stressed or reward me when I feel good or keep me company when I do most anything: I have to come face to face with myself as a human being without anything standing in the way. I am also an alcoholic in recovery, so this compulsion to put something between me and reality is very familiar. But why should I care about facing life and myself so starkly? Ah, therein lies my deepest motive for what I am taking on and why I am writing this blog. If I have eaten 1800 calories today, or don't want to use them all up right now, I have to stop and just be here now.

The Buddha said, "I have come to teach suffering and the end of suffering." He did not say that he came to teach a bunch of stuff and that suffering and the end of suffering were one on a long list. He said that this was all he came to teach. And his most basic teaching about suffering, the foundation for everything else he taught was this: we create our own suffering by rejecting what we find unpleasant, clinging to what we find pleasant, and ignoring what we find beneath our notice. His one and only recommendation was to live entirely in this moment, with whatever joy or pain or sorrow or sadness or pleasant sensation or inconvenience or beauty or ugliness that entails. When I find myself craving something to eat (just as I used to crave alcohol or cigarettes) when I have no bodily need to eat more, I have a choice. I can eat something, or I can ask what the source of that craving is. It is not true "hunger" (though that word may require some parsing later on), so what is it? What function does food serve when it is not feeding my body? Would I rather be comforted or free?

Mind you, the answer to these questions is not what is important. The asking of them over and over again is. And not only about food, of course. I must ask them whenever I seek to leave my here and now behind because it is too frightening or frustrating or boring. I have used sex, drugs, alcohol, buying things (especially books), cigarettes, computers, music, reading, and many other dodges to avoid facing myself. Of course, except for cigarettes (and, in my case, alcohol) there is nothing inherently bad in any of these things. But I know when I am using them healthily and when as an avoidance technique. And sometimes this is OK; one of my tendencies is to perfectionism, so I have an impulse to force myself to face up to what and who I am with brutality rather than compassion. Escape has its uses, and I have an obligation to be as kind to myself as I would be to others.

One big advantage to having quit both alcohol and smoking (I am nearly 12 years sober and haven't smoked in over 14 years) is that I am familiar with the feeling of desperation that comes with giving up something that seemed to define the parameters of my life and make me feel that everything was all right. So, when I want to reach for the Lindt white chocolate truffles or go get a pint of Full Tilt ice cream or have another few slices of bread instead of just being, I know what that feeling is, and I know it won't kill me to simply let it arise and pass away.

I'm not vain about my body

Well, of course, that's not entirely true. But at 55, I have little left to gain from being buff, if that were even possible for me. In fact, I came back from a recent meditation retreat in a frame of mind to totally accept myself as I am, to stop using my perpetual dissatisfaction to keep myself from happiness. But I am a nurse (another little fact about myself) and had access to all of the reasons why one should not be overweight: it has the potential to cause or exacerbate diabetes, high blood pressure, joint pain, poor peripheral circulation (and consequent skin breakdown), arthritis, hemorrhoids, some cancers, and heart disease, to begin with. I have also had more back aches recently and think this must be at least in part due to my weight. And when I meditate, getting up from the cushion after 45 minutes is more painful to my knees than it ever has been. Granted, I am older than I ever have been, but my heaviness can't help.

I have also had a problem with fatigue for some time, and although the problem has improved with medication for hypothyroidism and vitamin D supplementation, it is irrefutably true that carrying around an extra 42 pounds has got to be exhausting. That's the figure I came up with: 42 pounds overweight. Of course, I think the height/weight charts are a bit extreme sometimes, but still; that's a lot of weight. In fact, I looked it up and at the 50th percentile, 42 pounds of extra weight is like carrying around a child 5 and a half years old. At all times! Without a break! Now, I have had the experience of carting a five-year-old around, and it is exhausting, even for a short period of time (and I was much younger then).

I have other reasons, too: I don't want to buy any more clothes; I want to fit into the ones I already have and the others that are hanging in the basement because I have "outgrown" them. I want to feel healthy and look it. And, yes, there is my vanity. I admit that I can't wait for the time when someone says, "Hey, haven't you lost weight?" because I know that most people are pretty reluctant to ask questions like that and only do so if the answer was pretty obvious.

But there are reasons that supersede all of these, even my physical health and comfort: the spiritual side of overeating and my relationship to food. I will write more about that in the next posting.

No, indeed, he wasn't

The Buddha wasn't a fat guy. At least, what we call the historical Buddha wasn't. The character in the top picture over to the right there is Hotei, the incarnation of plenty. Perhaps he was a buddha and perhaps he was not. He probably never existed, at least in that form and appearance. In any case, he was not the historical Buddha, though many people mistake Hotei for him.

But we know that the man we call The  Buddha did exist, though he may not have been quite the person we envision. After all, he lived over 2500 years ago, and though one or more of the sculptures that portray him may be an accurate portrayal, we have no way of knowing which one. In any case, though, it seems highly unlikely that he was a fat guy. He practiced a life of contemplation and had no appetites or cravings; that's the nature of nirvana. That he would eat to excess or, indeed, any more than he needed to keep himself alive and in good health seems an absurd concept. He was most likely slender but not emaciated (he had foresworn ascetism after attempting to reach enlightenment in that way). In other words, he was probably a healthy-looking man, hearty and hale from all the walking he had to do to carry the message of the Dharma.

I, on the other hand, am a fat man. A curious phrase, that is. I am a fat man. Or: I am a man who has an excess of fat. Or: I am overweight. Or: I am obese. None of these define who I am, yet are all true of me, at least by current standards. Of course, I am many other things as well. Among these I consider myself a Buddhist (though that, too, is a curious description, as I will no doubt write about later). And as I develop in my understanding of the Dharma (which is simply a word describing the Buddha's teachings), I have come to see my body as a reflection of my inner self, and my relationship to food as a harbinger of larger truths.

Thus, this blog.

In the course of writing this blog, I will share here may other characteristics of myself that may give clues as to who I am in totality, though I certainly don't claim to be in possession of the secret of Who I Am.
I have many intentions here, but one of them is most certainly to make myself accountable for what I eat and why, what I weigh and what that means. As do most of us, I have a complex relationship to food. It gives me comfort as well as sustaining me. It has been associated with positive feelings and experiences throughout my life. It is a way I have connected with everyone from my mother to my most casual acquaintances.

I only weigh myself on Monday mornings. On July 18, 2011, I weighed 217 pounds. I am about 5'10" tall. So, as you can see, I am obese though not grotesquely so. I am very active and my weight has not yet impeded my day-to-day activities. But among the things that define who I am is the fact that I am 55 years old, and I am well aware that the consequences of being this overweight will catch up with me eventually.

I am hoping to connect with others of you who are going through this process of investigating your relationship to food and what it means for your life.  I intend to enjoy myself. I hope you do, too.