Three weeks into a nutrition and health management program run by the Veterans Administration and I am going to issue a preliminary progress report.
I signed up for this program a few weeks ago because I determined I need professional help with shedding the weight I gained after I lost my bride, Kathy Anne, to brain cancer. I devoured far too much comfort food and I paid the price with a lot of excess weight.
The program I joined is 16 weeks long. We just finished the third week of lessons delivered via online connection to my laptop here in North Texas.
Have I lost significant amounts of weight? Am I now able to look at myself in the mirror? No on both counts. However, there must be some sort of placebo impact taking hold of me.
Why? I feel better. It’s tough to define. I am proud of myself that I am able to exhibit some long-lost dietary discipline. I am keep strict daily logs of the calories I consume and the calories I expend through exercise and, well, just moving around and about.
I have heard about docs prescribing placebo medication — which, of course, is fake — as a sort of disguise to determine whether a patient is really sick. I will consider this positive effect on my outlook as a form of placebo I am receiving from the dietitian I am meeting each week.
I know that Billy Crystal’s SNL character “Fernando” would say it is “better to look good than to feel good.” Baloney. I feel great. I’ll settle for that gladly as I continue along this journey.