Small Changes

I feel compelled to share some of my experiences. I’m obese right now, and need to lose about 160 pounds (to be at my target BMI, for which I need to be 180 pounds, as I’m 6’1″).

Right after Chanukkah, I read a book in Yiddish called Mokholim Tzum Gezunt, written by Malky Eisenberger. I believe she has a health store in Boro Park, and her approach is based on the macrobiotic diet.

Not that I am following it to every yud and salef, but her approach is sensible. A diet free of meat, she says, is “besser fun di organism.” Refined carbs are out. The only sweetener she uses is natural apple cider.

Without counting calories, I follow her suggestions and recipes. I’ve been eating a green vegetable, a citrus, and another vegetable (such as a squash or strishkes, or mehren) at every meal, with eggs, fish, or yogurt. For breakfast, I have an egg, at lunch, some yogurt, and at dinner, some tuna packed in water or smoked salmon (I found these little Vita-brand packages that are 80 calories). For shabbat, I don’t use grape juice or wine for kiddush, and instead, wash and make kiddush over a whole wheat matzah and a roll (but don’t eat the roll). Each matzah is 100 calories, and I only take a quarter of a matzah, which is about 25-30 calories and constitutes large enough a shiur. The only desserts I allow myself are a half a grapefruit, or some berries. I also allow myself at each meal an unlimited quantity of clear, brothy vegetable soup, and Malky has a recipe for a celery soup that she says detoxifies the body (simply celery and onion in water). I’m never full, feel healthy, and drink plenty of water and seltzer. I’ve also adopted the practice of walking prolifically. I walk a few miles in the morning and a few miles in the evening, generally from my home in Bensonhurst into either Boro Park or Flatbush and back, twice a day. So my total walking is around 10-12 miles per day. I haven’t weighed myself yet, but I simply feel better like this, and once I shed 50 pounds, I will reward myself with a gym membership.

Once I get to my goal weight, and am enrolled in medical school, I will feel confident enough to go on the shidduch market again. I feel that with the weight off, I will have access to a better calibre of women and won’t be limited.

Small changes really do make a difference, and I pray daily that HaShem give me the koach to keep going, the koach to avoid chulent and kigel and kishka, lavish kiddush luncheons, cakes, nosherai, and all the other unhealthy temptations we have all around us. I feel that if I can avoid stopping in to Ostrovitsky’s for an almond horn, or if I can bypass Tov u’ Maitiv’s meat knishes, or if I can just say no to those huge 99 cent Arizona juices that are 300 calories each, I’ve achieved victories in my daily life.