Martian Plateau

The Martian continues in the great astronaut film tradition of reminding us that although we live in a broken world, duct tape can repair just about anything. Even better, as far as fixing human nature is concerned, the movie provides an antidote to racism, sexism, despair, global violence, and science denialism by celebrating human ingenuity, diversity, teamwork, and international cooperation. And, of course,  science. This nerd’s delight is winning plaudits for its scientific accuracy.

The Martian is accurate on another count as well: how incredibly difficult it is to lose weight! As a lifetime member of Weight Watchers, I know it’s a scientific fact that the body will not relinquish one ounce no matter how much you exercise and how little you eat.

An uninformed person might think, for example, that a guy who has to stretch 60 days of NASA rations to last four years might quickly drop a few pounds, even if said rations are calorie-dense (or “high in points” as we Weight Watchers say) and supplemented by a bumper crop of potatoes. Weight loss might occur even faster if the guy is laboring to set up a Martian greenhouse, hydration system, night-soil composting facility, and solar panels. Even without a lot of gravitational pull, such physical exertion burns a lot of calories, particularly when wearing a heavy space suit.

Yet Matt Damon, who looks pretty hefty at the beginning of the film, looks exactly the same several dozen food-restricted sols later. Talk about plateaus!

I blame the potatoes. Sure, they save Matt Damon’s life and are listed as a Weight Watcher’s Power Food when eaten plain (or with Vicodin powder as a zero-point flavor enhancement). But you have to be careful with potatoes. I, for example, just spent a weekend hiking in the mountains. I also spent a whole bunch of points on a half batch of delicious French fries. Despite vigorous exercise, I gained three pounds.

We weak-willed earthlings usually throw in the towel at this point. But Matt Damon is a man of science and discipline for whom throwing in the towel is never an option. Also, even if he wanted, understandably, to indulge in a little stress-eating by binging on yummy carbohydrates, he can’t: all his potatoes are nuked into oblivion by a sudden deep freeze.  So it’s back to extreme-portion-controlled MREs.

Still, Matt’s weight stubbornly refuses to budge. At Weight Watchers, we have a saying for this: “It’s in the bank!” This promise of earned weight loss yet to be realized keeps hope alive despite the unfairness of the laws of physics. Just refrain from self-sabotage and remember: Your weight loss is in the bank, and those pounds will eventually roll right off!

And lo! That’s exactly what happens in The Martian! Matt Damon goes from endlessly looking cute but downright plump to a screen shot labeled “Seven Months Later,” in which a gaunt body double emerges naked save for a long scruffy beard and wild hair. Apparently, facial hair is also in the bank, as we have seen nary a trace of stubble in the considerable time we spend with Matt before seven months suddenly pass. Then, in another tribute to reality, Matt is back to his full-figured self soon after the camera turns away from his anorexic body double.

I love The Martian  for illuminating the reality and perils of yo-yo dieting. It also shows that confidence, competence, and good cheer have nothing to do with weight. For which we Weight Watchers are grateful.

We are also grateful for the incredible hope the movie conveys. Sure, a post-racial, post-sexist, science-loving era of international cooperation to solve big problems is nice. But here’s the real hope: When all else fails with your weight-loss mission, and you just can’t break that plateau, head to Mars. You’ll find that no matter what your lying (or depressingly truth-telling) scale says on Earth, you’ll cut that number by about two-thirds on the Red Planet.

If you don’t believe me, just check out this science-based handy conversion calculator.

And whatever you do, stay away from Jupiter.

 

The Habit(breaking) of Lent

It's 8:01--do you know where your chocolate chips are?

It’s 8:01–do you know where your chocolate chips are?

My friend Jessica’s terrific piece on giving up sugar for Lent just aired on KQED’s Perspectives. It’s a humorous contemplation of what sacrifices Catholics like Jessica are willing to make in this season of resurrection.

The daughter of a lapsed Catholic and never-practicing Jew, I was raised as a Unitarian. This was on the more traditional East Coast, where we at least had churches with steeples and pews instead of fellowship rooms with folding chairs. Unlike the twice-a-year attendees our minister derided as the “Christmas and Easter crowd,” we were devout Unitarians by virtue of going to church more often than not. My religious education focused on science, sex education, and the belief that if Jesus were around in our day, he would be a hippie. Instead of sacraments, we had an interpretive dance choir of nubile teenage girls draped in scanty pastel crepe. Easter meant not sacrifice, but showing off a new spring outfit and downing drugstore chocolate.

Despite these perks, I envied my Catholic friends, particularly when they got to miss school at the beginning of Lent on Ash Wednesday, returning the next day with huge black smudges on their foreheads. Were these related to the black marks on the sole I was always checking the bottom of my feet for? I knew how long it took for a beam of light to travel from the sun to the earth, but I was confused about spiritual matters.

As it turns out, the soft-core dogma of Unitarianism provides a soft landing for those who stray from the faith. Lapsed Catholics like my mother lose all of the faith but none of the beliefs. Stripped of comfort, my mother was beset by guilt, shame, and the threat of eternal damnation her entire life. But what does a lapsed Unitarian suffer—the renunciation of potlucks?

In my case, renouncing potlucks might be a good idea. They may not be the Devil’s spawn, but they are surely the curse of the Lifetime Weight Watcher, my new Sabbath calling of the last 13 years. Which brings me back to Lent, in case you were wondering.

My Weight Watchers leader Linda is, like my friend Jessica, an old-school Catholic with a serious sweet tooth. Linda regales us with hilarious stories of her 40+ days in the wilderness bereft of whatever she’s given up for Lent. Usually it’s chocolate. This year it’s sugar. Two years ago she told us that her 10-year-old daughter was giving up rolling her eyes for Lent. That one caused me to fall out of my chair laughing, but it also inspired me. First off, could I somehow introduce the concept of Lent to my then-teenaged daughters before their eyes rolled right out of their sockets? Second, what could I give up for the 40+ days of Lent to tame the food demons that still threatened to take me down a decade after more or less following the program?

That first time, I decided to give up dark-chocolate-covered almonds, which I loved to pilfer from the Trader Joe’s container in my husband Jonathan’s nightstand. I put them there to avoid seeing them in the kitchen every 10 minutes, but the chocolate almonds still called to me. Possibly their siren song was louder from upstairs—I used to love to pilfer Junior Mints from my mother’s bedside stand, the minty bite enhanced by the frisson of transgression. The ritual of the stolen candies commands quite a place in my psyche as well as my waistline. Perhaps it was time for the ultimate sacrifice, or at least the experiment in habit-breaking that Lent affords.

So for 40+ days I resisted temptation. When Lent was over, I went back to my old ways, though at a slower pace, sometimes even able to stick to the bargain I’d struck with myself, sucking on just one chocolate-covered almond. I noticed that they didn’t taste all that good—we’re talking Trader Joe’s, not Godiva—but I’m kind of a chocolate whore, no doubt hearkening back to waxy chocolate rabbits from Easter baskets past. So I gave up chocolate-covered almonds again for my second year of Weight Watchers Lent.

It worked. I had found the sacred secret to secular habit-breaking. No longer was I tempted to raid my husband’s supply, even for the cheap thrill of transgression. Not that Jonathan noticed—as a person with no food issues except for the pathological behavior of eating when he is hungry and stopping when he is satisfied, Jonathan forgot about the chocolate-covered almonds until rummaging around for his misplaced library card.

“You don’t need to buy these anymore,” Jonathan said. “They’re not very good.” Now he tells me!

Having mastered Level One of the Lenten challenge, I stepped up my game this year. I would never be so foolhardy as Jessica or Linda to give up sugar altogether—we lapsed Unitarians are not made of such strong stuff. But I did try to break two habits this year: eating chocolate chips out of an open bag (I’m perfectly safe from the approximately 30 unopened bags of Ghirardelli semi-sweet in the cupboard), and snacking after 8:00 p.m. I have lapsed a little, but it was mostly on Sundays, which I understand is now exempt from the strictures of Lent. Religious purists sniff at this sanctioned laxity the way baseball purists sniffed when designated hitters were introduced to major league baseball.

But hey, I’m a lapsed Unitarian—what’s a little failed renunciation to me?

*

What have you given up for Lent? How do you go about breaking a habit?

 

 

Losing the Crazy

bathroom scaleCancer has touched a lot of things in my life, but not my obsession with food and weight. I used to keep a lid on these neuroses more, trying hard not to ruin my daughters. But when the girls reached the truly crucial ages of 10 and 13, I blew it all up by joining Weight Watchers, sacrificing their health for my own as I tracked points and talked incessantly about food and weight. I managed to lose 25 pounds and have kept most of it off most of the past 11 years. Every New Year’s our family has a ritual of writing out our hopes for the coming year and the high and low points of the year just passed. For years my daughters’ “Low” lists were topped by “Mommy talking about points,” until they grew old enough to rebel against the ritual altogether.

But inadvertent ruination of one’s children is not my focus here. I just want to set the scene for my first reaction upon learning I had uterine cancer. Thinking initially it was the “No big deal” kind requiring just a hysterectomy with maybe a dollop of radiation, my only concern was how long I’d be laid low by surgery. “Three weeks’ recovery from a hysterectomy,” replied the doctor.

“Oh, shit! I won’t be able to hike for three weeks! I’ll gain weight!” was my only thought. (I had just spent the entire summer losing 9 pounds acquired during a month-long vacation and several late-night, at-home rendezvous with open bags of chocolate chips.)

By the next day, I knew I had the bigger-deal kind of uterine cancer. As I shared my diagnosis and crazy initial reaction with my friend Ruth, she said, “No, you’ll be getting chemo—you’ll lose weight.”

“Oh, good!” I thought.

You need to fast 24 hours before surgery, so when I stepped on the Kaiser scale the morning of my hysterectomy, the number for once did not lead me to ponder how much heavier street clothes are than nightgowns. Or whether that second helping of cake was really such a good idea. In fact, the surgeon told my husband that the procedure had taken longer than usual because it was difficult to maneuver given that “she’s so thin.”

So thin! Could I get that in writing? Could cancer be worth the steep admission price?

It’s one thing to lose the weight, quite another to lose the crazy.

*

In September 2012, I was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of uterine cancer. Treatment was successful, and I am happy to report that I am cancer-free and doing well. By the way, I gained five pounds during the course of chemo . . .