Give It a Shot

Here in America, she says, people eat and run. There’s also an abundance of kosher food available and so many kosher restaurants, creating a culture of eating highly processed, less-than-healthy foods.

Johanna was slender when she arrived in the US. After she married and began to have children, she put on a significant amount of weight. Over the years, she tried various methods —including the ketogenic diet and juice cleanses — to lose the weight she’d gained. Her lack of long-term success and the prospect of her daughter’s upcoming bas mitzvah prompted her to see a nutritionist last January. She hoped to look the way she had years ago in time for the occasion.

Her nutritionist’s program resulted in some weight loss, but the progress was slow. She was losing only one pound a week. “What do you do when you want to lose a hundred pounds?” she asks. “At that rate it would take me two years to lose the weight. It’s a long, hard process.”

Still, she followed the program, until she hit a snag. Delivering mishloach manos on Purim, she wanted a taste of some of the goodies. The cravings were strong. In the short term, Johanna says, a diet is doable, but in the long term, it’s very hard.