Optimum Weight by Raleigh Rogers

History:

    The story of Optimum Weight began in 1994 with a trip to the Arctic Circle. A Scandinavian friend, Dr. Tor Brunzell, invited me to Norway to hike Jotunheimen National Park. I was 32 years old. I weighted 175lbs. There wasn’t much to eat along the way. The occasional hikers’ hut, replete with reindeer, anchovies, herring and salmon—staples of the Norwegian diet—did not excite my Western palette. Taste buds in revolt, I discovered that, apparently, I would rather starve than eat those esculents. (I would not have made a proper Norwegian.) Dr. Brunzell ravenously consumed the foods my Western palette rejected.
    Five weeks later, and 25 lbs. lighter, I returned to the United States weighing in at a paltry 150lbs. Returning to my regular routine, I noticed some changes. To my surprise, my body wasn’t sore after exercise—or even after the vicissitudes of daily living, such as sleeping in an antique twin bed. (Notably, I “suffer” from what doctors label severe osteo-arthritis; consequently, I was used to feeling sore every waking moment.) But now, even after exercise—I worked in a gym—I wasn’t sore even when I expected to be sore. I wasn’t certain why. It was just something I noticed. It was nice not being sore, and I began to contemplate the possibilities. I had never been one to consider the food I was eating, other than taste. There was a by-the-slice pizza place between my work and my apartment. It was cheap and convenient. Therefore, pizza, soda, and chips were the staples of my diet. I didn’t even own a scale. So, it took me a while to focus on body weight as the possible answer. But as I began to regain some of my lost weight, I began to feel sore again, and I began to contemplate a connection between my body’s comfort level and my body’s weight. That is when I began to experiment: I would gain weight.

    Consulting a calendar, I devised a plan. Since Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, and my birthday were all in a nice, little row, I decided that between November 15th and January 15th, I would work my way back up to 175lbs. By heading home for the holidays, my unwary parents could finance my eating binge by taking me out to fancy restaurants at their expense. They wouldn’t even notice. My father, Dr. Robert Lee Rogers, Jr., was 6’6” and 375 pounds. (I didn’t even make a good shadow.) On January 15th, my binge would end and I would lose one pound a week going into summer, monitoring the results. I repeated my experiment many years in a row. The results surprised me.

    Having worked in a gym during college and graduate school, I had always thought my body’s comfort level to be primarily a function of exercise, not body weight. My experiment surprised me many times, as I gradually learned that categorizing and maintaining an eating lifestyle contributed to my physical well-being more than exercise—that I could feel wonderful with minimal exercise if I followed a simple eating routine tailored to my pallet. I was also surprised how easy it was to maintain the routine once I figured it out. Finally, after years of repetition, I discovered that there was a range of weight—for me, approximately five pounds—at which my body felt truly amazing. This range is what I began to refer to as my OPTIMUM WEIGHT, which is, more accurately put, an OPTIMUM WEIGHT range. I concluded that everyone, every human being on earth, has an OPTIMUM WEIGHT range unique to their own body, a range that nature intended, at which their body is optimally efficient, simply because it is the weight their muscles and tendons and ligaments and joints where intended to support. And that is the beauty of it, that it is unique to everyone—the weight and the range. It is your individual OPTIMUM WEIGHT, your range, your routine. That is the goal, here, at OPTIMUM WEIGHT, to challenge you to create an eating routine out of foods you love that will lead you to your OPTIMUM WEIGHT experience. But you will not be alone; I will be with you each step of the way. It will be fun, and you will learn a lot about yourself. And, like me, I have faith that you will be amazed at the results, at the joyous feeling that comes with being at your OPTIMUM WEIGHT, and at how simple it is to maintain once you have discovered your range.

GETTING STARTED:

THE NOTEBOOK:

 It is sculpted to your needs—by you. And in the process, you have glimpses of what it feels like that inspire you to your goal, and bring you back, when you falter. Some of these glimpses were bizarre, as I noticed that within my OPTIMUM WEIGHT range, the needle on the scale “bounced” with my heartbeat, as did my antique twin bed, against the wall of my apartment as I slept: bump, bump, bump. I used to wake in the middle of the night and try to find the source of the sound, only I could not hear the sound once out of bed. Finally, I realized the sound followed my heartbeat. I was stunned, and realized I could feel my heart beating throughout my body. I only had to consider a finger, a toe, my arm, whatever; and I could feel the rhythm of my heart. Amazing. When I would eat my way out of the range, these phenomena would cease, as would the amazing feeling of just being alive. When I would re-establish my routine and return to my OPTIMUM WEIGHT, which became easier with each repetition, the phenomena would return, as well as the amazing feeling of just being alive. In fact, the feeling of being in one’s OPTIMUM WEIGHT range is so intense, that it is difficult to remember once out of the range, and it is then that having a notebook detailing what you have done is helpful.

My goal as your health adviser is to help you discover your OPTIMUM WEIGHT range, how to get there and how to maintain it. We will work together putting together an eating lifestyle tailored to discover your range. It requires some work to get started, not exercise, but keeping a notebook, making a list of what foods you like to eat, deciding which ones you can do with out and which ones you cannot. The ones you cannot do without—mine were soda, barbeque chips, and ice cream—we will search for a healthier product. The ones you can do without, we will discard and replace with new ones tailored to your palette. What you will quickly realize is that there are countless natural, healthy food products out there, many that you have never even heard of, sitting right there in a local store, and all we have to do is identify ones that you enjoy and start working them into you specific routine. It will be fun, and you will discover a lot about yourself along the way. And, if you stay the course, you will discover a body that feels wonderful just to be alive—all the time, as we track down the weight that your body is meant to have, the one at which it functions optimally, because it is, after all, your unique OPTIMUM WEIGHT.

Learn more and order your copy at www.optimumweightprogram.com