2. Keeping The Weight Off Means You Probably Have To Become Neurotic
It's no surprise, then, that to maintain any kind of permanent weight loss (at least over a certain amount), you have to become totally neurotic. It isn't like a race, where you run until the finish line and then it's over, back to normal. Because our bodies are evil, the price of thinness is eternal vigilance. One NYT article on weight-loss - which makes for intriguing but morbid reading - offers the example of one woman who lost 135 pounds, and maintained her weight loss for five years. Good going, but the cost to her makes almost tragic reading: she weighs not only herself every day, but also everything in her kitchen, and religiously knows or calculates the exact calorific content of everything she eats, avoiding her gateway drugs of sugar and white flour. Hers reads like a rigorously policed half-life. If that kind of attention to something as daily, as instinctive as eating isn't neurotic, I don't know what is. Do you measure exactly how much water you use when you shower? How much soap? Do you weigh your bowel movements every morning?
After obtaining a BA in Philosophy and Creative Writing, Katherine spent two years and change teaching English in South Korea. Now she lives in Sweden and edits articles for Turkish science journals. When she isn't writing, editing, or working on her NaNo novel, Katherine enjoys video games, movies, and British television.
