18 - My Fat Friend

Recently I lost a friend. Not in the traditional sense, but a shift in her life has occurred that has precipitated a slight shift in our relationship. As a result she no longer fills a specific role in my life: that of the “fat friend.”

The woman in question happens to be my sister, my closest sibling and probably my closest friend. Now to clarify, because I managed to offend the hell out of her with my shorthand, I don’t mean that she’s the fat friend who makes you feel so awesome about how you look because she looks worse. What I mean by “fat friend” is the person who affirms your decision not to work on your weight by their decision not to work on theirs. I didn’t care if our reasons for not working at it were the same; misery loves company and I enjoyed her company down here in the overweight trenches a great deal.

Allow me a little history if you will. My sister moved to Toronto in 2000, just after a family reunion. And at that family reunion a photo was taken. In it, the whole family is standing except the two of us; we’re seated and (I blame the camera angle now) neither of us looked our best. I remember feeling absolutely mortified at that picture when I saw it later. In fact, I’m fairly certain that photo precipitated my first foray into Weight Watchers. Soon after my sister’s move, she started the Jenny Craig program, and since then we’ve kind of mirrored each other in our weight gain and loss.

Over the past nine years, we’ve both yo-yo’d around and taken stabs at getting the weight issue under control. We did Myrtle Beach together last year in our belle grande bathing suits (though admittedly she was wearing one of my old “skinny” ones—I’ll always be the “big” little sister). Later that year we went home to attend an anniversary party for our parents and while her dress was way better than mine, we were both carrying more weight than we wanted to be at the time.

But now, all of this is about to change because my sister has signed up for Weight Watchers. While I have no great faith in the efficacy of the program, I know there are exceptions to the rule and it’s entirely conceivable that my sister will be one of them. Even in the worst case scenario that she isn’t the exception, I’m sure she’ll lose a significant amount of weight to begin with. She’s down about 6lbs after three weeks which is right on spec for the program. Assuming she continues to lose at this rate with no major setbacks, in six weeks she’ll be down 18lbs. That’s the kind of difference you can see—especially at another family event.

You got it. In a scant six weeks, we’ll both fly home for our mom’s 70^th birthday. All of my tall, thin brothers will be there. And this time I’ll be the only fat sibling.

Being with my family is emotionally exhausting at the best of times, but when I’m already stressed out, it’s hell on earth. Around my family I revert back to some out-of-control eighth grader begging to be understood, respected and listened to and it usually culminates with me having just the temper tantrum to prove that I’m still an out-of-control eighth grader who doesn’t deserve to be understood, respected or listened to. So yeah, that, on top of being the only fatty—not looking forward.

With all this in mind, I’ve begun to wonder if I have the wherewithal to be fat alone, not only with my family but everywhere else as well. Will I be able to calmly stand up to the well-intentioned (I like to think) prodding of certain family members to shed the pounds? Will I manage to enjoy what little I can of my family without worrying about how I look the entire time? Can I manage to not make the entire trip about my weight?

And out here in the real world, can I fight the temptation to change for shitty reasons? I’ve taken a long hiatus from working on my weight and it hasn’t just been the result of sheer laziness. In fact, it’s been a concrete decision based on, what I believe, to be a valid reason. Tempting though it is to do something drastic, I refuse to start another weight loss regimen that I don’t think is healthy or that I don’t see myself maintaining for life; and that nixes a lot of conventional programs. I won’t eat packaged Jenny Craig or NutriSystem food forever; I won’t spend the rest of my life running off to Dr. Bernstein to get shots in my ass; I won’t cut out carbs for the rest of my life; I won’t even count points and go to meetings a la Weight Watchers for the rest of my life. And so far at least, Paul McKenna can’t make me thin. So knowing my failure rate with at least one of these methods and my aversion to the rest of them, there’s little point in starting them. I’m sure I could lose weight in any one of these programs but the likelihood that I would keep it off is so low that I’m not willing to participate. I’ve done enough of the lose/gain cycle and I refuse to subject my body to it. Until I know I’m ready to deal with all my emotional triggers around food, I’m just not going to make some half-assed attempt. But in the mean time, I remain overweight and not terribly happy about it. And now there’s no one along for the ride. My human pillar of affirmation has left the building.

I guess I should be thankful that I’m so tired of the weight gain/loss treadmill because I haven’t been strongly tempted at all to do anything. I’ve had crazy thoughts of just starving myself until July 18, being trim for a weekend and then piling it all back on. But those are thoughts that remain nothing more than fucked up fantasies. So fat I am now, and fat I shall be on July 18.

There have been three positives in this though. The first is that I have quickly realized that my relationship with my sister will survive her losing weight without me; frankly I wasn’t sure I’d be able to be normal about it for a while there. The second is that I think she’s happier with herself and I basically just want my sister to be happy. The last is that I’ve been forced into the realization that I was never okay with not working at my weight in the first place. But what follows is not what you might anticipate.

Even with a friend along for the ride, I have been bound up in mess of self-loathing around my body that’s been pretty substantial and I hadn’t really been aware of how deep it went. I’ve never been in a place of acceptance about my weight but instead this terrible limbo; just waiting for the day when the rest of my life calms down enough to work on it and never really settling into this body in the mean time. Like moving into a house and never unpacking anything because you don’t plan to stay. In lieu of self-acceptance, I struck a deal with myself: it’s okay to not work at the weight as long as you hate yourself sufficiently for being overweight. And I’ve done a fabulous job at the hatred. Messed up, I realize.

So I’ve begun to wonder, can I just sit still and try to be happy at my present size? Can I manage to just work at accepting myself in the here and now, without a plan for the there and then? Can I refrain from continuing to disavowing all connection to this body? Can I stop thinking of my body and thus myself as something in need of major renovation?

I have a hope that being alone in this will make it easier to work on accepting myself on some basic level. It’s funny, but walking alone might lead to greater happiness.