Finding It: And Finally Satisfying My Hunger for Life (2 page)

I have a different take. I think that the slingshot-sized thongs that Tom and most men think of as ideal are thoroughly uncomfortable. After a few men walk around with what is essentially a string of dental floss up their butt all day, I would gladly talk to them about women’s underwear. That said, panties
are
a fairly accurate indicator of the way a woman feels about herself.

As Tom would find out once we got to Laguna, I was feeling pretty good about myself.

In many ways, I was better than ever. Just a month earlier, I had let the world see me in a bikini. I’d shot a commercial and a magazine cover, wearing for the first time what I had not dared put on in almost thirty years. I was a little uncomfortable showing that much skin, but, hey, I’d worked my butt off getting in shape, so why not show off a little?

But getting in a bikini was only part of the story. There was so much more that people couldn’t see because the transformation had taken place on the inside, deep down in the gooey center. When I saw myself on the cover of
People
magazine, I noticed glimpses of it in my eyes. Granted, most people weren’t looking there. But I saw a light and an alive-ness and a renewed hunger for life that hadn’t been there since I was a kid, back before I’d eaten my way through life’s challenges, insecurities, fears, and disappointments.

I was serious when I said, “I can’t believe I did it.” But I was talking about more than just fitting into a bikini.

Losing forty pounds was an accomplishment, and getting into a bikini was the exclamation point to all that effort. But anyone who has lost weight—and kept it off—knows that shedding pounds is only the first step in the much bigger and longer project of transformation.
But I hadn’t known this. Why? I had never kept the weight off.

Over the years, I had gone on more diets than I could count or even remember. Every one of them had worked. I had lost weight. But up till now, I had always failed to keep it off. I’m not alone here. Millions of people know what I’m talking about. Everyone who has gone on a diet knows how to lose weight. All of us are very good at it. The problem is, few of us know how to keep it off. According to the research I found, between 92 and 95 percent of those who lose weight on a diet end up regaining every one of those pounds, and sometimes a few more, within five years. That’s insane. It’s a problem. And it begs the question, what are we doing wrong?

I thought about this after I reached my weight-loss goal and announced to those following my progress that I was transitioning to maintenance. Then, I woke up that next day and the day after and on days after those and asked myself, What does that mean, maintenance?

One day, I said to myself, “Holy crap! I’ve been here before and messed up. What had I done wrong? What do I have to do differently this time to keep the weight off?”

Well, as far as I’m concerned, this is the part of weight loss that no one ever talks about: the reality of keeping it off. I think the reason why so many of us have always gained back our weight after months of hard work, self-discipline, and sweat is that we don’t know what to do once we hit our goal. We aren’t given this crucial information.

I want to change that. Having lost 40 pounds and kept it off for a year, I have figured some things out and acquired some wisdom and insight that I wish I had known as I set out on my weight-loss
journey, starting with one fact: Above and beyond all else, losing weight and maintenance are two completely different endeavors.

I had assumed that switching gears from losing weight to maintenance simply meant watching what I ate and exercising daily, but in a more relaxed mode. I was wrong. Maintaining this new, slimmer, healthier version of myself required even more work. Harder work, too.

Talk about a shock!

Talk about a revelation!

When I looked at this new, thinner version of myself, the one who had reached her goal by losing 40 pounds, the one who was supposedly ready to change gears into maintenance, I realized that I wasn’t finished. Inside, I didn’t feel finished. As it turned out, I wasn’t.

Who knew?

I didn’t. As I said, on previous diets, I had always lost weight and then regained it plus some extra. I had never been able to keep it off. I would hit my goal, give myself a few days of leniency for good behavior, maybe reward myself with a treat or two and, before I knew it, the weight was piling back on.

This time I vowed not to let that happen to me. However, after losing weight in front of the world, I didn’t want to go through the humiliation of regaining it in front of world. I shuddered at the thought of going into the supermarket and seeing the headlines, “Valerie Bertinelli Fat Again.” I didn’t want to disappoint myself, either.

That was the real issue. I looked good, I felt great, and most important I was learning to like myself more and more. I didn’t want to lose any of that. In fact, as I discovered, I wanted to keep
going! I couldn’t believe it. Losing weight was an eye-opener—a game-changer, as they say on the sports channels.

Losing weight was merely the beginning of a process, and I needed to get in sync with that reality and act accordingly. In other words, by dieting, I had only fixed one problem, my weight. To maintain it, I had to work on everything else—all the things that had made me get fat in the first place.

For me, maintenance became not an effort to keep my weight the same but a daily effort to continue to evolve and grow and work at becoming my best self. Since I began, I have found it exciting, frustrating, challenging, confusing, and ultimately the most rewarding project I have tackled. It should be. It’s my life!

In this book, I talk about some of the busiest, hardest, and best days of my life. My teenage son, Wolfie, fell in love; Tom’s four wonderful children became more involved in our life together; my mom battled a serious illness; and on top of everything, I worked my butt off (literally) to get into bikini shape for a new Jenny Craig marketing campaign—as if, at age forty-eight, I needed that additional test.

Without knowing any better until I dived in, I needed it more than I realized. It took me to the next level, and along the way I was able to look at the big issues in my life, including family, career, health, friendship, and faith. Though I wasn’t always clear about what I believed, my definition of maintenance came to include a deeper sense of faith, a closer relationship with God, and an attempt to find a sense of peace and comfort.

In many ways, the problems I have had to confront sound like a season’s worth of plots on a family sitcom. But I’ll take that over the alternatives. As far as I’m concerned, it’s better—and healthier—to laugh than overeat. (Laughing also burns calories. How convenient!)
These are tough times for all of us. If you don’t believe me, turn on the TV, read a newspaper, or just listen to me argue politics with my father.

But there’s hope that life will work out. I found hope, and continue to find it, in unlikely places. And I’ve seen other people find it, too. We have a new president who, agree with him or not, recognizes that hope above all else is what offers light on the darkest of days.

I came to realize (and I hope you will, too) that success isn’t measured solely by stepping on the scale. That’s part of it. But the way you and I want to feel goes beyond what we weigh every morning. You have to pay attention to the voice you hear in your head (the good one) and the feeling in your heart.

As you read further, you will see that I have tried to tell the kinds of stories that I would have wanted to hear or needed to hear as I switched gears from dieting to maintenance. In a way, it’s as if I’m opening up my underwear drawer for the world to look at. You’re going to find all styles and colors—except for granny panties—and learn about the stuff that wasn’t necessarily visible, the stuff that happened to me on the inside as I continued on this crazy, fun, frustrating, emotional, and joyous journey of trying to create my best and healthiest self.

Two years ago I set out to lose weight. I succeeded, but ended up embarking on a whole other journey to find whatever that elusive thing was that had been missing in my life; the thing that once I found it, would give me peace and make me feel good, as if everything was okay and as it should be; the thing that would satisfy my physical as well as inner hunger.

This is my story of that search.

One more thing: please know that I don’t always know what I’m doing, but I know that trying is much better than the alternative. If life has one constant, it’s change. Like it or not, all of us experience change. We change diapers, change outfits, change relationships, jobs, dress sizes, ages, opinions… or change the way we look at ourselves and, ultimately, our lives.

I needed to make a change in my life, a big one, and I did. In order to maintain that success, I realized I needed, and in fact wanted, to continue to transform and evolve. And along the way I realized that the constant remolding of our gooey center is the key to enjoying life’s desserts—even if we are watching our weight.

The only time I enjoyed being fat was when I was pregnant. I weighed nearly 180 pounds, and I was in heaven. As I ate Italian subs that my mom made to tide me over between meals, I would smile at the thought of the miracle of bringing a life into this world, a life that I would raise and nurture, guide and fill with love and wisdom. It was a special time in my life.

I did not think the same thing when that miraculous creation of mine called on the phone from the road where he was touring with his father’s band and said, “Hey, Ma, can I sleep at my girlfriend’s house?”

I wanted to vomit.

Actually, I wanted to open the fridge and eat everything on the second shelf, the third shelf, and then the top shelf. Not even the old brick of cheddar with the mold on it was safe from the surge of anxiety and uncertainty I felt at that moment.

I kept my head on, though, and said, “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

After we’d said goodbye, I held the phone at arm’s length in shock. Wolfie’s question lingered in the air, like a smoke signal in an old western portending imminent danger.

I looked around for Tom to ask him how I had gotten to this place. He had gone outside, which was lucky for me. With gleeful sarcasm, he would have reminded me that this situation was the result of one night nearly eighteen years earlier when I had gotten frisky with my then-husband, Ed. Now I had a sixteen-and-three-quarters-year-old teenager who wanted to sleep with his girlfriend.

Then Tom came through the front door whistling his happy tune. I was still debating whether to eat or throw up. I filled him in on the news.

“Tell me again—what did Wolfie say exactly?” he asked.

“He said he wanted to sleep at Liv’s house,” I said.

“Well, that’s not exactly saying he wants to sleep
with
her,” he said.

“You’re talking semantics,” I said. “I’m thinking sex.”

“You are?” he said, his face unfolding in a giant smile.

“Oh, shut up,” I snapped. “What is it with men? I’m in a quandary, and you’ve somehow turned this around and think you’re going to get lucky.”