Effective weight reduction, guaranteed

I put that title up there cuz I know Fat and its loss are fairly universal thoughts. Maybe a lot of people will visit Slight Detour today or some other day to learn THE SECRET.

Well, I've got a few I learned over the years, and it seems recent events around my little world tell me that today is a good day to offer my tips on how to lose weight and to keep it off.

Fat has been on my mind for several reasons: first, there are the holidays which are Fat's best friends. I doubt too many people come out of the holiday period free of extra poundage. It's a struggle, especially when you're baking all the time and having to test your product. So, this post-holiday season is always good for talk about fat reduction.

Then, I attended a celebration of life yesterday where afterward I told a story of my most recent and long-lasting fat reduction. This morning the Breakfast Boys on K102 Country station were weighing in. Jeff had lost four pounds, while Derek had lost one.

Some listener called in, bragged about how he was 52 and weighed just over 150 pounds. He told them he knew how they could lose weight in a hurry.

To Derek's inquiry of "How?" he said, "Start flinging freight like I do. That'll take it off." Then, he said something about "getting a real job." The Breakfast Boys didn't get too mad at him except to suggest that he had the nerve to request "The Battle of New Orleans" while insulting them about their profession, which does not help them much in the battle of their bulge.

I came to the house figuring that the fat gods were talking to me and urging me to tell my story. So, here goes for all of you who have tried every diet in the book only to add five more pounds cuz of all the stress.

First time I lost a lot of weight was during the diet pill aka SPEED craze. That was back in the mid-60s. Speed will take it off, I guarantee, but it's not a good idea cuz you get addicted. By the time I had lost 24 pounds in less than a month, the doctors across the nation who had dispensed all those pills to their pleasingly plump patients discovered they had a potential problem on their hands.

Suddenly, those diet pills were no longer available, but food was still around. I had to do something to make up for not having my morning pill that lasted 12 hours and kept me in perpetual motion through most of that time. A slice of baloney for the day usually sufficed, during diet pill days.

After diet-pill days, I was back to my three-layer sandwiches, maybe even two a day, and that was just for lunch! The weight returned as quickly as it had disappeared.

The next time I lost a lot of weight was in the early '70s. That happened fairly quickly after I unknowingly became a "cover girl." Call me Ugly Betty on this one. My picture, penned by some unhappy, mean-spirited student appeared on the cover of an underground newspaper, distributed around the community.

The motivation was there, along with the pain. I knew I could never do anything to change the opinion that young man had about me but I could certainly do something about the opinion I had about myself. I announced to everyone that I was going on a diet and it would be a diet of my own design, adding that if my methods didn't suit what anyone thought was right, to keep their mouth shut.

Over 13 months, I shed 70 pounds and had to purchase an entire new wardrobe, the latter of which did not pain me in the least. My method worked for me. It may not work for someone else, but like Pavlov's Dog, I respond to rewards. If I've been good, I get to eat. That meant it was important to have something to look forward to each day.

So, my method included no breakfast, an apple for lunch (I could still eat apples back then before my stomach went crazy) and whatever I wanted for dinner, including dessert. Removing two or three slices of toast smothered in margarine, peanut butter and honey from my breakfast menu along with those triple-decker sandwiches for lunch produced dramatic results.

Oh, my stomach growled for a few days, but it finally shut up and got used to the fact that it was gonna have to just wait. I always enjoyed my evening meal with no guilt, knowing I had earned it. Plus, I felt a lot better and became more active than I had been in years.

That weight stayed off, and my life changed for the good. Then, came parenthood. The standard ten-pound weight gain with each child and the inability to take off for long bike rides or walks worked against me. Over the years, the piles of papers to grade stacked up, and the need to sit while grading increased with each year.

So, the weight gradually returned, never to the point of my earlier life but enough to make me aware of an increase in clothes sizes. During the last years of my teaching career, some students, whom I eventually named the Seinfeld Gang, came into my life----MORE often than I cared.

They were funny, smart kids with quirky senses of humor. They loved to lovingly harass their teachers. The celebration of life I attended yesterday was a beautiful tribute to one of their mothers, a much beloved teacher in our community.

In my case, and in the case of many others, these kids also loved to show up at our homes, unannounced. During that last year, they came more often than usual, often with a video camera.

In many cases, I would be just firing up one of my lawn implements. Sometimes, the lawn implements would not be cooperating, and to add to the misery, I'd see that familiar red car come rolling in the driveway, with a video camera stuck out the side window capturing the whole scene. One time they even showed up shortly after 4 a.m. as I was walking out to get my morning paper.

The camera was rolling.

At the end of the year, during an all-school awards assembly, the Seinfeld Gang made a presentation. It was the video they had spliced together, featuring all those visits to my home or to my classroom. Their production was meant to be my retirement gift, and I was very touched by their devotion. Nonetheless, I was also horrified with what I saw.

When you're bending over a rototiller, trying to get the damn thing to start, you don't exactly look like Kristy Brinkley. Moreover, if it looks like your riding lawnmower is really a mini-mower cuz you're covering half of it up with your body fat, that's not a pretty sight.

After watching that video at school and reviewing it once more, I decided it was time once again for serious weight loss. I had retired so I had no "piles of papers to grade" excuse. I followed a diet similar to the one of the '70s.

I started riding my bike, a lot, and walking more. I determined that after all those years when Bill had irritated me by parking the car at the far end of the parking lot to "make room for the little old ladies," it was time for this "big old lady" to do the same.

Dieting does not have to be Draconian. In my case, I did little things, like instead of that big fat, juicy bacon cheeseburger, I ate just the innards and not the outer bun. I cut out pasta and most of the potatoes I'd been eating. I found that eliminating pasta, potatoes and bread (all my favorites) makes a huge difference in the poundage.

Between the additional, somewhat painless exercise and the elimination of the big calorie items, I was able to shed 40 pounds over about six months. I've managed to keep most of it off. And, at the same time I went on that diet, my mother was diagnosed with congestive heart disease. The bong went off in my head. "If you don't keep your weight off and remain active," the same will happen to you," it said.

At that point, I realized on my own, without the help of a fitness coach or any of those experts you see on Oprah, that it's not a diet. Instead, it's a lifelong daily task requiring a nice mix of exercise along with using common sense in the eating department. If I eat more than usual, I'll either eat less than usual the next day or I do something physical to burn off the calories.

Simple as that.

And, I'll tell you that life once again has been much more exhilarating than it ever was during the lazy, unproductive "fat" days. Plus, I always think back on those blunt motivators that pushed me into action. In both cases they were visuals that did not lie.

So, there's Marianne's method for shedding the blubber. I'm hoping I can stick to this discipline for the rest of my life.

In fact, when I think about my personal fears in life, one of the biggest rivals the bad dreams I have about starting to smoke again. In those cases, I'm always happy to wake up and find out with great relief that it was just a dream.

The same is true about eating and putting on those pounds. It's truly a nightmare to think about putting on extra weight. That, along with the fervant desire to stay healthy as long as possible, provides a continual motivator.