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.

11 - News and Other Hearsay

I had planned to come back from my hiatus all triumphant and “Here I am, rock you like a hurricane” (which, incidentally, I sang to everyone who would listen when Hurricane Isabel hit a few years back). Unfortunately, my comeback can neither be described as triumphant nor remotely rocking.

I spent most of the last month and a half commuting three hours, twice a week for adult education classes in order to get some web design know-how under my belt; the point was to perk up my resume so I can get out of my fairly shite job. Now I have to go ahead and see if I’ve actually learned anything by attempting to apply the know-how for the next few weeks. When that phase is over (after I’ve built a couple rudimentary sites by the sweat of my brow and my html skillz) I then have to go back to job hunting in earnest. In the mean time I continue to train new people at work which makes me feel like 32 going on 40, since they all seem to be 28 going on 12. And as if that’s not enough to suck one dry of mojo, the oral surgeon excised a portion of the underside of my tongue last week for testing purposes making it hard to yawn or even talk at points—we are not amused.

So I’m sure you can understand why I’m a little less than effervescent these days. Am I glad to not be commuting six hours a week to have it made clearer and clearer that the barriers to entry for a school board run class are depressingly low? Yes. Does that mean that the climb to the life I’d like to be leading is remotely over? No. I’m just no longer perspiring blood over the whole thing. In light of all this, however, some things are a-changin’.

First, I will post when I can post. I’d love to post something insightful or controversial every day but that’s not reality. In fact even posting something of that nature every two weeks (my original goal) isn’t always achievable. So sometimes I’ll post more often but sometimes it’ll mean you won’t hear from me for a month. Secondly the Google Group is no longer. That damn thing nearly caused my untimely demise. Instead, a brief e-mail from heavymefanatics@gmail.com will arrive at your inbox and instead of the entire post being there you’ll get a teaser and a link to the blog (just like you’ve received this time). There’s one main reason for this—diminished inbox clutter. If everyone reads and posts comments on the blog itself (you can post anonymously) no one gets any more e-mails than they signed up for. So, yes, please post comments on the blog itself unless they’re super personal, in which case you can feel free to e-mail back to the heavymefanatics address—it only goes to me. Third, I won’t be writing something to rival the length of Psalm 119 every time I post. Anything that’s really long will likely be serialized for readability. And lastly, I hope, by summer’s end, to move this blog to the domain www.heavyme.com which is presently parked on my behalf—but that remains to be seen. If the url changes, you’ll of course, be informed.

I think that’s all the business, so let’s get down to the fun stuff.

Anyone who has dieted more than two or three times knows how tempting it is to jump back on the band wagon again—and how scary it is as well. Presently I live in this sort of no man’s land where I’m too scared to go on another diet or “life change” plan, but I’m scared of what will happen if I don’t get this whole food thing under control in the near future. The fear of the diet is all about the possibility that I won’t maintain the weight loss and we all know that the “gain back” phase is generally worse every time. I am the heaviest I’ve ever been by about five or ten pounds, and while I’m not moving up the scale, I’m not moving down either. I think the scary number “they” throw out is that you only have to eat about 30 extra calories a day to gain an extra pound per year (and I’ve heard as low as 10 calories for the same result). Do you know what 30 calories amounts to? A third of a cup of 1% skim milk, a third of a cup of All Bran Buds cereal, a piece and a half of melba toast, a third of a portion of a Jello Gels cup. I mean we’re not talking a phenomenal amount of food here. An extra pound per year over a twenty year period and it’s suddenly clear why your high school physique is a distant memory, or in my case, a sign post from a past life. On the other hand, if I don’t start watching those 30-calorie servings, I’m going to be in a much more difficult place both physically and emotionally before I know it.

I haven’t tried “everything”—I won’t claim that, but I am getting a little exasperated at this point. As we all know, I’m a four time failure at Weight Watchers, one of the more respectable programs out there (speaking of which, we will be getting back to our guinea pigs very soon), and the Weigh Down Diet requires some level of faith in God—difficult since I’m agnostic (though it did work for a while when I was Christian). I’ve never tried anything that sounded remotely like a crash diet because I’ve always wanted to be responsible about it, but no matter how responsibly you lost the weight, when you gain it back the yo-yo has the same detrimental effects on your body. While exercising is a good thing and you should do it, I haven’t yet managed to find a form of exercise that I don’t loathe. I’ve “learned to run” with the Running Room three times now. One would think I’d actually be capable of running at long last. Walking buddies have kept me going for a time but that’s never quite stuck for me either. I have owned a variety of helpful DVDs in my time. The most amusing of the lot is one by Carmen Electra. I lasted two sessions of yoga before boredom forced me out of the room. African dancing is next up on the chopping block. Having said all that though, most experts agree that long term permanent weight loss has more to do with diet than exercise. Ultimately, if I’m to be victorious, I have to resolve my screwy relationship with food.

I eat when I’m hungry like most people. But I’m also very likely to ignore hunger and be all martyr-like about it when I’m busy, especially at work—kiss of death for a fat chick. Eating to deal with hunger is incidental; in fact when I’m not eating, even though I’m hungry, I feel this wonderful sense of control. But when I’m bored, or watching TV, or rewarding myself for surviving some form of stress, or anxious, or wired at two a.m., the urge to eat is seemingly uncontrollable. I don’t know if I can actually sit through a movie in a theatre without something to eat. I could have eaten a seven course meal just before the movie and I still *have* to have my popcorn. And it’s not like I’m eating my way through a vat of ice-cream in one sitting or anything outrageous for the most part. But taking into account that I only need to eat 10-30 extra calories a day to put on some pounds, then that 200-calorie personal size serving of popcorn, or that 300-calorie cup of ice-cream, or 100-calorie chunk of sausage, or the 270-calorie shandy—and oh, do I love a shandy—really add up to something special.

I’m not under any illusion that my weight gain isn’t in direct correlation to how much I eat, but I also know that the drive to eat is all in my head and has little to do with the actual food itself. So being all super strict about what I eat and how much I eat solves the problem for as long as I’m willing to feel punished; but at some point I have to change the relationship between me and food.

Enter neurolinguistic programming. It’s the concept behind that creepy fucking show that aired on TLC earlier this year, I Can Make You Thin (with host Paul McKenna) and the book of the same name. Some of the techniques pop up in The Weigh Down Diet but with God added to the mix. In general NLP has a pretty good reputation and it makes good sense at least theoretically: change the way you think about food and you change the habits around it, thus making the weight go away. So despite the creep factor of the show, the somewhat hard to find book is on order and will hopefully have me feeling a little more positive about this whole thing in the near future (4-14 business days according to the “seller” on Amazon). Unfortunately NLP ain’t gonna have me thin by the time I roll up in Myrtle Beach in my generous tankini at the end of July, but I hope that by the end of the year I’ll be seeing some concrete results. You will be kept posted.

As for the other fear—that if I lose weight and meet Mr. Right, he’ll dump me if I gain weight again—well that’s for another post. For now, let’s see if Paul McKenna can, in fact, make me thin.