extreme weight loss is like writing

This is an extended metaphor, so bear with me.

I lost about 135 pounds (from 320 to 185) via diet and exercise over the course of a year from 2009 to 2010, and so far have kept it off for just over two years. So someone sent me this article from the New York Times, and I saw myself in it. Specifically, this part:

But their eating and exercise habits appear to reflect what researchers find in the lab: to lose weight and keep it off, a person must eat fewer calories and exercise far more than a person who maintains the same weight naturally. Registry members exercise about an hour or more each day — the average weight-loser puts in the equivalent of a four-mile daily walk, seven days a week. They get on a scale every day in order to keep their weight within a narrow range. They eat breakfast regularly. Most watch less than half as much television as the overall population. They eat the same foods and in the same patterns consistently each day and don’t “cheat” on weekends or holidays. They also appear to eat less than most people, with estimates ranging from 50 to 300 fewer daily calories.

Kelly Brownell, director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University, says that while the 10,000 people tracked in the registry are a useful resource, they also represent a tiny percentage of the tens of millions of people who have tried unsuccessfully to lose weight. “All it means is that there are rare individuals who do manage to keep it off,” Brownell says. “You find these people are incredibly vigilant about maintaining their weight. Years later they are paying attention to every calorie, spending an hour a day on exercise. They never don’t think about their weight.”

Yes. I have recorded every single thing I have eaten since July of 2009, and ideally I try to have no more than 1800 to 2000 calories. I weigh myself every day, and I record it. (I used to keep a notebook, but I switched to Evernote a while back and find it much more convenient.) I go the the gym at least five times a week (running outside isn’t rigorous enough, plus there are too many blasted dogs without leashes) and run four miles. Every day I do four sets of 35 pushups, and my goal  is eventually to be able to do 100 in a single set.

The point of this recitation isn’t to brag, or to say “look at me, calorie sinners, and feel bad about yourselves!” Besides, the idea that physical fitness equates to virtue is both insipid and facile, despite what every magazine at the supermarket checkout will tell you. No, the point is that if I stop doing all that, I’ll gain the weight back very quickly. I think it would only take about two months or so.

All this is hard, but it does get easier. Or a more accustomed part of one’s mental landscape. I remember in March of 2010, a Little Caesar’s opened in my town, and I wanted to buy a pepperoni pizza and eat the entire thing, as was often my favored meal of choice when I was younger. I circled the block nine times before I managed to make myself go home. It was this bizarre intense physical craving, almost like drug withdrawal. It happened a few other times in 2010 and 2011, but almost never now. In fact, my new apartment is a block from that Little Caesar’s, and I drive past it on my way to work with nary a thought. So it stays hard, but you can get used to hard.

So how does this relate to writing?

People used to ask me if losing all that weight was hard, and I’d say yes, but it was still easier than trying to get published. They’d laugh because it was funny, but I was telling the truth.

See why I like electronic self-publishing so much? It’s easier than both traditional publishing and extreme weight loss! Win-win.

In practical terms, I suspect it also explains why I took to the rigorously disciplined methods of weight loss describing in the NYT article. I had been writing unsuccessfully for a number of years, and it turns out applying that discipline to another area of my life was effective.

This also carries over to self-publishing. I’m working on the rough draft of SOUL OF SORCERY now, and in one month I wrote 86,000 words. I could have done more, but short of neglecting important areas of my life, I don’t think I could have pulled it off. For some writers, that would be a daunting amount in a month. I’m not going to say it was easy – it wasn’t – but it wasn’t particularly difficult. I’ve been attempting to write seriously since I was fifteen, and in that time I’ve built up the skills and discipline that let me write 86,000 words in a month. The practice to get to that point – that was the difficult part.

I suppose the point of all this is that to do anything successfully – lose weight or write a book or whatever – takes work, work, work. A commitment of time and energy, every day. A “am I willing to do this every day for the rest of my life” level of commitment.

I’ve come to find that I like the level of self-discipline involved. At the very least, I don’t feel like I’m going to die after the first flight of stairs any more, and we’ll have a new DEMONSOULED book before the end of October.

-JM