The Gauntlet

 

Several times I have sat in the Weight Watchers meeting and just listened to other peoples stories.  So many of these stories I can relate to.  So many are mirrors reflections of your own self.  The ones that always hit closest to home and sent me off into deep thought are the fast food incidents.  I hear most people refer to these are lapses or failures, but that is not how I look at them, I look at them more as bad programing. 

Eating fast food isn't a failure.  Sometimes it is just what is a available and what you have to have.  What is a failure is beating yourself up over a lapse or a misstep.  I think it happens because we’re conditioned by a billion-dollar industry to see things in black and white, even though most things actually live in the gray.  

Then there is the judgement.  How many times have we been told fast food bad, such and such good.  How much time do we spend in judgement of what is a good food or a bad food.  What should go in and shouldn't go in and why.  It is normally because it has carbs or because it not on my diet or this or that reason.  Most of the time it is simply classified as good or bad.   

I know this all to well.  For seven years I lived in Livermore, Ca.  For four of those years, I had to endure the Gauntlet.  Night after night, I had to pass from one end of the Gauntlet to the other.  Years and years of good and bad food programing helped make this nightly drive from the office to home a truly, awful experience.  

This was my nightly Gauntlet.  Santa Rita Road and the 580 exchange you have to pass McDonald's and its drive thru to get on the freeway.  I think the first three years if not more that i did this drive that voice, the small voice, in the back of your head, the cheaters voice, the liars voice, the weakness voice, the voice that champions all the Bad Foods whispers in you ear, let's go through that drive thru. It doesn't matter you spent the weekend meal prepping or that you have a fridge full of groceries.  Is simply what is over there is forbidden.  You can't have the bad stuff, you have to go home and going home is good, but, you can be bad just one more time.  It is only one meal. However, you hold onto and you pull onto the freeway.  

What you know though is your batter with the voice has just begun.  You know not only does McDonald's start the Gauntlet but it also ends the Gauntlet and you have 10 more miles to battle yourself over being good and bad, Right or Wrong, step towards ideal image and health or being a slob and sloth. Society's programing is a wicked tongue that beats on you as you enter the Gauntlet. 

A few miles down the road, is your second challenge. You have to pass the Carl Jr's (Hardee's for the Midwest folks).  There is a small part of you that always wants to go there.  Nostalgia is a hell of a thing.  You remember back to that weekend where it was just your and dad at home, you were 15, and the guys were over, and Dad brought that bag of dollar Hardee/Carl burgers and you loved them that weekend and more than wanted to taste the burger again you yearn for the younger version of yourself, to be that version who could do anything, ride roller coasters, swim, dance, run, etc... 15 it was good times.  It was before the real weight battles began, it was good times.  Wasn't it?  So, you think maybe tonight we can go Carl's and we can regain that youthful feeling. Plus, what is one more burger or four hurt us as this point.  I mean you already can't fit into your car.  As soon as Carl's come up it is gone and you continue on the Gauntlet, you were good, at least for a few more miles.

The third obstacle on the Gauntlet was always the hardest.  It was somewhere in the back of your brain before you ever left the office.  It is the one that you always say if you are going to fail you might as well do it right.  You might as well make sure you make the failure worthwhile.  If you are going to do it enjoy it, really enjoy it.  When it comes to California and fast food there is no better place to blow it, than at The In-N-Out Burger.  I think In-N-Out is the next level. I have a hard time classifying it as anything other than gourmet even to this day.  Everyone has their own preference but for me In-N-Out is the best.  It was also the hardest to pass up.  I didn't care that the line was out of the parking lot. I didn't care that line was a half hour long and I could get home and reheat whatever I had in the fridge or stop in and get something more healthy, no, what was at the end of the line was worth it.  Two Double Doubles, fry extra well done, two puppy patties for Kona, and three or four packets of sauce.  The little voice telling you it is ok, just one more time, it is a better quality fast food.  Just do it.  One more time.  We can really start over tomorrow.  I can't tell you how many times I had this battle. I want to say I lost here more than I won, but that isn't true.  It just feels like that in hindsight.  So many excuses and reasons to stop you and that little voice came up with to make it ok.  All because your programing told you it was bad.  It was on the naughty list and therefore forbidden.  

You are past the In-N-Out now.  It should be easy.  Two exits left.  However, it is that last exit that dumbs you out into the pinball wizard of the Gauntlet.  It lets you out right in the doldrums of hell.  Well the dieting doldrums of hell maybe. You come off on Vasco and to the left you have Jack in the Box (And the Ultimate Bacon Double), Taco Bell (and it's Mexican Pizzas) and Wendy's (and it's Baconator, and there was a time when I loved me a Baconator).  You didn't go left though, you need to go right and to the right waiting for you was A&W, KFC, and McDonald's.  The Gauntlet sure knows how to end.  I wish I could honestly say I never stopped at any of them, but I can't.  At one point or another I visited each one, with my little voice telling me it was ok, that tomorrow we would win, today was just to much. The programming always seemed to be stronger than man programmed, right?  Not so fast my friend!

At some point in your journey you met the right therapist, and they introduced you to the right concepts.  You picked up a book that would change your life, even though you never finished it.  You didn't need too.  You learned everything you need to learn when you read there was no such a thing as a bad food, and all food had some value.  You learned what you needed to learn when you read that you can eat whatever you want, whenever you want.  That diets don't work.  You read what you had been waiting to read.  Reading was important but things really changed when you started to believe it.  Belief wasn't that hard.  It wasn't that hard because you knew it was right.  You know you had been programed wrong by living the diet waves.  However, there is no good or bad foods.  There are no bad meals.  Once you learn that, the switch flips.  Once you believe it the path opens up and you chose if you walk it or not.  

It did not take long for my world to change once my eyes were open to diet culture and its programing.  Once, I saw value in what I ate.  Once you give up the power of good v bad, then and only then, do you gain power over your life.  Once I woke up from good v bad food thinking, the Gauntlet diminished.  The drive home was easy.  When there is no right or wrong choice about what goes into your body, the forbidden pleasure of eating out goes away.  Your 10 mile drive home becomes just that.  A 10-mile drive home.  One day you pull into the driveway and you were like did I just drive through the Gauntlet and not notice one of those restaurants, yes, yes you did and the first time you ever felt good doing  a drive through.

I didn't stop eating In-N-Out, McDonald's or the rest.  I probably go to M's more now than I ever have.  However, when you aren't judging good and bad, what goes in is different.  You are no longer eating that one last meal before you go straight forever and never do it again.  The guilty feelings that gave that food power is gone.  You stop and actually taste the food and you realize I can cook a better burger than most of these places with better quality meats and cheeses.  Once the power of the right choice between a good and bad food was gone, the power over me was gone.  

Then change happened. Real and lasting change.  I have lost an overweight adult person in my journey.  I am pretty sure that person I lost was me in middle school or high school.  It's the name of an NBC sitcom from the late 90's, the daughter is a famous director now and won an oscar for acting.  You can look it up if you want.  That isn't what is important.  

My journey started long before Weight Watchers.  However, what I love about Weight Watchers is the message is the same.  No good or bad food, no good or bad meals, if you want something eat it.  Allow yourself that, accept it, and move on.  If you do that, and you do the plan most of the time (not all), no one needs to be perfect, then you will get results.  The focus on Macros, movement, and overall health makes the program sync with my wants, needs and beliefs.  I can't say enough about it, if anyone is getting it right today, I believe it is them.  When I’m in meetings and hear people talk about so‑called “mistakes” (their words, not mine), I really appreciate how the team—and especially the leader—rallies around them.  It always makes me remember the Gauntlet.  I smile to myself because I know for them it will change like it has changed for me.  

Perspective really does dominate our reality.  What we think, what we feel, what we believe.  For me learning everything has its place and its value.  It has changed me.  I can keep chips, cookies, and cakes in the house.  I can go to restaurants and make decisions not from a standpoint of being good or bad, but how will it make me feel.  How will it make me perform.  That is a big one for me.  Is it this going to help me get up that hill.  Will it help me ride farther and faster.  Will this make me better or worse on the bike.  Will this help me get up and down from playing with Kona better. It helps me grow and helps me reach out for my next challenge and a better more meaningful existence.