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After 30 Years of Dieting, I’m Now Trying to Grow Taller
Only 3 inches to a healthy BMI
After three decades of scrambling between conspiracy-theory diets, I’ve finally diagnosed myself — Bipolar Dieting Disorder.
No joke.
Every time I swore diet allegiance, I’d drop a few pounds, only to gain them back — plus a couple of new, flabby recruits clinging to my sides. One week, I’m carb-free, preaching the gospel of cauliflower rice. Next, I’m eating bread like I just crawled out of a bunker. My metabolism gave up keeping track somewhere in the early 2000s.
My biggest problem? A bizarre irony — I’m cursed with the most efficient, determined, willful metabolism possible. Let’s call her Nell, after a long-gone, persnickety, nose-in-everyone’s-business aunt of mine. Nell is convinced I need every bit of fat to survive the winter. Her fretting wakes me at night, tempting me to raid the fridge for sweet, salty yummies or sleep-inducing carbs.
And if I somehow resist? If I dare to reduce my calorie intake? She shifts her worry from “You’re freezing to death!” to “Dear Lord, she’s starving!”
I’ve spent many winters watching my husband devour holiday pies, daily doses of homemade bread, heaping bowls of ice cream — nary a crumb daring to tiptoe onto my tongue — never…
