If your latest attempt at dieting has died yet another death, maybe it's time to get to the root of the problem and get rid of it -- the problem as well as the weight -- once and for all.
Overeaters Anonymous seeks a spiritual
A success story
solution to keeping off the pounds
"Get Fit" continuesBy Pat Gee
pgee@starbulletin.com
If the mere thought of another "diet" makes you reach automatically for a chocolate chip cookie, you have lots of company. An alarming 64.5 percent of Americans are overweight or obese, according to Overeaters Anonymous. At the same time, millions of dollars are spent on failed diet fads and exercise programs. Money can't buy the willpower to stay with these weight-loss attempts.
COURTESY PHOTO
Pam Helepololei shows off her slimmed-down figure, after three years on Weight Watchers.
See how she looked before, below
Betty, a member of Overeaters Anonymous for more than 20 years, said joining the organization is for "people who have tried everything and felt like a failure. ... It's for the last-gaspers."
(Overeaters Anonymous members are not allowed to give their last names to anyone outside the group, out of respect for the individual's privacy. Martha, who avoided weight gain through binging-and-purging, said, "I wouldn't want my friends to know I had my head in a toilet bowl for four years.")
AT THE HEART of OA's philosophy is self-discovery. The program encourages individuals to find out what's eating at them. Its method differs from others in that participants are required to admit they are powerless over food, that they have no willpower to stop compulsive overeating and that they need to call upon a higher power to recover.
It's not a religious solution -- although some churches do have weight-loss groups -- but a spiritual one designed for people of all kinds of faith. The term "higher power" was popularized on a secular level by Alcoholics Anonymous, the original 12-step recovery program on which OA is based.
But 12 whole steps for dieters? Some overweight people can't even climb that many, much less follow so many rules. OA doesn't expect anyone to recover at once, said Betty, who points out the simplicity of taking one step at a time, one day at a time. Instead of being overwhelmed by the 50 pounds you have to lose, OA recommends tackling just one pound at a time.
And this doesn't mean sacrificing favorite foods to eat yogurt the rest of your life. A qualified health professional can be enlisted to devise a food plan to fit your needs, including outlining what foods, how much, when and where you can have them.
Also important is having a sponsor to check in with, someone who won't berate you if you cheat on your diet and who can encourage you to understand the fears and emotions you may be trying to smother with food.
"If I call someone, something magical happens when I reach for a person rather than overeating," Betty said. "This made me believe in a higher power more than anything else."
MARTHA said OA is not only for people who are carrying excess pounds. She looks as though she doesn't have a weight problem, but she said she was obsessed with food to the point that it controlled her life. Her helplessness over her food cravings made her turn to OA for help about 10 years ago.
Betty has been in recovery for 18 years from bulimia, the same eating disorder that Martha had suffered from. Betty weighed 220 pounds, having tried diet pills, shots and everything else -- finally resorting to bulimia. She became so dehydrated, she nearly died.
"It was just awful; I was frantic. I became addicted (to throwing up) so quickly. I promised myself over and over that I wouldn't do it again, but I would. I was so out of control," she recalls.
"I was so hungry emotionally. I had so many hungers in my life that never got the attention they needed," she said. "I was using food as a drug."
Some of the things people hunger for, she said, are really the "need for fellowship, a change of job or maybe a living situation -- changes I was never aware of as long as I was stuffing my feelings down with food. (Now in recovery) it is so monumental to me to feel every feeling I have.
"OA has given me a quality of life I had not known was possible. I will resolve any issue in my life. I love it! I am so totally against denial," said Betty, who has kept off 70 pounds.
BUt self-knowledge is the only ticket out of despair.
"It takes an act of God. Now a lot of people are going to say, 'What!?' and get turned off by the idea of asking for help from a higher power," Betty said.
"People who really want to recover stick around and find that higher power. Some say they will use the group (they join) as their higher power till they figure something else out. That was my feeling, and it's kind of typical for agnostics."
Another important step is to attend scheduled meetings -- it took three a week for her to recover -- to receive and offer encouragement.
"Without meetings, I would start rationalizing why I can eat a piece of chocolate cake. I've never eaten just one piece of chocolate cake in my life! Then I'd want half of a chocolate cake, and have to have it for the next two days. I don't even play that game anymore. I wouldn't jeopardize what I have for anything."
The 12-step program is "the most difficult thing to learn," Betty said. "Being accountable is not a real popular thing. I still overeat a little bit. But I keep getting back on track. I do my prayers, meditation, go to meetings, read the literature, call my sponsor."
In existence since 1960, OA has a lower profile than many other weight-control organizations. OA isn't identified by a celebrity spokesperson, best-selling book or flashy gimmick.
Betty believes OA is less known because the 12-step program is difficult to live up to. "But after the hard part, it's like you've fallen into a gold mine."
Overeaters Anonymous
Weight Watchers
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COURTESY PHOTO
Helepololei before losing 180 pounds.
Pam Helepololei, of Mililani, lived the life of a 337-pound woman and was fed up with it. A former size 30 sheds
180 pounds in three yearsBy Pat Gee
pgee@starbulletin.comFrom the time she was a little girl, the boys at school would taunt her, "Fat girl! Fat girl!"
Her knees were in pain from carrying all that weight, and she was embarrassed to go out because she felt people were staring at her. Helepololei couldn't fit into restaurant booths because "my stomach was too big." She wanted to wear pants but couldn't find a size big enough.
She tried to lose weight through different programs, but it would always come back. At the age of 52 she went to Weight Watchers, determined to lose about 180 pounds.
That was about three years ago. Now, Helepololei has not only reached her goal weight of 165 -- "the doctor said that was good enough" -- but she went further, to 157 pounds, "just to see if I (could). I haven't been that size since I was 14."
Helepololei is 5 feet 6 inches tall and now wears a size 10 or 12, and lives happily on about 1,200 to 1,300 calories a day, the Weight Watchers equivalent of 20 to 25 points (at about 50 calories per point).
Before she started the program, she wore a size 28 or 30 dress -- the largest size available in the Lane Bryant catalog specializing in clothes for overweight women. Helepololei said she had no idea how many calories she was taking in per day, but guesses it must have been about 4,000 calories.
Once she made up her mind, staying on the program was "one of the hardest pleasures I've ever done!" she said. It took "a lot of patience and willpower. ... It hasn't been easy, it's still not easy. ... I don't know how I kept it up this long. I pray every night, but not about weight loss, just things in general," Helepololei said.
To conquer her cravings, she eats a lot of fruit, chews gum or has a Weight Watchers chocolate snack bar, which she describes as delicious and equivalent to only two points. She religiously weighs everything or uses cup or spoon measurements to be sure her portions are the right size.
The program allows her to eat anything she wants as long as it falls within her point allowance.
"I eat anything. If I feel like Taco Bell, I eat it," she said.
HELEPOLOLEI had joined Weight Watchers twice before but says the organization's food plan has changed a lot. Before, it required participants to eat fish -- which she didn't care for -- seven times a week.
"You gotta have something you can live with the rest of your life that's not too structured. (The plan) allows more freedom with the choice of food. I don't feel hungry at all," she said.
Weight Watchers also requires that members delve into the reasons they overeat. Linda Giles, Hawaii's Weight Watchers general manager, said that when people don't examine their reasons, "any weight loss is temporary." Understanding "why I'm trying to fill some hole in my life (with food) is crucial."
But Helepololei said that type of self-examination was not important in her case. "I don't want to blame anything, like an unhappy childhood; I had a very happy childhood. I take full responsibility because I like to eat too much. I don't care if I ever find out why. ... It doesn't matter as long as I'm doing OK. But everybody's different."
The Weight Watchers program also offers "tools for living" that help members focus on the positive.
"It feels better to say, 'I am in control' than 'I am powerless' in the face of Oreos," said Giles, who understands firsthand about losing weight. She shed 80 pounds and kept them off for 10 years on the program.
One of the strategies is to use "positive self-talk," she said, instead of running yourself down. Another is reframing, or looking at the same set of circumstances in a positive, rather than negative, way.
Weight Watchers, founded in 1963, has 39,000 chapters around the world. Its program is based on input from scientists, doctors and nutritionists. Highly organized, the groups' weekly meetings always cover the same subjects, no matter what country or part of the country you're in, Giles said.
Staff members comprise people who joined the program with weight-loss goals and who have been trained to lead the discussions.
The cost of membership is $39, but occasional specials reduce the amount to $14 or free. It costs $10 to $12 a week to attend a meeting, where confidential weigh-ins are recommended but not mandatory.
The staff offers encouragement and support by phone, 487-3373 or 800-651-6000. Weekly meeting schedules in Hawaii may be obtained by calling the first number.
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