Laugh Those Pounds Away?
This, My Life on a Diet, says yes. Renee Taylor, actress of the era of old Hollywood, details her often humorous struggles with her weight.
Renee Taylor's weight problem started in childhood. Her family often had an empty refrigerator. When food was plentiful, Renee binged. Also contributing to an unhealthy body image was her mother's interest in thinness. Renee is reflective and understands, to a degree, how much this affected her as an adult. The mentality of someone who becomes overweight as an adult is quite different from those who were overweight in their youth. For the latter, weight defines them.
In pursuing an acting career, Renee recreated a similar environment to that of her childhood, with pressure to be thin and instability and uncertainty. She was not comfortable without these things. When things were going well, she'd gorge herself into heaviness again. This allowed her to continue overcoming the problems of her past, proving to herself over and over that she could conquer them, that things were different. Despite some awareness of how her childhood related to adult problems, she was unable to break the cycle of feast or famine.
My impression is that Renee is high-strung, a workaholic, and needs things in constant motion. It would've benefited her to have a hobby unrelated to her career or weight. For some people, this might be painting, instrumental music, photography, pottery, bird watching, etc. Renee, though, may be interested in a more competitive hobby. I'm not sure she can handle the calmness. Also, therapy might've been good. Instead of eating, talk to someone about her feelings about eating. That way, the problem is being addressed without harming her physically.
Throughout her career, Renee tries various fad diets and asks her fellow actors what they eat to stay in good shape. For a time, the diets work, and then Renee is back to overeating again. Towards the end, Renee's weight is out of control and she starts attending Overeaters Anonymous (OA). She loses quite a bit of weight doing it. Then, she quits OA and invents her own diet, which works well for her.
The diet she invented involves only eating one type of food for entire days e.g. eat fruit Tuesdays, grain Wednesdays, salad Thursdays, etc. This is her happy ending, that she'd finally conquered her weight issues. I believe that this diet slightly works, for a time. And there are good aspects to it. Renee learned to plan a meal plan which incorporated various foods that she'd like. It is a stepping stone in the right direction. She should gradually incorporate other food groups into each day. Add meat to the vegetable day, vegetables to the meat day, and slowly make a balanced diet out of this. Eventually, the hope is that eating would become more intuitive, and Renee could achieve peace with food and her body.
Overall, I enjoyed the book. Old Hollywood is interesting, and this book gives access to the mysteries of it.
It is also funny.* But does it live up to the claim on the back of the book? Can we Laugh Those Pounds Away? (Sure sounds nice). No, but this book does inspire fitness, in some ways. Analyzing Renee Taylor's difficulties gives a person new perspective on their own problems. Also, Renee is inspiring in that when she's fallen down, had a misstep, she gets back up. I view it as encouraging because we can all do that. It reminds me of a quote from Scent of a Woman - "No mistakes in the tango, darling, not like life. It’s simple. That’s what makes the tango so great. If you make a mistake, get all tangled up, just tango on.”
On a scale from 1 to 10, 10 being the best, I rate it a 2 for fitness inspiration, for the author's determination and reflectiveness. It isn't much, but the author's activeness is motivating.
+2
*Here's one funny excerpt:
Mel Brooks stopped by the theater one day to say hello. I worked for him in The Producers. I played Eva Braun to Dick Shawn's Hitler. "You look good," I sad. "What diet are you on?"
"Slipping immediately into the character of the two-thousand-year-old man, he said, "Why should I diet? I never eat. I don't even know why I'm fat. I don't eat anything. Maybe some orange juice for breakfast, that's all. Okay, a piece of toast this big, but its rye, or sometimes one egg. Simple, scrambled, a little piece of bacon, you can hardly see it. A few potatoes, boiled only, a sprig of parsley, that's all! Maybe a prune danish, no butter, and some raisins and a few nuts and that's it. Nothing in my mouth all day except maybe lunch. I have a little fish, with a vegetable, a hard roll, some applesauce, dietetic; coffee, skim milk, ices, maybe a little fresh pineapple on top. A cookie, to kill the aftertaste; and nothing between meals, except maybe a box of Goobers, a few M&M's, a bite of pizza, maybe, for taste, and that's it until dinner when I eat nothing. Absolutely zilch except if I'm hungry, a shrimp cocktail, a few hors d'oeuvres on a cracker, a cube of cheese so small a dog would refuse it; a plain salad, no dressing; a spoonful of spaghetti, no meatballs; a thin slice of veal, a smidge of Parmesan or you can't eat it; a drop of minestrone to push everything down; maybe a drop of Jello with make-believe whipped cream on top; a few after-dinner mints and that's it for the whole day, except maybe for a piece of chicken and a glass of wine in the middle of the night if I can't sleep, usually from worry that I'm fat and don't know why.
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