This Month's Struggle: Staying Focused and Getting Past the Propaganda

There it is again. Another women’s fitness magazine telling me I can lose eight pounds this month without working out or starving myself.

I see the issue sitting on the ground by my front door. I catch just enough of a glimpse of the bikini-clad celebrity gracing the cover to know I might have the urge to puke in my mouth several times while reading this issue.

There it is, another celebrity saying they don’t believe in diets or scales. I would love to meet anyone who believes these famous women when they say “I eat whatever I want” and that their size-0 frames simply come from sweat sessions with their trainer and by drinking a glass of wine every night.

Call me a skeptic, a non-believer, cynical, bitter, whatever you like. I’ll admit it: I’m a dieter in a weight-loss rut and pretty frustrated. For three months, I’ve worked my butt off (figuratively, because if it was literal, I wouldn’t feel the need to even write this post) and have lost a total of 9.5 pounds. I cut my calorie intake, wrote down everything I ate and increased my workouts to four times a week, give or take. I can’t think of anything else I could have done to speed up the weight loss process other than starving myself or working out all day, every day like those celebrities.

I guess that’s why I only read these magazines and never get to be on the cover of them.

Now, please tell me, in regular working-class woman terms, how I can lose eight pounds , about what I’ve lost over three months, in a third of the time. By tearing out your little workout cards and spending $100 a week on fancy ingredients so I can make your recipes? I don’t have the time or the money for that.

Maybe it just comes down to the fact that some women can lose weight easier than others-- I must be in the latter group. I feel like the words splashed across the cover of this magazine undercut the effort I have put in over the last three months, like I didn’t work hard enough so I didn’t lose eight pounds in a month. I’ve started to get jealous—not inspired—when I read those weight-loss success stories inside each issue; it seems as if the weight just fell off those women as soon as they decided to put in the effort.

I have a Master's in Journalism, I understand how it works. This stuff sells magazines and if they included my story, the issue would be collecting dust on the shelf.

Maybe I’m just mad because I want more than anything to see the scale down a full 10 pounds and it hasn’t budged (it’s fluctuated up and down a few pounds, but never below my lowest). I have been so close to my goal for weeks but just can’t seem to shed the last half pound no matter what I do.

Unfortunately, I know what I can’t do. I can’t slip back into my old ways of binge eating when I feel bad for myself or ready to give up because nothing seems to be working. I caught myself doing this yesterday: as I stood in the pantry shoving Marshmallow Treasures into my mouth I thought, “Who cares if I count or measure them? It doesn’t seem to matter anyway.” I ultimately do care, and that’s why I accounted for the snack in my food journal right after I finished pouting.

Losing 9.5 pounds has been such a struggle for me. While I’ve learned a lot about myself and have made a lifestyle change as a result, sometimes I just wish it was as easy as the magazines make it seem.

Now excuse me while I dive into this issue—I might uncover a secret weight-loss weapon to get me over the hump!