Hot Mama

I am a mama's boy.

That's easy to be when your mom is as amazing as my mom. There isn't a person I have ever met, or even one that I've seen on TV for that matter, who compares to her level of creativity, resourcefulness, and pure genius. On top of all of that - she is a really, really, really pretty woman. In elementary school I used to always love it when my mom would come to the school because she was so much prettier than everybody else's mom. I guess it helps that she was probably a good 10 years younger than most of the other moms, but still - she has an amazingly beautiful quality about her.

Given that, I was a little concerned with a phone conversation she and I had today. It was supposed to be one of those "Happy Mother's Day!" kind of calls where I tell her how much I love her and how she is the best mom in the universe, etc. Instead, we ended up talking about dieting and exercise for over an hour.

She starts out by saying that she is giving up her diet. I didn't know she was even on a diet. I did know that she was trying some new 7 minute workout where you isolate and contract certain muscles for 25 seconds at a time but I passed that off as another one of her new age voodoo fads. So, the trainer in me kicked in and I started probing a little.

"How long have you been on this diet?" I asked.

"Over a week, and I still haven't lost anything, not even a pound."

So for most readers the sheer absurdity is easily to spot. Almost nothing happens in a week, and on top of all of that since when do we measure progress by a single pound - a pound that we can maintain or release simply by choosing or not choosing to pee.

Regardless, this was her reality. In her mind, she is changing how she eats. That isn't easy for anyone to do. For some people, and I'm including my own mom in this, the changes they are making seem a lot bigger than they actually are. She was angry and upset because she felt she had "done something" but "lost nothing" in a week.

I knew she never had good eating habits in terms of scheduling regular meals. Even when I was little sometimes dinner would be as late as 10 p.m. As our conversation continued I realize that she's still eating only twice a day, once early in the morning and again late at night. So while she thinks she's doing something positive by eating less (and better food with the "diet"), she's really doing more harm than good.

Your body needs food to operate properly. Food is energy. When your body senses that you're either very irregular about providing it with needed energy or likely to leave large gaps of time between meals -- it reacts by holding on to every bit of what it has. Your body will store fat because it provide the "emergency" energy it may need in the event of a severe loss of food supply. Some of our ancestors needed this for when say, the White men came along and killed off the entire Bison population. Anyway, your body is likely only to release it when it knows that you'll be providing it with a nice regular supply of good energy.

The same basic philosophy applies to working out - your body needs to be convinced that resistance is futile and that you're going to keep on burning off the calories until it releases a pound of fat. For those of you don't know, it takes a net loss of 3,500 calories to slop off a pound of fat. That's 500 a day for a week that you need to burn off in addition to what you regularly burn. So . . . the equation is: eat less, move more. However if you aren't eating throughout the day something consisting of a "good" carb and some protein you are messing up the equation because without proper nutrition you'll have a lot less energy and retain a lot more water which means in all likelihood you'll be moving a lot less and getting fatter by the second. Yikes!

So, my advice to my mom was to stick with her plan but not to evaluate her success on a pound, instead on how well she sticks to the plan (which consists of eating 3 small meals and 3 snacks throughout the day). She is going to do this for 4 weeks and I am going to try to call her as often as possible to remind her. We came up with some solutions like George Foreman-ing a bunch of marinated chicken and putting them with some brown rice in individual dishes. We are also focusing on getting her moving for 30 minutes a day.

It really made me sad to hear her so upset about her weight. I can remember her feeling this way at many points in the past, she's tried so many diets and even hypnosis. The problem is that results don't come fast enough - but they never do, for anyone. I love my mom and I want her to love herself as much as I love her. I asked her when the last time was that she felt good in her body. She said 1976. That's 30 years ago - you're not going to reverse 30 years in just over a week, but that can be the first step in that direction. It's all about consistency people - no matter what you decide you're going to do at the gym, or involving your food intake - make the decision and commit to it for at least a month. Don't step on a scale, wear your baggiest clothes and just focus on whatever it is you decided to do (work out 5 times a week, eat only whole grains, no more soda, etc.).

A lot of people can make the decision, but can't stick with it. It's like they know what they should be doing but "life" gets in the way - especially exercise. At some point you have to put your own health at the top of the priority list. Like I told my mom, her customers are still going to get the photos she's working on - they won't have a panic attack if it's 30 minutes later, the shop won't close down if she puts a sign on the door saying "back in a half an hour." It's one step and one day at a time but the first step needs to be moving your physical and mental health to the top of your list priorities.

Really now, what good is anything (the perfect job, boyfriend, car, cute underwear) if you don't feel good in your own skin?

So happy Mother's Day to moms everywhere and those who love them.