“Is it possible to lose weight and keep it off forever?” That was the first question the serious high school student had for me as a contributor to the paper he was writing for his health class. “I can’t tell you about forever,” I told him, “but I’ve kept off 60 pounds for over 30 years.”
“That’s forever,” he assured me, and for all intents and purposes, I guess it is.
I don’t talk a lot about my food history anymore, although I did write a book about it, The Love-Powered Diet (Lantern Books, 2009). I figure that’s out there for anyone who’s interested, but the topic is such a loaded one, I tend to stay away. I remember the demoralization of losing weight and gaining it back, and I admire people who say: “I’m done with this. I’m going to live well at the size I am whether anybody likes it or not.”
I actually said that, too. For me, it was a desperate prayer: “God, I don’t care if I ever get thin, but please, just make me free.” In my case, the binge-eating and remorse were far more troubling than the size of my body. I’d asked for what I wanted. And after I did, the weight came off – not because I dieted, because I stopped. Here’s what happened, told through the questions of that student.
How long did it take you to lose 60 pounds?
Everybody asks that, but it’s the wrong question. The right question is, “How long has it stayed off?” In my case, before the problem ended, my weight had gone up and down a lot. It was highest – around 180 – in my early twenties. I was ten pounds lighter than that when I asked for freedom – and got it – at thirty-three. To lose the remaining 50 pounds took a little more than year, I think. I wasn’t paying attention to the scale. I was paying attention to a new and vastly satisfying way of life.
What was that?
Two stunning things happened after I asked for freedom. First, I opened up to recovery in a 12-step program for overeaters. Secondly, I became vegan – something I’d tried and failed at dozens of times before. I felt that I’d struck gold. This was the perfect combination: a way of life that taught me how not to eat for a fix, and a way of eating that relieved my guilt and shame and guaranteed that I’d never go on another diet.
How do you think going vegan helped you lose weight and keep it off?
I’m able to eat substantial portions. In all those years of dieting, I don’t think I ever got full. Now I get full at every meal. The secret, I think, boils down to two macronutrients in foods from the plant kingdom: fiber and water. Neither provides calories but they have other benefits.
Whole grains, beans, vegetables, fruits, and (to a lesser extent) nuts have a lot of fiber. Beans even have a kind of fiber called “resistant starch” that keeps you from metabolizing all the calories in the beans. Not only that: this resistant starch gives what’s called the “second-meal effect,” so that the beans in your chili at lunchtime mean that you metabolize fewer of the calories in your pasta at dinner.
Raw fruits and vegetables are also very high in water, which provides additional bulk. This extra water also helps keeps you hydrated, and dehydration is one established cause of sugar cravings.
In addition, these foods from nature have a full complement of nutrients – everything humans need to get from food is here in abundance, with the exception of vitamin B12, which is very easy to get from a supplement. Feeling genuinely nourished – possibly for the first time ever – eliminated one more reason to overeat, that mindless searching for what’s missing on a nutritional level.
Is that all?
That’s all that’s physical and measurable, but there’s something else: I finally felt at peace when I knew I was no longer supporting an industry that caused such an egregious amount of suffering and slaughter. Once that burden was lifted, the lethargy and fear through which I’d cycled, in rather the same way that I’d cycled through diets and binges, abated. I felt better about myself and wanted to treat myself with more kindness and respect. I also felt that my life had more value, and that my experience could help others – humans and animals. That’s why I’ve called plant-sourced eating “the good karma diet.”
What do you do now to be sure you don’t gain the weight back?
I’m tempted to say “Nothing!” because that’s what it feels like. I certainly don’t diet or otherwise manipulate my food or count calories or fat grams or anything else. But I have developed certain habits that I’m sure account for some of why this feels so effortless. For example, I eat three meals a day. They’re substantial and satisfying and each one tides me over till the next. I like eating when it’s time to eat and living in between. I don’t think much about food the rest of the time.
I do some kind spoken or silent blessing of each meal. It was hard to be grateful in my bingeing days.
I eat pretty simply most of the time. Breakfast is a smoothie or oatmeal or chia pudding with lots of berries and other fruit, ground flax and chia, slivered almonds, and vegan milk – almond, soy, or my current favorite, flax. And tea – hot and steamy and vegan-creamy. I love my tea. I love all my food.
Lunch is big – usually either a giant salad with beans and steamed broccoli or sweet potato, or “Death-Defying Garbanzos and Greens” – that’s a recipe I contributed to The Main Street Vegan Academy Cookbook. It’s basically sautéed onion, garlic, ginger and turmeric, mushrooms, garbanzos or other beans, and kale or chard or arugula. Sometimes I have some really good bread with either the salad or the stir-fry, and maybe a little dark chocolate for dessert, or some nuts and dried fruit.
Dinner is similar, but smaller – often salad with a raw or cooked scoop of something – vegan “tuna” salad (I have half a dozen recipes, based on chickpeas or tofu or sunflower seeds), or couscous and veggies, or a spicy black bean, tomato, and corn salad – or a wonderful soup, and maybe a muffin or some banana bread I baked myself. And I have a fresh green juice every day. It always feels like a transfusion of vitality.
Do other vegans eat like you?
Some do, but food choices are very individual. Being vegan is a commitment to compassionate choices. Within those parameters, we all choose what works for us. Like everybody else, vegans are different people, with different lives and backgrounds and activity levels. One of the things I love about being vegan – and that’s so different from the old dieting days – is that nobody tells me how I should eat. People tell me what they eat, and I get a lot of valuable information that way, but there are no “should’s.”
But what about vegan junk food?
I started on this road back in 1983. We had potato chips and French fries and soda then, but not much else in the way of vegan “junk food.” Even Oreos weren’t vegan yet! In committing to living without animal products, I’d pretty much resigned myself to vegetables, fruits, whole grains, beans, and nuts and seeds. I’d never been much for fried food; my 12-step work was helping me make peace with the sweets I sometimes still craved; and my biggest binge food – cheese – was out of the question for a vegan at that time. I think it’s great that all kinds of processed foods now exist in animal-free versions so no one can fall back on, “I’d be vegan, but I can’t live without pizza.” And nobody has to. I eat vegan pizza sometimes. But I like just as much beans and rice and salad and smoothies and tofu and greens and ice cream made in the food processor from nothing but frozen bananas. It may sound abstemious, but it’s really bounty every day.
Do you exercise?
Reluctantly! I wish I could tell you that I’m a committed vegan athlete, as so many of my colleagues are, but I’m not. I strive for 10,000 steps on the FitBit, which isn’t too hard since I live in Manhattan, and my husband and I keep each other honest about getting to the gym in our building to do some weight training four days a week. The one activity that I’m almost hooked on is aerial yoga. I didn’t discover this until well into mid-life, so I don’t do a lot of super-impressive moves, but it feels like flying to me. There’s something very satisfying about being suspended, free from the ordinary workings of gravity for awhile.
What would you tell someone struggling with weight right now?
Go easy on yourself. You live in a culture with a food system designed to create obesity and when it succeeds at that, it blames the victims. Maybe you just need a break, some time off from worrying about food and your body and just surrendering to self-acceptance. I’d still suggest you move into veganism. That will save lives, make you happier, and probably healthier too.
If you eat for emotional solace in ways you wish you didn’t, or if you feel that you’re addicted to certain foods or patterns (i.e., night eating) and you’d like to be free of that, check out Overeaters Anonymous. It can be a godsend. It doesn’t cost anything, and it’s not a “diet club.” It’s about what underlies disordered eating, and the support and fellowship are there for you all your life, even when weight issues are history.
Victoria Moran (www.mainstreetvegan.com) is the coauthor, with author and a culinary instructor, JL Fields, VLCE, of The Main Street Vegan Academy Cookbook, publishing in December and now on preorder. Victoria enjoys New York City; her rescue-dog Forbes; speaking about veganism; and bragging about both her daughter, Adair, a lifelong vegan and stunt performer, and the 280 graduates of Main Street Vegan Academy, creating a kinder world in 20 countries so far.