A Tale Of Two Siblings

As you may recall, my "baby" brother did Optifast in the early 1980s, when he was in High School, almost  three decades ago. That's how I knew about the program. My memory of him going through it is sketchy, but I do remember photos of him taken when he was through. He looked great, smiling, very handsome. (He's still handsome!) Some have asked how he is today, and I smile. Honestly? Perhaps at the heaviest weight he has ever been. Why? Because he's fallen in love, they love to go out to eat, he's raising two kids, he doesn't exercise, and he's very busy at work.

He told me he knows what he needs to do -- exercise and diet -- and he's pretty darn close to reaching his "breaking point" of moving into action. Oh he's been here before. Many times. He's a "yo-yo" dieter. He's very, very intelligent and knows what drives his behavior psychologically and emotionally. He'll tell you straight up he's terrible at discipline. He's dead honest that weight is going to be problem for him for the rest of his life. I really appreciate his honesty, and his support through my entire Optifast program and now maintenance is deeply, deeply appreciated.

I'm blessed to have him in my life.

In my case, I was the one in the family who never really had to diet. For as long as I can remember, I was roughly a size 12-14 and could eat pretty much anything I wanted. I was never compelled to overeat, I would start exercising pretty regularly if I thought things were slipping, I never went on a diet. My problems with weight did not crop up until 10 years ago when my thyroid went nuts and concurrently I got married and started cooking up a storm in the kitchen every day. Up, up, up my weight went and then the trips to the women's section at the department store started, and my self esteem started plummeting, and before you know it, I'm stepping on the scale at my Optifast clinic.

Will my brother enroll in the Optifast clinic again? No. Why? Well, we haven't delved too deeply into this, but I'd wager a guess he knows how rigid and restrictive it is, what it takes to see it the whole way through, and he's been there, done that, and doesn't want to repeat the experience. He also approached maintenance quite differently from me: the first night after he reached goal, he went out and had an extremely fattening meal at a very nice restaurant. He didn't measure anything, he had no anxiety over weight gain, he didn't obsessively weigh himself twice a day. He was in his teens. In a much different phase of his life.

Despite our terrible metabolic rates, the Optifast program worked for my brother. And the Optifast program worked for me. He gained his weight back. We don't know what will happen to me. But we both know this: There's no reason  to blame Optifast or any other diet if you gain all your weight back. The problem is squarely on your own shoulders, in your own head. Don't fool yourself going into the program: Your greatest struggle will not come until the maintenance phase. That's the truth.

In my limited experience so far, this maintenance creature takes a heck of an amount of hard work. At first. I don't want to be a yo-yo dieter like my brother. On the one hand, I don't think my system could handle that; on the other hand, emotionally, I know I couldn't handle that. There is much to learn from his experiences, and I am glad he is sharing it with me.Weight will always, always be an issue for my brother, and now an issue for me. I've got a slight edge on him with the discipline factor, but he's got the edge on me with his experience in dieting. I guess we can help one another in our own journeys. It doesn't hurt that he's a psychologist, too! Together we go through this thing called "life." Glad he's around to help me get through.