A Weight Shall be Lifted

It is the week before Yom Kippur and I am working on New Year’s resolutions.  I have been thinking a lot about the challenges of developing healthy habits. I have a friend who has been a participant in Weight Watchers for many years. He works at it. He shared a conversation he often has with his sister. She reports to him that “Weight Watchers just doesn’t work.”

He then asks her a series of questions about the program. Do you weigh your food? Do you count your points? Do you plan your grocery shopping around healthy meals? Do you weigh in and go to meetings? She shakes her head no after each question. So finally he says to her, “So are you really doing Weight Watchers?”

I have been in Weight Watchers for about six months and I have struggled with the program. I was trying to lose weight and all we ever talk about at meetings is food. At first, I saw myself as outside of these conversations. They were like a Weight Watchers soap opera- As the Scale Turns. One woman complained about her sister who always brought her chocolate covered caramels for the holidays. Another admitted that she would binge in the middle of the night so she tried to put up a barricade to the kitchen. I learned about all the ways people sneak their snacks. One volunteered to clear the table so she could eat off others’ plates. Then there were the home brewed remedies- a variety of unusual low point recipes. I felt I needed my mother’s old plastic index card recipe holder. I was clearly not comfortable participating in the drama.

I didn’t like the process either.  I told the trainer I am not one to count points all day, to write things down or to carry a scale. He smiled the knowing smile of one who has heard these excuses before.  He asked, “What are you good at?”  Well, I teach strategic planning. I believe a person should have a plan. He says, “so great, be a planner then, create a Weight Watcher’s plan that works for you.”

In the past three months I have gotten more into the program in order to develop that plan. I bought an activity monitor that tracks my daily movement. I go to the store with a shopping list. I count the points for the typical meals I have, Mediterranean salad with tuna, oatmeal and blueberries, chicken breast with broccoli, etc. I don’t weigh the food, but I cut my 12 oz. steak into two pieces and save one half for the next day. I have made Indian and Chinese food a rare treat. I get an honest Weight Watcher’s weigh in each week. Ok, I learned some of the permissible tricks. I take off everything possible at the scale, even my watch.  I even dabbled in some rogue activity like leaning on the counter at the scale. The staff raised their eyebrows and calmly (they have seen that one before) objected, “sir, could you take your hands off the counter for a second.” My path is often two steps forward and one step back, but the scales have begun to shift. I am beginning to create some new habits.

Keeping it Raw and Real

On Wednesday night we tell stories and applaud each other’s efforts. The class is about 90% woman so I often feel like I came to the wrong meeting. In the end I have come to appreciate the class. I have had a lifelong food addiction and addressing addiction is serious business. I am writing this before Yom Kippur. The shofar has sounded during Rosh Hashanah. The shofar is supposed to wake us up from our sleep walking. The sound of the shofar is emotional, raw and real. Everyone in the meeting room deserves some respect. They have disclosed some of the real and raw struggles they face. They have taken the time to take a  measure of things. They have made facing down their addiction Job 1. I am willing to disclose that I share their story, I have chosen not to stand outside their circle.

Participants come with different motivations. All want to look better, better fit into their clothes and to have more energy. It takes a good deal of endurance to move through the streets of NYC. Some are facing serious health challenges. Every year they carry the weight, they carry greater and greater health risks.

I am a story teller so I like to share my ups and downs. I have come to suspect that staff who are in charge of weigh-ins are listening with ears pricked at attention for people with great stories and disappointing weigh-ins , so I tend to be pretty quiet on poor weigh-in days.  I have heard stories that start “I gained three pounds, but I feel I have learned a lot.”  There is compassion. Perhaps some faint applause. I am just too competitive to use that lead! When I have had success I am full of helpful hints. I might share a healthy snack (apples, feta and walnuts) or a way to get a few more ticks on my Weight Watchers’ Activity Meter (walking from 43 and Second Avenue to Columbus Circle at 59th and Broadway to pick up the Uptown 1 train).

Keystone Habits           

 Regular exercise has really made a difference for me. Charles Duhigg talks about the power of some habits to lead to other positive habits:

Typically, people who exercise start eating better and becoming more productive at work. They smoke less and show more patience with colleagues and family. They use their credit cards less frequently and say they feel less stressed. It is not completely clear why. But for many people, exercise is a keystone habit that triggers widespread change. “Exercise spills over, “said James Prochaska, A University of Rhode Island researcher.  “There is something about it that makes other good habits easier” (Habit, NY Random House Charles Duhigg, p. 109).

Another habit that has made a difference is regular Shabbat services. I have made Shabbat a keystone habit. It helps me take time to reflect. Most of the themes of the High Holidays are present on Saturday morning. We are reminded of the wonder of God’s creation and the gifts of his learning and law. We are reminded of God’s relationship with our ancestors and his hopes for their descendants--us. We are reminded that God is eternal and that we are finite. Each week we are challenged to weigh our priorities and to try to put God first. Rabbi Alan Lew wrote a book called “This Is Real and You Are Completely Unprepared: The Days of Awe as a Journey of Transformation” (Little Brown, 2003). Because of my Shabbat habit, I am not completely unprepared for the High Holidays ahead.

Days of Awe--some

Last year my Rabbi gave an introduction to the Yamim Noraim--the Days of Awe. He said that we were all beginning a process. He knew that we all had different habits, different practices. Some would come for every service. Others would come in and out. Whatever our practice, he challenged us to really make an effort to do all of the rituals with intention and commitment. “If you really make the effort I promise you this:  At the end of these days you will feel lighter, a weight will be lifted.”

Some people are skeptical of my growing enthusiasm for Judaism. They say, "I have been a member, but I just don’t get anything out of services." “I grew up Jewish, but I just don’t see that it makes much of a difference in my life.” While these skeptics do not seem to be growing Jewishly, often don’t seem to have much interest in getting support to do more. I thought to ask those who say “that the Judaism program” is not working for them the following:

• Do you study Torah on any regular basis?
• Have you sought a teacher or stepped up to teach something?
• Have you participated in the singing?
• Have you reflected on those that are ill or whispered the name of someone you were concerned about?
• Have you thought about the generations that came before during the Avot or the generations that will come after you in “L’dor v’dor?”
• Have you honored someone’s yartzeit or helped another person honor theirs?
• Have you tried to learn about the prayers or disclosed to a friend or teacher how you really feel about saying them?
• Have you found some part of the community where you could make a difference?
• Have you considered how you eat? Have you reflected on the values you have around food and tried to eat with more awareness?
• Have you reached out to be known or welcomed someone who might want to know you?

If you have not done any of these things you may have to admit that you are probably “not really doing the Judaism program.” The High Holiday process starts with recognition. We make a heshbon ha-nefesh, a spiritual accounting. While your Jewish checklist might not be the same as mine, the High Holidays challenges each of us to have some kind of list for ourselves.

At its heart, Conservative Judaism should be about wrestling with issues and striving to develop our practices. We are trying to move up the spiritual ladder (Sulam). It is not an easy program, but our tradition suggests that one good practice can lead to another. When a Conservative Jew feels stuck spiritually I hope he/she would seek support to grow, to ask, “What is my next step?” I believe that by putting effort into Weight Watchers, exercise and Shabbat I feel less burdened by my past and more alive in my present.  Yes, as my Rabbi promised, I feel a weight has been lifted.