Archive for the ‘weight loss (again)’ Category
Part of the reason I decided to make my weight-loss diary public this time around, aside from the beautifully sadistic, self-induced public humiliation potential offered inherently through social media these days, is because I feel compelled to “think out loud” about why I’m here, at this point, in my life, at this time. And for what reason–but that might not come until I’m gone.
I’m tired of thinking all this stuff in the private of my own journals and diaries. Journals and diaries, yes, plural, meaning “more than one” (a grammatical fact my 6th graders have difficulty grasping no matter how often I reteach it). My first diary, a gold-edged beauty with “Diary” in elegant script right above the completely ineffective but cutesy key lock (rendered useless by the slide button to its left), a relic of the 3rd grade era, circa 1981, holds what may possibly be the earliest recorded self-hatred of my current body–the first in a sweeping saga of written accounts of how much I wanted to be (to the point of selling my soul for a can of Coke and a pouch of Pop Rocks) a skinny girl. I’ve written pages, more than enough for a series of novels, drawn illustrations, had dialogue, created “wish pages” with cutouts of girls I wanted to be when I “got skinny”. (Funny enough, I never dreamed much about “growing up”, just “getting skinny”). Looking over the Rubbermaid plastic tub full of these gems has taught me two lessons:
1. Writing in private is accomplishing nothing.
2. Fat girls are like onions
An explanation of number one isn’t necessary. All I do is write, rewrite, lament, cry, whine, hate and come back to writing about why I’m still shopping in the women’s and not the misses sections.
For number two, you may have a niggling voice in the back of your mind telling you you’ve heard that before, somewhere. You have–from Donkey. Remember when he and his best bud Shrek set out on their now-infamous trek across the Swamp and all Creation to reach Princess Fiona and Donkey wants to figure out his newfound companion? He offers Shrek the thought that ogres are like onions (and parfaits, a far tastier but much more calorie-dense comparison). Shrek might disagree where his ilk are concerned, but the more I think about my life as a fat girl at this time-and-place, the more I think Donkey meant to say that fat girls are like onions.
The biggest reason is that like onions, we have layers of hatred and disdain for ourselves all related to our weight issues. We didn’t wake up at age four and hate the chub rub under our Garanimal dresses, but at that point we knew we were slightly different than the girls who had twig legs that looked as if they’d snap under the weight of a heavy pair of tough kid corduroys. We’ve had life experiences skinny girls haven’t had that make us rethink ourselves, that create in our brain a sort of onion skin layer around a dark core capable of bringing us to tears. Some of those layers are created by things our families do or say, others by things we observe around us, life choices we have to make, comparisons we make to ourselves, society’s expectations and disappointments, hormones, genetic dispositions, minimal self-confidence, a media obsession equating waist size with the quality of the woman beneath. For each event or thought we subject ourselves to (or are subjected to) that undermines our love for ourselves, a thin layer of onion skin is created. Each time that thought is reinforced through actions or words–those of ourselves or others–the onion skin thickens.
Imagine almost 40 years of this onion-skin building…and the size of the onion I’m attempting to peel. Yikes. You’re gonna need a gas mask to cut into the heart of this baby. (And no, Martha Stewart, freezing the onion before cutting DOES NOT make you cry less. It just makes the onion slippery and slimy).
Now, for the good comparisons: we can be peeled. One tiny bit at a time, we can pull off one thickened onion petal and, through careful examination, discover the inherent and useful value of that bit of thought regarding ourselves. We can choose to toss it into the garbage disposal or set it aside. I remember one of my earliest experiences in science class with a microscope–examining cells in a sliver of onion. That’s the kind of introspection we’re talking here. Peeling off a layer and blaming it on someone (self or others) isn’t going to get to the core of who I really am, but trying to examine exactly why I’m here and why I’m the way I am is what’s going to get me motivated and going in the right direction.
It’s going to be hard work and it’s going to make me cry, like real onions. It will be dirty, smelly and scary. But the potential of discovering the real me–hidden by layers of journals, diaries and life experiences–is exciting to me. I want to know why I’m fighting this and why I put so much value into my weight determining how I feel about myself when I know damn well that lots of other areas of my life are really fabulous–so why does my pants size negate all that?
I’m really out of good, useful onion analogies, so I’ll leave you with this: you can either use them to bring out the flavor of whatever you’re making or keep burping them up–it’s your choice.
When you see a fat girl, what do you think?
“Ugh. I hope she doesn’t sit next to me.”
“What is she thinking, eating that (insert any food here)? She should be starving herself.”
“I’m so glad that’s not me.”
“She should be ashamed to be alive/be wearing that dress/be out in public…”
When you see a fat girl, what do you think she’s thinking?
I wish I could answer this with an equally glib list of mental thoughts, but the truth is, it’s a trick question. You can never know what a fat girl is thinking unless you’ve been a fat girl. And by fat, I don’t mean all you skinny bitches in the crowd bemoaning the fact that you’ve got to lose “those last ten pounds” or those of you who believe that the Special K Diet is a real godsend around January 1st every year. I mean girls with an X after the number on their clothes tag, girls whose butts fit snugly in an average chair, girls who find themselves in the high twenties (and higher) on the BMI charts.
Girls who hate themselves because society around them has stripped them of the title of “woman” and slapped them instead with the all-loving moniker of “fat girl.”
We know what you think of us–us obese, pork-rind munching, Coca-Cola swilling gluttons that we are who don’t really deserve a second glance–but do you ever wonder what we think of ourselves?
Not to worry, friends. There’s a chip (brain-programmed, not potato) in every one of us fat girls that serves as a two-way radio for your criticisms and judgments to come through loud and clear. We hear you tell us we shouldn’t be eating “that” (which amounts to just about anything aside from celery sticks and water), that we aren’t really beautiful if we can’t cram ourselves into a single-digit size, that the bigger we get, the more disgusting the print should be on the fabric of the clothes we buy, that we have no right to expect men to be nice to us because there are so many other skinny girls out there to impress. That we’re second-class citizens and should be glad you give us disgusted side glances. (Please, ma’am, may I have another?)
What you may not know is that the chip translates your smarmy, self-serving, rude thoughts into our own voice inside our heads–and, despite technological advances that allow us to program our DVRs from our phone during a bank robbery, there is no known way to turn these hateful voices off. You can be assured that rarely is there a moment of our waking hours each day that aren’t filled with hearing your comments in our own voice.
From the moment we wake up, we’re assaulted by a barrage of self-doubting, self-loathing voices. From within our own heads.
“You’re going to wear that? You’ll look like the Sta-Puft marshmallow girl.”
“Pearls make your neck look fat.”
“Walk by mirror fast. Don’t look.”
“You really deserve to eat a bowl of cereal?”
“You’re not taking that for lunch, are you?”
“If you even think about a donut, you’re a loser.”
“Imagine what the kids see when you’re writing on your white board.”
“At least your ass isn’t as big as hers.”
“You’re only giving up your lunch period to walk and not your planning period, too?”
“Eating your apple AND soup for lunch is going to make you fatter.”
“Your ass is NOT getting smaller. The mirror is getting dirtier.”
“What do you mean, you want fifteen minutes to yourself before you work out?”
“Did you do enough today to earn dinner? Or should you just have water instead?”
“Only 500 calories burned? You should be ashamed.”
“Maybe tomorrow you’ll do a better job of starving yourself and losing weight.”
“Those pajamas make you look fat AND sloppy.”
“Why am I not surprised you’re still a size 16, loser?”
(Please note I’ve edited for brevity, content and offensive language. While this isn’t a family blog, lots of F-bombs might get me blacklisted.)
While the list is linear, the comments are circular and constant. Sort of like a mind-tornado, attempting to suck us and our precious self-worth and self-confidence into the vortex of the crapper. Being a fat girl has added a dimension to me over the years that skinny girls don’t have: the voices.
Fat girls can’t do anything–and by that I mean anything–without some type of voice reminding us of our shortcomings. I’d like to follow this with a pithy comment about how I first remember the voices coming into my life, back in and around the 4th grade, but I’ve forgotten. I’m sure they had the sound of Patti’s voice, possibly Grandma Alice’s, maybe another well-meaning but critical adult at first, a startling intrusion into my assumably placid ten-year old thoughts (Oh, he’s cute! Oh, he’s cute! Oh, I can make a fortune teller! Oh, how do I make a cursive S again? Oh, he’s cute!), but then, with repeated exposure, the voices evolved into a part of me I just expected and, in a strange way, comfort me. I can’t make a food, weight or life decision without second-guessing myself these days.
Even though I’ve gone down approximately ten pounds since January (depending on the weighing apparatus du jour), those voices hound me around every single curve and taunt me from every dark corner. There’s even a new dimension to them: sucker! Not only are they laughing and criticizing me, they’re making light of the work I’ve put in to starting one final weight loss journey. They’re sure I’ll fail. They’re convinced of it. After all, if I wasn’t born skinny and haven’t lived much of a skinny life (except that one miraculous size 10 year when I subsisted on carrots, water and five-mile jogs that seems more a fog than a piece of my own reality), what right do I have to expect I’ll ever lose this weight?
I started the journey (again) to lose this weight as a gift to myself on my 40th birthday (so much nicer than a double scoop of self-loathing with that scant piece of birthday cake) and wanted to free myself from the dregs of shopping the plus-sized clearance racks, but in the last few weeks I’ve discovered another goal: to make the voices stop. I can’t even imagine what a quiet, peaceful day in my mind sounds like. I’m sure it’ll be jarring at first, like my friends (or so they say) have abandoned me, but at that point I’ll get the best gift of all from them: silence to hear my own true thoughts.
I don’t know if it will really work like that, if they will *REALLY* take a hike for the long-term, but in my opinion, it’s worth a try. I hope my only question at that point is how to reprogram that chip to hear myself and not others…(instead of…”where’s the guacamole?”)
I had an interesting language and cultural experience with my 6th graders yesterday. What’s sad is that it dovetails right into the whole weight-loss issue and how we, as a culture, are obsessed with skinniness. Not healthy slimming but skinniness.
We’re refreshing our memories about the use and meaning of specific prefixes. One of the prefix groups we’re studying is the MIS-group. You know, misguided, mistake, misunderstand, misbehavior. All words my 6th graders are more than familiar with. I challenged them with a word they didn’t know–misrepresent–to see if they could intellectually apply their knowledge of MIS (wrong or error) to the new word to figure out the definition.
What I first discovered is that they also don’t comprehend root words because they wanted to say “wrong again present”, which lead them to believe this had something to do with Christmas (for my Mexicans) or Eid (for my Somalis). When I confirmed the root was “represent”, they got thinking but never quite mastered the meaning, so I helped them out.
Me: “Thinking about the word, “represent”, what’s one way we can define it?
Various kids who forget, even in the sixth grade, to raise their hands: “To show something about yourself”
Me: (hiding my shock that they remember anything I taught them): “Excellent. So if I come to class and tell you I’m a rich heiress to a bubblegum throne and I have six cars and servants, do you think I’d be misrepresenting myself?”
Various kids: (laughter) “Yes!”
Maico: “You have seeex cars? And you are reeech?”
Me: “So what do you think misrepresent might mean?” (“No, Maico, it was an example. I have one car. And no money. Cuz if I did, I’d be in your home country sipping margaritas by a pool instead of dealing with this crappy Ohio weather, OK?”)
Various kids: “to represent yourself wrong!” (the energy of their replies really does earn an exclamation point.)
Maico: “What ees margarita?”
Me: “Great! Now, can you give me an example of someone misrepresenting something or someone? A time you misrepresented yourself?” (“Maico, I hearby revoke your Mexican heritage based on the content of that question. No Mexican should ever ask what a margarita is. Even if you are in the sixth grade.)
Various kids:
“When someone lies about doing homework.”
“When my mom says she’ll give me allowance but doesn’t.”
“When the guy on TV tells you Oxyclean gets your whites whiter but it doesn’t work.”
Maico: “When my dad went to the Hummer man to buy a Hummer in the paper because of low price and the Hummer man try to sell him more expensive Hummer.” (“Maico, your parents are shopping for Hummers and you haven’t had a margarita yet? What’s wrong with your family?”)
Me: “Perfect! Now, playing off the idea of the Oxyclean commercial, what are some other commercials that misrepresent their products?”
Various kids: “You don’t get a leprechaun with Lucky Charms!”
“Certain clothes don’t make you popular.”
“Shoes with lights in the soles are the coolest things you can wear!!”
Maico: “Bood Light does not make girls like you. And Snoogies make people laugh at you.” (Ahh, Maico. Welcome to American culture.)
One girl: “Diet pills don’t make you skinny.”
While the cacophony of little voices discussed amongst themselves examples of misrepresented advertisements going bad, I sought out the girl who’d mentioned diet pills. I asked her what she’d meant, wondering how she’d come to her conclusion and wisdom at such a young age–and jealous that I’d spent thousands of dollars over the years believing.
“So, Madina. I have a question about your comment on diet pills. What makes you so sure they don’t work?”
She shrugged, her cute pink polkadot hijab sliding around her face. “My mom told me. One of my friends told me I was fat and I wanted to try them to get skinny. I liked how the girl was skinnier in the second picture, but my mom said skinny is ugly.”
Madina is about as fat as I am thin. Just to clarify, Wii Fit Plus considers me obese. I’m guessing that a BMI measurement in the 30s is not a good place to be, even with a fabricated cartoon character. She’s a beautiful little sixth grade girl whose wrists are about the size of three of my fingers put together.
“You’ve got a smart mom.” I wish Patti had told me that growing up. Where would I be if I’d have not grown up believing all the things commercials led me to believe on Saturday mornings between cartoons–when cartoon were good? Maybe I wouldn’t have had a fascination with stuffing myself with sugary cereals, spent my babysitting money on a Chia Pet or have believed I was less than popular if my jeans didn’t say Jordache and my shoes didn’t say Nike.
What a radical departure from my current state of thinking that would have produced. With a little shot of reality, a little rebuking of the commercial message, would I be a different person today? How much of who I am and what I think is a result of those early advertising sessions? Subliminally, of course. I’m too smart logically to believe anything I see on TV anymore, hence the reason I rarely watch (except soaps, of course. And QVC.)
How much of my life and time on Earth has been spent believing and buying the next perfect gadget to get me thin? (Don’t answer that, really. It’s beyond embarrassing.)
By the time I was told that there is no such thing as a quick fix (“If it’s too good to be true, it is. And you’re a fool to have believed it,” so said my senior Consumer Ec teacher Mrs. Bell), it was too late. I had already spent allowance and lawnmowing money on Dexatrim and those little chewy chocolate square diet pills that promised rapid weight loss. I’d already snuck diuretics from my mom’s stash to see if it would help me lose the bulge. I’d already bought a cassette that promised me strong abs and a body every teen boy would envy because the manufacturer had misrepresented the product and American society had determined it was OK to promote the lie with very colorful commercials.
Where would I be today without all that?
Poolside in the Mexican jungle with a personal waiter, double-salted rims and the perfect margarita on ice, all paid for by my bubblegum inheritance, that’s where. Without a Maico in sight…
In contemplating the many reasons for my diets (if you want to call them that) failing in the past, one of the biggest, IMHO (which is all that matters here on my blog) is the need, the necessity and the basic human compulsion to get results right away. By results, I don’t mean progress. I mean 60 pounds of excess weight gained over the course of 38 odd years being shed in nine days.
There’s something ingrained in the human mind–perhaps the result of genetic coding, perhaps with the advent of instant sea monkeys you can reconstitute as soon as you tear open the package–that makes us believe that if we do x for any extended period of time (and, by ‘extended period of time’, I mean longer than it takes a laptop to reboot), Y and Z will happen miraculously, instantaneously before our eyes. We can’t help it. We can’t fight it. Even if we say that we are patient, there are times we’re not. Even if we believe we’re in for the long hall, we still want a little bit o’that instant gratification we believe is our birthright.
It’s part of the reason I decided that my weight loss goal wasn’t even going to be met in this calendar year. When I went back and assessed (and obsessed) over why I haven’t lost and/or managed to keep off the weight before, that time factor came back to bite me in my very fleshy ass. It occurred to me that in setting my goals within a specific (read: short) time frame, I was unintentionally setting myself up for failure in one huge way–miss a target, give up on a goal. I’m an all-or-nothing thinker (something else I’m also working on this year) and to set a close (I even consider six months “close”) goal, I expected myself to have this absolutely 100% perfect start and continuation of my goals right out of the gate. I didn’t give myself any time whatsoever to adjust my bad habits into good ones. There was no room for experimenting, no room for really even reflecting. When I woke up in the morning, I had to work out. I could only eat salads. I must be in size 14s in two months. Those were ultimatums I gave myself for measuring progress but I didn’t give myself the tool–the mental adjustments and time–required to get there.
If I could have changed my behavior and habits that easily, don’t you think I would have?
I’m more about taking notice of the small things on this particular fat-burning journey. I’m enjoying taking my lunch to school in all my Ziplock containers. Finding fun in portion control. Feeling a sense of accomplishment by working out in 20 minute increments rather than a hunk of an hour. And observing the fact that my body is changing–ever so slightly–in the direction that I want.
Yesterday I had a day-long teacher’s meeting which equates to jeans and a sweatshirt. Normally I stuff myself into a pair of jeans and wear something long enough to hide the muffin top because, let’s face it, the only attractive muffin top is one with a pat of butter melting down the sides. Instead of the usual long sweater, at the suggestion of Stacy and Clinton, I chose something with a little bit of shape and a shorter hemline. (and because it was clean and because it was pink, but don’t tell Stacy. She’ll yell at me.) This seemed like a good choice until I’d been sitting for about two hours at the meeting and we got a potty break. I realized I’d not worn a belt–under normal circumstances, an activity to cause abject horror and blindness in anyone who witnessed a chunky girl in low-cut jeans (stupidest things invented, BTW. I only kept mine because I’m too cheap to throw them out) try to get herself and her muffin top back together incognito.
When I reached down to my waist line (as inconspicuously as a fat girl can fix her clothes) to fold up my waistband that had surely been flattened by my gut as usual, I was pleased to discover no rollover. The denim band holding my pants to my body had not been assaulted by my baby fat. (So what if the baby just turned 18?). My pants were still happy. I could stand up from the chair in my shorter fleece and jeans and not be petrified every eye was on my gut and my rearranging myself to get presentable again.
And that was just the kind of progress I needed. Sure, it’d be nice to fit into a size 10 for my sorority’s 20 year reunion on Saturday night, but I’ll take the little bits of progress I can find here and there. Besides, I’d have had to start in December to lose those 60 pounds by this weekend….
I’m a creative mind. And as such, I have an infinitely difficult time making decisions. Of all kinds.
Coffee, tea?
Sugar, Splenda?
Blow dry, air dry?
Clean undies…ok, I never travel that route, much to my mother’s relief. Because you never know when that often-talked-about car will come out of nowhere and hit you…
It should be no wonder I can’t decide what form I want my WLR (weight loss resolutions) to take. Do I want to lose pounds? Inches? Sizes? Spare tires? (I do think the Michelin Man and I have far too much in common). Better eating? More exercise?
My god, it’s truly overwhelming to decide what I want. Even if I could make up my mind I wouldn’t know what I wanted.
Yesterday, I slummed around and thought about this goal. I’ve actually had a couple of ideas bouncing around on the brain cave walls, along with those cute monkeys playing the cymbals, for a few months on things I’d like to do:
1. Give up french fries and real pop (soda to you New Yorkers)
2. Work out 30 minutes a day, 5 times a week
3. Walk the dog 20 minutes per day
4. 10 minutes of yoga and/or meditation per day.
These sound like huge time-suckers, but what’s nifty in my life is that, for the most part, I have the time to do them.
I just don’t. Obviously I don’t or my ass wouldn’t be approaching a size where every cartographer I meet on the street does a double-take. I really have no one to blame but myself on this one. My lazy-ass self. Do you hear that, self?
I like these goals. Not resolutions, because resolutions suggest forever–and who’s to say I won’t be shipwrecked sometime on a remote desert island with a spear-toting band of natives and a case of Coke? But the goals themselves lend credence to the thought that I can do something, however small, to get this body at rest into motion. And we all know that bodies in motion tend to stay in motion (or, at least you should if you’re married to Mr. Science like me).
Now, to get to a section of this post relevant to the title…
These goal-utions (my word, goals + resolutions) have not been on paper (or, if you’re getting technical, pixels) until this very post. But, me in my big-mouth state, has been lamenting my fatness for some time. I make all kinds of mouth-promises I never keep: exercise, eat right, develop a stronger Spanx, etc.) One that I’ve said for a while is that I’m giving up fries.
I don’t even like fries. Ok, that’s a little lie: there are a few (two and a half) places who serve fries that I like. One is the little corner bar at the end of my street. They’re exactly like fair fries, not complete without salt and vinegar. Always piping hot and palate-blistering. Love ‘em. The second is Roosters, where the fries (not all that great) come slathered in cheese and bacon (all that great). I suppose I don’t even like the fries–I could technically get a dish of the jalapeno cheese sauce covered in bacon and keep to my goalution. And yes, there’s a .5 place where I like fries–like all red-blooded Americans, I love McDonald’s fries–but ONLY when palate-blistering hot. And getting them that way is a literal crap shoot. More often than not I eat a few and save the rest for the dogger. She loves her some fries!
I can give up McD’s no problemo. I don’t eat there but once a month at most. Roosters…pretty easy. I actually like their salad. Those aren’t words you hear every day. Or ever. I just feel nice today. But Memories’ fries are better than anything on the menu except the reuben. I could just eat a basket of those and no food. I’m going to have a hard time giving those up–not that we eat there a lot, either. (I can’t help it if the waitresses–and owner–know what we want without asking. They must have good memories or something…)
So, while I hadn’t written down these goal-utions, I’ve still blabbed enough about a few of them that even stoneheads like Mr. Science take notice. I’ve stopped ordering fries at Roosters, instead choosing to pilfer a few from the kid. So when we went to Memories last night with the in-laws, I wasn’t paying attention to myself or my goal-utions. I ordered a burger straight up and, without hesitation, the fries. After all–it wasn’t in writing anywhere. I didn’t technically screw up my goalutions if I didn’t actually set them, did I?
About ten minutes into our wait, Mr. Science turns to chat me up. “What did you order?”, he asks.
“Blue Cheese burger and fries.”
His gaze turns slightly thoughtful, slightly smug. “I thought you were giving those up for the new year,” he informs the table. Nothing says “I love you” while attempting to prove you wrong in front of parents.
“Oh, I thought about it,” I recovered. “I’m not starting officially til Monday.” I feel the need to slap the sneer off his face. “Besides, if I didn’t write it down yet, it’s not an official resolution. I’ll do it tomorrow.”
Well, since today is tomorrow, and I’ve put it down in writing, I guess I’m giving up fries forever and ever. and ever. I just hope when my plane crashes, it’s nowhere near Idaho. And Mr. Science isn’t around to rub it in.
I came to a sad realization this afternoon but not until I was in the middle of the madness and could do nothing about it.
Fat girls (size 10 and up) should not be shopping at Dick’s Sporting Goods.
The kid wanted to go to spend a gift card that’s been burning a hole in his pocket, so I agreed. I just read an abso-fabulous book on being/becoming a runner (yes, I’m still on that kick) these last few days and some of the stuff they mention, like the non-cotton tshirts, interest me. Not enough to drop half a C-note for something I can live without for now since I’m only burning up the road at a paltry 17’49 (average), which makes the chub rub chafing minimal at this point in my jogging career. But I am curious about the whole runner’s lifestyle.
Well, that was, until I found an XL (so it claimed) pair of Nike jogging ankle pants on the clearance rack that were obviously mislabled, both on the hang tag and the garment tag. If those were XL (which I rarely buy because L fits just fine), then I’m in the wrong place. As I wandered the aisles alone, I could almost hear the store security guys watching me on camera, snickering. “Look over there! In the golf equipment! Fat girl on the loose! Should we tell her the tent section is on the opposite end of the store?”
I stared down the security bubbles to shut them up, then promptly bought myself a zero-gravity lawn chair that will not only fit my thighs but cradle them in comfort as I sip my margarita. If my ass doesn’t fit in their pants, at least it’ll fit in their chairs.
I did leave with one burning question I wanted to ask the size 4 clerk: do runners start skinny? Or is there a fat jogger’s store I can visit? Hmmm…the world may never know.
Mortal Enemy of My Thighs
Finally, medical research that verifies the reason I can’t resist donuts: the perfect ratio of fat/sugar:
Dieters’ Best Intentions hijacked by their brains at MSNBC.com
So does this mean I don’t have to feel guilty about that half-dozen disaster around Easter?
Every fat girl's worst sporting nightmare
Since I recently posted the 5 scary things for fat girls, I didn’t want to do another fear list, but don’t be confused: this is a hate/fear combination. Nothing good about the lot. And I don’t presume to speak for all fat girls. Just this one.
1. Modern standardized seats built for people with 1920s hips.
I am seriously bothered (to the point of potentially needing therapy) about this one. Airplanes are included. Now, mind you, I don’t need a shoehorn to wedge myself in and out–or anything like that–but when you put two people (perfect strangers) together who actually have womanly hips (even if one happens to be a man) for 9 innings in 80 degree weather…not a good combo. I’m not grossed out by the amount of sweat generated between those two said legs, I’m bothered by the fact that I infringe on the personal space of another person I don’t know and don’t want to know. Our rubbing fat regions were an embarassment to me but a conversation starter for him. Ugh.
2. Plastic, solid seats.
On the same note, what happened to the wooden, slatted seats in the days of Babe Ruth, where the sun and personal sweating didn’t conspire to leave you feeling like a big, fat sweat target stuck itself to your ass while you’re enjoying a baseball game? Worse, there’s no way to check and make sure. It just feels gross. Slatted seats will at least help with the ventilation.
3. Standing Up To Cheer
Of all my womanly features, my ass is the most embarassing. I take every precaution to cover it and hide it (which, I figure, only draws more attention to it). So when the row of seats behind me is about a foot apart, it makes for a long sitting night. I don’t even like to go out of the row to the bathroom. Of course, sitting in a puddle of pee IS more embarrassing than having someone see my ass, but it’s still not a fun thing to do.
4. Obnoxious, skinny girls (who know nothing about baseball) in short skirts with no boobs who talk as loud as humanly possible about sex and their personal lives with men who don’t know them/are stupid enough to listen, laugh, ask perverted questions and buy the girl more beer.
Two reasons:
1. My son does not need to learn about your nipples at a baseball game and
2. I hate short skirts at sporting events. Especially when worn by skinny, loud, drunk sluts.
5. Eliminating the DH at NL ballparks in interleague play.
Not everything in my life is related to my bad body image obsession. But I do hate watching my AL pitcher try to bat in an NL ballpark. Seriously painful. Enough with the showed/real bunt already.
What about you? What do you hate most about major sporting events from your perspective as a beautifully curved woman? And don’t say “the game” because I’m as much a sports junkie as a donut lover. Leave me a comment so we can lament (and bitch) together!
Something funny happened on my way to demolish an entire bag of mini Twix yesterday: I stopped before eating a single one.
This incident alone isn’t enough to get me to seek medical attention but combined with a few other seemingly innocent events is a little more startling. Judge for yourself…
1. I haven’t spent more than five bucks on fast food in the past two weeks, and that was only for a large iced tea and hot tea from Tim Horton’s.
2. I made a pan of brownies on Weds. night and it was still available for chomping yesterday after school
3. I ate 3 Lay’s potato chips and closed the bag. (Ok, not so odd. I’m not a chip girl, even on my most binging days)
4. The most telling problem that something’s amiss? Alone in the teacher’s lounge with half a dozen delish donuts from the fab corner bakery, I nibbled half a jelly-filled gem around the edges and tossed the rest in the trash.
Don’t worry too much. I weighed in on the scale and found a two-pound gain from last week despite two weight lifting sessions and two 20 minute jogs. I sense a little less puff in my gut, and my pants are a wee bit looser, so I’m not stressing on the number. But the changes in my dietary habits are really interesting.
Are you hearing me? Reading between the lines?
Junk food is not calling my name. I continue to hear a quiet little voice in the back of my mind that says “You’re practically killing yourself every two days: burning thighs, burning lungs, sucking wind because you’ve ate more donuts over the last 38 years than the population of some towns in Rhode Island, and it’s working. More junk means more pain. Less junk, faster results. Do you really need/want to continue eating garbage when you could be burning off that pound of cookie dough you ate in ’97?”
(I said the voice was quiet. I didn’t say it was succinct).
At this point I must agree with the voice. I’m thinking I want to keep jogging and working out in order to eat more of the good stuff I like that my body needs, and not just fuel my addiction to shiny-wrappered candy or tasteless sprinkles. (You do know the sprinkles really don’t taste like anything but wax, don’t you? Eat a few spoonfuls and find out).
Today is a weightlifting/ab day; tomorrow is jogging. Tonight is a major-league baseball game with beer, hotdogs and possibly crackerjack. Don’t worry, I heard the voice. Besides, they don’t sell donuts in the aisles anyway.
Granted, it’s a pound less than the last time, but 10 more pounds than I started the school year with, and 20 more pounds than when I felt really good.
Don’t worry, this isn’t one of those “If a train leaves Chicago going east at 800 mph and a train leaves Boston going west at 740, where will they meet?” questions. (I hate math. Passionately.) Rather, it’s a lament on the fact that I’ve worked out for a solid week, am attempting to eat better (save the 3pm jinx..read more about that yesterday) and the only thing I’m losing is time I might otherwise spend napping by lifting weights.
I like to imagine it’s because my muscles have grown so much in 7 days that they’re equalling the fat I’ve burned (muscle does weigh more than fat, kids!) but it’s more likely that I’m not working as hard as I could to shed the pounds.
Why does it matter so much now? Class reunion. In a little over a month.
Mind you, I’m not one of those obsessive types that worries about social gatherings. I was happy to be able to squeeze this ass into a pair of nicely tailored, albeit fat-girl pants and a pretty top for this gathering of people I can’t wait to see (I’m weird. Love class reunions. Small school, lots of fun. And a little like a family reunion of sorts). I’m less about the dress size and more about the memories.
That was, until mom called and laid down a challenge. One of my friends from school who still lives near mom dropped off a birthday present for me a few weeks ago at mom’s, so when she called she mentioned it. Our conversation went something like this:
“M. stopped by today to drop off your birthday present. She looks great.”
“Really? Do you have any idea what it might be?”
“No, but she looks amazing. Her hair is really long and straight, she had on this cute…”
“Mom, the present. Focus with me. What does it sound like? Is it Bath and Body Works? Something Ohio State?”
“It’s got beautiful wrapping. And her skirt was so cute. She looks like she’s lost weight. And her glasses…oh, how adora…”
“The present? Just unwrap it and tell me what it is so I can send her a thank-you note.” (Because I don’t want to come home if you’re going to tell me how skinny and pretty my friends are BEFORE my class reunion. You’re MY cheerleader, not theirs). “Go unwrap it.”
Unable to resist the siren’s call to unwrap a present, mom padded off to the front closet while I plotted and planned. At the time, it was almost two months to the day of the reunion, so I had +/- 60 days to drop 20 pounds. As I scratched out some kind of division problem on my notepad ( I didn’t know what number went under the bracket so I had to do a few trial and error runs), mom came back to the phone.
“Great stuff. Bath and Body Works and a Buckeye thingie.” While she attempted to describe the presents, I finished the math. Long division short, it was too little time in which to whittle myself into the body I envisioned but a really good reason to start. Or get serious, as the case may be.
Which is why this number is frustrating. It’s 3 more than I started with a few weeks ago and I’m exercising. One of my pet peeves is people who scale-obsess, and I will not turn into that beast. But it doesn’t change the fact that I don’t know where the hell this number came from. Maybe God is a practical joker. Maybe the scale is out of whack. Or maybe I need to step up the exercise and shake my booty a little faster to get it moving in the right direction.
Whatever–I don’t ever want to see this number on my scale again. Time to get serious.