Diary of a Fat Girl - Episode 8: "I Did It, And So Can You!"

We've all seen the TV ads where celebrities and regular joes alike show their bitchin' before and after photos, demonstrating impressive weight loss and/or muscle gain over what seems like a short period of time.  Ripped abs, tiny waists, toned arms, all flexed in that weird one-leg-slightly-in-front-of-the-other-like-you're-hiding-a-boner pose. I got back into shape after my 12 pregnancies, and you can too!  Spend just 20 minutes a day, 3 days a week and you'll look like this!  Or, even more deceptively, just one pill a day is all it takes to achieve these amazing results!

The downright untruthful ads are part of our cultural zeitgeist, things many of us dismiss outright because we know that a pill can't do all the things that are promised.  That's not something that concerns me, at least not more than any regular ol' lie does.  The thing that worries me, and something I have noticed in forums on both myfitnesspal.com and fitocracy.com (especially the latter), is the attitude of "I did it - so can you!"  It's not that inspiration, motivation, or community encouragement is problematic; as a matter of fact, all of those can make a tremendous difference for people hoping to lose weight.

The problem I have is the implied message, real or assumed, that goes along with that.  "I did it - so can you! So if you're still fat, it's your own fucking fault, asshole!  Something must be wrong with you."  The implication that someone isn't trying hard enough or doesn't really want to lose weight is a huge source of guilt and shame for many of us long-time fatties.  Imagine how hard it is to exercise several times a week, care about every single food you eat and beverage you drink, and stay continuously focused on your health and diet.  [If you read that and thought, "That doesn't sound hard at all," stop reading now.  We have nothing to talk about.]  Then imagine how hard that would be if you also secretly wondered if you were capable of losing and keeping off any of this weight, remembered all the times before when you tried and failed, and felt like maybe your failures meant that you didn't deserve to be healthy and happy. [See: Diary of a Fat Girl: Episodes 1-7]

For many people, the psychological/emotional component of fitness has a huge effect on the physical results.  In my own experience of the last four or so months, I have come to treat my own habits and tendencies much like a drug addiction.  I take things one day at a time, I don't dwell on past failures, and I identify and deal with my various triggers (like walking by a delicious-smelling fast food joint on the way home while I'm rather hungry, for example).  While I can use moderation rather than abstaining 100%, in most other ways I have to use the attitude that recovering drug addicts use.  I am going through "treatment" as a whole person and doing more than just changing my body.  My attitudes, habits, and feelings are all changing too.  If I had approached this most recent attempt at weight loss without addressing any of the underlying emotional issues, it would likely be over by now, and I'd be comforting myself with an open bag of chips and a liter of Mountain Dew.  To put it plainly: for a lot of people, weight loss and health are emotional issues just as much as they are physical ones.

That's why I get my panties in a bunch when I hear people, whatever their intentions, criticize the efforts of other people.  It's one thing when a person posts a message saying, "I'm doing what I know is healthy but I'm not losing weight - please help me!"  But when someone posts saying, "I just starting doing this great cardio routine - here's hoping I lose ten pounds this month!" and someone else responds with, "Cardio isn't going to doing anything.  You should be strength training."...well, I get annoyed.  It's true that strength training not only increases muscle mass but also increases your metabolism (your body's fat burning potential).  So suggesting strength training is helpful.  But shitting on someone's positive, hopeful post by dismissing their choices as pointless...UGH.  Are you trying to derail people's efforts?  Are you trying to make people feel bad about themselves?

I suspect, and this is only based on my encounters and experiences, that most of these negative nancies have two things in common.  First, most of them probably include fitness and exercise into their daily lives as the norm, and range from fitness enthusiasts to full-on gym rats.  Second, most of them probably are not the people I talked about before, those for whom emotions tie in to physical fitness.  That second part is actually an extension of the "it worked for me" attitude.  People who like to be told, flat-out, what's what will tend to use that communication method with others.  If you want your friend to be brutally honest about whether this shirt looks good on you, then you will probably be brutally honest in a similar situation where you're the judging friend.

So the nay-sayers seem to have empathy problems.  They don't see the need to sugar-coat or carefully phrase their advice, because that's not what they would want.  They also don't see why people would find it difficult to fit exercise into their daily lives.  If they spend two hours a day exercising, why can't anyone manage a half hour or 45 minutes?  There are a lot of reasons that people find it challenging to fit in exercise.  Whether they work long hours, have a lot of household responsibilities, take care of kids, or just come home exhausted every day, many people have perfectly normal reasons that they find it hard.  Of course, the other side of this is that there are people who really do have the time but are creative geniuses when it comes to making excuses.  I can't find my other shoe.  All my gym socks are dirty.  It's raining.  I don't have a good playlist.  I have time to exercise but not to shower after, so I'm not going to exercise.  And so on.

The problem is that the nay-sayers don't distinguish between the reasons and the excuses.  They have, at one point or another, moved things around in their schedules to fit in a workout.  They have had bad days that still managed to include exercise.  They have decided to get up an hour early to go for a run.  So, if they did it, it's possible, and if you don't do it, you're a fuck-up.  Your best reasons are not good enough for them; they're horseshit excuses that are nothing but poison.  And they feel that by calling you on this bullshit, by pointing out what you're doing wrong and how you're fooling yourself, they are absolutely helping you.  And for some people, that's true.  Some people are whiny bitches who lie to themselves and need a Jillian Michaels right upside the head.

But not everyone responds well to that sort of treatment.  I know it's so cliche, but it's true: everyone is different.  Words of encouragement for one person might crush someone else's spirit.  Pushing someone to try harder could easily be interpreted as "you're not trying hard enough" or "your meager efforts are invalid"...not exactly motivating words for a lot of us.  I'm not suggesting that everyone just start sucking each other's internet penises and be Richard Simmons all the time.  Some people hate being coddled and don't respond well to positive, sugary-sweet sentiments.  But however you naturally respond to people and interact about fitness/weight loss, take a moment to consider who you're talking to.  What is the tone of this person's message?  Is s/he asking a question, or just posting a statement?  Is s/he looking for advice?  Will my comments and the way they are phrased be welcomed, and interpreted as intended?

Not all of those questions are possible to answer in every online interaction.  Everyone has been misunderstood at one point or another, and sometimes the best intentions end up with the worst results.  It happens.  But by trying to meet a person where s/he is at, and offering comments and suggestions in a tone that seems appropriate for the original post, you can minimize the possibility of those bad outcomes.  Maybe you don't give a shit about how your comments are received or whether people want positive encouragement.  Maybe you think that people who need careful phrasing are weak and should be forced to adapt to rougher interactions.  Sometimes the drill sergeant does produce stronger, better, faster recruits.  And sometimes Gomer Pyle fucking shoots the drill sergeant and himself.  Just don't be an asshole about it and we'll all be okay.

Diary of a Fat Girl - Episode 7: Extrinsic Motivation is Fucking Awesome

At my school, we've been trying for years to figure out a way to motivate students to attend regularly and stay driven from September to June.  Since all the research says that negative consequences will only work for a handful of kids, we try to use positive consequences, like awards and food.  Food works sometimes.  But what we've found, and what the research also suggests, is that extrinsic motivation (that is, external forces/factors, like $5 per A, or honor roll, etc.) is limited in how much passion it can really inspire in people.  Some students will try a little harder if they know there's a prize at the end, whether it means a gift card to Dunkin Donuts or recognition at a brief awards ceremony; for the most part, though, those consequences are too distant to be truly inspirational, or not deeply felt enough to have a real effect.  The intrinsic motivation (pride, satisfaction in having done a good job, feeling hopeful and positive, enjoying just being there) is what really gets people to show up day after day, and it's not something that can be given to someone.

What I realized this week, and what should not surprise me at all, is that I am one of the few people who can be totally motivated by extrinsic factors.  In school, I really was driven by year-end grades, honor roll, certificates and awards, and recognition.  Besides making me out to be a huge teacher's pet and brown-nose, this tendency helped me be exceptionally successful in high school.  A teacher noticing and remarking that I had done a great job that week would keep me going at full speed for another week, until someone else would tell me "good job" and it would start again.  I think one of the reasons I didn't excel as much in undergrad (besides the fact that my English classes were having me read Sister Carrie and Moby Dick and other such gaaahhhhbage, kid) was that I got to know very few of my professors and rarely engaged with them in a way that made me feel personally invested in the goings-on of the class.  Some notable exceptions (Social and Civic Contexts of Education, Shakespeare Tragedy in Film, Poetry Seminar) were also where I saw some of my best grades and remember learning the most, not to mention I loved the teachers.  For me, there is no barrier between extrinsic and intrinsic motivating factors; the extrinsic things make me happy, so they instantly become intrinsic.

If I were smart, and that's an IF if I ever heard one, I might have drawn a connection between this modus operandi and my most recent attempts to lose weight/eat better/be healthier/fit into the cute size 10 shorts I bought.  To cut myself some slack, I have had some negative experiences with extrinsic motivation and weight loss in the past, namely when other people get involved.  The interpersonal aspects of fitness goals never really work with me, for some reasons I've discussed on here and probably many other reasons I have yet to even figure out myself.  My desire to please absolutely everyone I care about combined with my lack of faith in my own ability to stick with a fitness plan can make things messy that way.

But I had discounted the existence of motivators that were not people.  Of course, I have "skinny clothes" (if a fat person says they don't, either they have been at a stable weight for years and have given up on trying to lose weight OR they are a fucking liar) and goals I've given myself regarding fitting into clothes and being able to do things...for example, being able to wear my badass bomber jacket before Christmas, or being able to wear skirts without bike shorts underneath by next summer, and so on.  Recently I've become rather fixated on my newest fat symptom: back boobs.  Previously, I had as much back fat as any other kind of fat, but knew I was at risk for back boobs (it's like being pre-diabetic...in fact, I suspect it's a lot like being pre-diabetic).  Since the winter, I've actually had them.  Like, full on, droopy, fucking crenellations (or would they be merlons?).  If a dude had them on his chest, not a jury in the world would hesitate to convict him of Bitch Tits.

But looking at my back boobs doesn't necessarily motivate me.  Maybe while I'm on the elliptical and trying to visualize the effects of the work I'm doing, yeah, then getting rid of them is a factor in making me work harder or stay on longer.  But even then, the effects are limited.  I can't really explain why just observing my own overweight state doesn't make me flee to the nearest Curves For Women, but if it did, you bet your ass I would already be rather trim, and wearing a bomber jacket well before the first snow.

You know what has been motivating me this week, though?  Zombies.  The living fucking dead.  Zombies have always been able to get me to do things I don't always want to do, like read a big book (World War Z is absolutely the best epistolary novel I've ever read, and one of my top 5 favorite books of all time...yes, even if we're counting Harry Potter 7 times.) or watch movies in a foreign language (Dead Snow...pretty good!).  I've always been a fan of science fiction mythologies, to the extent that I get anxious waiting for exposition in sci-fi movies because that's the part I like.  Hell, I love the movie Thirteen Ghosts and it's not even good (Monk is the hero?  Really?), but it has a cool mythology, so I dig it.  Zombies, with the varied causes of zombification and characteristics of the zombies themselves, have thusly always been of interest to me.  I was talking with someone a few weeks ago who asserted, correctly I think, that people are interested in zombie movies not because of the zombies but because of the humans who are left to deal with the new landscape.  I couldn't help but think, "Well...that's probably true for other people.  But I need to know if this was a lab-created virus or a hell-is-full-up thing or what."  I like the first section of The Stand the best, and the only thing that happens is the release of a virus that kills everyone.  M-O-O-N, that spells fucking awesome.

So when a friend of mine sent a few of us a link to Run For Your Lives, my absolute initial reaction was WANT.  Now, let me put two things out there to set the record straight:

1. I hate running.  As an activity, as a method of exercise, as a mode of transportation....I hate it.  Granted, I hate it because I can't do it and it's painful, but my rage is no less intense given the reasoning.

2. I hate being chased.  Any slight stimulus of my fight-or-flight response makes me want to piss my pants and scream my head off.  As kids, when we would do something mildly intense, like playing flashlight tag in an unfamiliar area, I would become so tense and nervous that I'd get sick to my stomach: giddy and excited and full of joy, yes, but still physiologically affected.  There are very, very few situations in one's adult life where that feeling might come up, but being chased by zombies in the woods definitely counts.

That being said, I went straight home from work on the day I read about the Zombie 5k and popped Turbo Jam into the machine, punching and kicking my fat away.  The next day, I made a series of Spotify playlists for workouts of varying intensity, then went home and did an exploratory 3-mile elliptical routine (5k = 3.1mi).  The day after that, I was planning to take a rest day, then Dan offered to bring home Kelly's Roast Beef, so I did another 2.75 miles.  That was Thursday.  Friday, yesterday, I actually did take a rest day, primarily because the Alzheimer's Walk is Sunday and I didn't want to injure or tire myself to the point of not being able to complete the walk.

Tuesday, the day I was told about the 5k (as was Dan, and a handful of others), Dan saw that I had exercised after work and asked if I was training for the Zombie run.  I said, "yes," and offered no further comment nor an indication as to whether I was serious.  Thursday, he arrived home with food just as I was finishing my elliptical trek, and again asked if I was training for the 5k.  Again, in the same flat tone, I said, "yep."  Taking me at my word, he asked, "what's 5k...like 3 miles?  I can do that.  Hell, I'll do the Zombie thing."  Finding his casual commitment to it amusing, considering he hates exercise and is in just as bad shape as me (not that you can tell, with his stupid fast metabolism), I said, "Okay.  Want to train with me?"  He laughed, immediately thinking of both of us on the elliptical together, and replied, "well, not at the same time."  I then asked him if he wanted to come on the Alzheimer's Walk, something he has previously begged off and instead donated increasing amounts of money so he doesn't feel obligated to join me on it.  He cheerily replied, "nope!"

I don't know if Dan is actually going to go through with what he said, or if he'll even try to get in shape in preparation for it.  I do know that there are 12 obstacles scattered throughout the race, including some sort of faux sewer maze and a huge wall right before the finish line.  Although males have stronger upper bodies than females, I wonder, can Dan scale a wall?  Can he run without getting out of breath right away?  How would he do in such situations?  I have no idea, because I've never seen him exert himself like that.  I know his legs are long as shit, so his strides are crazy big and he walks faster than basically anyone I know (and that's just how he is, he's not trying to walk fast), so I know he'd be able to do the 5k on a basic level, but beyond that, who knows.

Right now, I don't really have the time or energy to spare worrying about Dan's physical condition or his goals.  I've never heard him talk about eating better or being healthier, so I don't think he's really motivated to make any lifestyle changes, and that's fine for him.  All I can do is worry about my own habits and my own training.  God, that sounds so much better than "my diet" or "my fitness".  My training.  Oooooh, it's delicious.

Tomorrow is the Alzheimer's Walk, and I'm hoping that my team will be interested in doing the long route.  You can walk either 2 miles or 6 miles, and while both would be a nice way to spend a Sunday morning, I'd get a lot more out of the 6-mile walk.  I suppose we'll find out tomorrow.  Of course, after the walk is the traditional brunch, so some of the calories burned in the morning will just end up returning in the form of bacon, but bacon is delicious, and I'm gonna eat it goddammit.

Hopefully, and I say that while looking at myself in the mirror and grinding a fist into my open palm, this extrinsic motivation thing sticks around a while.  Having a goal, a somewhat-distant-but-still-quantifiably-close event, has really lit a fire under my ass.  Having metrics to measure my own body's performance and improvement, rather than widely variable things like "fitting into jeans" makes me feel more firmly settled into my desired benchmarks.  Saying, "I want to do 3 miles on the elliptical in under 45 minutes next week" is WAY more concrete and independent from other factors than "I want to look good in a 2-piece bathing suit."  At this point, fuck the bathing suit, I want to survive zombie-infested woods.  I WANT TO LIVE!

"Holy crap, hey look at this; you can totally see people jumping out of windows and stuff. That's crazy."

"Miss, I want to do my research paper on Osama bin Laden."

"That's too recent; it's going to be too hard to write something comprehensive because it's kind of an on-going thing. Is there something else you'd want to write about?"

"Okay, I want to do September 11th."

Pause.

"Okay."

I've had variations of this conversation several times in the five years I've been teaching, particularly recently with the death of Osama bin Laden. Three of my fourteen College Writing students independently asked me if they could do bin Laden as a topic for their final papers in June, and two of them switched to September 11th when I said no.

In and of itself, reading papers about September 11th isn't excessively upsetting for me. Yes, the casual, matter-of-fact tone in which the students recount which planes were hijacked, which buildings were struck, and how many people died does irk me, but it's hard to blame them for feeling a little detached. Most of them were in first or second grade when it happened, and they often describe their feelings on that day in terms of confusion, curiosity, or sadness in reaction to their parents' sadness.

The sentiment I have most often encountered among my students, and I admit that this does not necessarily represent a true majority, but rather just the majority of the outspoken individuals, is doubt. They have heard endless conspiracy theories about explosives in the bottom of the building. They characterize George W. Bush simultaneously as a diabolical mastermind and a retarded man-child.  As far as they are concerned, Bush/the government/"we" were responsible for 9/11 for two reasons: being too incompetent to prevent it but also orchestrating it.  The simple logical impossibility of those two both being true makes me twitchy.  It's like when Picard planned to destroy the Borg by uploading a paradox to their network.  Does not compute.

But beyond the herp-a-durr factor, there is another element of this attitude that bothers me even more so.  They approach the topic, and the issue of blame/conspiracy/etc., with the same casual way we discuss the circumstances of Mr. Boddy's death when we play Clue.  It's not real to them in the sense that they are disturbed by the attacks or driven by an emotional reaction to find out what "really" happened.  I don't know if they are so desensitized to death/disaster/Sept. 11th that it doesn't strike them as an emotional issue.  I don't know if they somehow feel that if the attacks were staged/faked, then the death and sadness and shock associated with that day are less meaningful.  It could simply be that they were too young to experience those emotions at the time, so they will always be detached, like those of my generation feel about the Challenger explosion or the Lockerbie plane bombing/crash.

The passionate, superior, insistent way in which my students argue with me about the facts surrounding the attacks, call me over to watch the YouTube video that "totally proves" whatever theory they've become convinced of, look at me with skepticism mixed with pity because I've been "duped" into believing that Al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked planes without the knowledge or complicity of the US government...it makes me want to shake them.  I want to shout in their faces, "I know why you think this, and I know that you don't understand the difference between fact and suspicion...I know you want to believe that Bush was evil and that these attacks were carried out in manner entirely different from what they say on TV.  I know you want to believe these things because it helps you justify your hate of the government and authority, and it feeds into your already-established distrust of everyone with more power than you, and it makes you feel special and powerful to know the truth that other people don't know.  I know that.  But you don't know what the fuck you're talking about.  You just don't.  If you had sources of any reliability, evidence that stood up to even the slightest scrutiny, or remotely plausible motives and methods behind the facts you're presenting, I would listen to you and hear you out.  But since you don't, you come off sounding like a total fucking asshole.  Shut.  The Fuck.  Up."

But I can't say that, so I don't.  I try to teach them how to evaluate sources for accuracy, bias, and reliability.  I try to teach them not to be so gullible and trusting of anyone who has ever said anything on the internet.  I try to teach them that the government is not organized, well-funded, or aggressively dickish enough to pull of September 11th, and instead they just slowly cut funding to poor people, sometimes by accident.  I try to teach them to question, analyze, evaluate, re-evaluate, wonder, critique...all before deciding, and ultimately knowing.

The reason their conclusion-jumping bothers me so much with this topic is that September 11th still makes me really, really sad.  And angry.  When students are researching the attacks and watching YouTube clips of the second plane hitting, or the towers collapsing, I leave the room, pretending I have urgent business in the hall.  I can't watch that shit.  This week in particular has been brutal because every news station is airing 10th Anniversary stuff, with footage of the attacks and the wreckage at Ground Zero cut into every ad spot, promo, and news segment.  My mom planned a standard family dinner on Sunday, September 11th, and I don't want to go.  I want to sit alone in a room.  I don't want to treat it like a normal day, because for me, it's not.

I don't know if other people feel this way, especially people who didn't know anyone who died that day.  I don't really care if it's normal to be this upset.  But I certainly don't want to be surrounded by a group of people who aren't as upset as me.  Or, perhaps worse, a group of people who are upset and want me to be upset with them.  That's why I'm not attending any ceremonies or vigils.  Contrary to the impression this blog post gives, these feelings are personal.  Private.  I don't want to share them with anyone, especially not my students.  Thank god it's on a Sunday, I guess.

Diary of a Fat Girl - Episode 6: When Action and Consequence Seem Unrelated

The past couple of weeks have been strange, not in any single way but in a few dynamics.  Dan and I went on the cruise, which was exactly as you would expect - lots of pools, beaches, fruity alcoholic beverages, overeating, the works.  I feel bad when people ask me about the cruise; I have nothing remarkable to tell them.  There aren't many stories.  We went on a boat, which was exceptionally large.  The boat took us to three islands, none of which had substantially different cultures from ours (and none of which spoke a primary language ahead of English).  It was hot, but usually a pleasant kind of hot with low humidity.  We got mildly sunburned on our shoulders.  The food was good but not great, and the service was outstanding throughout the cruise, though I find it hard to center a story around Trevor being a really good waiter.

The real shift for me was that I was gone for something like 9 days.  I was here, then not, then back again.  I didn't do dishes or walk dogs or play Zynga games for that time.  In fact, excluding some 3G usage in port and at the hotels, I was essentially offline for that time.  It was pretty refreshing, but not something I found to be life-changing.  I like being on a computer, just in general, but I don't find myself so Facebook/internet/computer addicted that I got the shakes on the cruise.  I find it comforting, I suppose, to realize that my time spent online in any given day is not some warning sign or red flag suggesting a larger problem.  At least, probably not.

The most surprising thing, I think, is that I didn't actually gain weight on the cruise.  Yes, it was a relatively short period of time.  But considering my two staple beverages on the trip were Coke and whole milk (not by choice...why are all hotels/resorts/restaurants obsessed with ONLY whole and skim milk?  Do they not realize that many, many people drink 1 or 2%?), and considering that I had chicken fingers and french fries at least once a day, if not twice...well, I should have blown up like Violet in Willy Wonka.

Instead, when I weighed myself back at home after the cruise, I appeared to have gained a little less than one pound.  A few days later, the pound was gone.  And now, about a week and a half after getting home, I'm down another 2.5 pounds.  Don't get me wrong, I'm delighted with these continued results (now down about 11 pounds from my heaviest), but here's the thing...

I haven't been doing, well, anything.  I mean, I'm still avoiding going out to eat constantly, but it's hard because Dan's been home with me since the cruise (long story, but he goes back to work when I do), and his idea of "doing something" follows the formula of "getting food + x".  So I'm not getting take-out every day, or even every 3 days, but it's still more than I would if I were only concerned with my own meals.

Also, I haven't been exercising.  While some of this is laziness, and I assure you that I delight in laziness, the main reason I'm on the couch most of the day is that I fucked up my knee on the cruise.  I don't know what I did, and I don't recall any moment where I was like "ow motherfucker, ow!" but we spent pretty much all day every day walking around (hence the lack of weight gain, I suspect), so it could just be overuse.  The problem is that it hasn't fixed itself, despite me resting it a fair amount over the last 10 days.  Most of the time it feels fine, but if I have it bent for a long time (like now, sitting and working at the computer), it can hurt rather acutely to straighten it back out.  Walking is fine, but stairs make my knee ache a little. 

The internet tells me everything from slight sprain/strain all the way to meniscus tear and ligament injury.  I have a regular check-up in just over 2 weeks, so if it's not getting better by then, I'll check with my doctor, but for now I'm worried that overzealous exercise could make it worse.  I've had minor knee problems (especially in my right knee, which is the injured one) since college, primary as a side effect of my weight, but nothing beyond soreness.  I already have many knee braces/supports, none of which are the right size, because my knee isn't fat, but my thigh is.  Apparently the knee brace companies don't realize that, other than athletes, the biggest demographic buying their products is We, The Fat.  I need something that's 16" around the knee and 24" around the thigh...that is so far out of whack with the proportions of the standard sizes that I would have to get a three-figure custom brace made.  And, well....no.

It's funny....my knee hurts because I'm fat.  I'm fat because I don't exercise.  I don't exercise because my knee hurts.  How appropriate.  Of course, losing weight is not a function solely of exercise, so restricting my food intake could be just as beneficial as cardio kickboxing in my living room.

The thing is...I'm not sure whether I should pay attention to my own assessment of my efforts or the apparent results of those efforts.  If I listen to the scale, which says "good work!", then I should keep doing what I'm doing.  But if I reflect on my eating and exercising habits, I don't find myself putting in nearly the amount of effort I'm capable of.  When the results don't match the efforts, most of the time it's "I'm doing all this work but no weight is coming off!"...my 'problem' is substantially less upsetting, but just as perplexing.  Is my metabolism just sort of awake now?  Was I really snacking so much and eating such large meals before that it's enough to simply not eat like an asshole?  Or is this weight loss the result of efforts from two or three weeks ago, and the rebound will appear soon enough?

I don't know the answers, of course.  If I did, this blog would be called Smarter Than You.  But for now, I'm going to put on the best-fitting of my ill-fitting knee braces and get ready for our friend to come over, at which point I have no doubt we'll order food.  Sigh.

Diary of a Fat Girl - Episode 5: My Food Pyramid is All -itos

Alright, so the title is pretty misleading; I actually haven't had an -ito (Dor, Frit, or the rebelliously-oddly-spelled Chee) in weeks if not months. But the class of foods so uniformly labeled as "bad" by anyone who cares about that sort of thing doesn't really have a clever label, so I went with humor over accuracy. I hope you'll forgive me.

But in the exaggeration, there is some truth. My diet (by which I mean long-term eating habits, not some hyper-restrictive list of acceptable foods which is inherently a temporary measure) is incredibly limited because of a wonderful little quirk I have. When I put food (or drink) into my gaping maw, if it doesn't taste good to me, my gag reflex responds rather forcefully. If conditions are just right, I actually will hurl. This hasn't happened in many years, mostly because I'm not fucking stupid enough to put shitty-tasting food in my mouth.

Unfortunately, this means that trying new foods is a scary proposition. All of a sudden, ordering that wonderful-sounding-but-unfamiliar dish at a restaurant turns into a nightmare in which I have to apologize to the wait staff, the hostess, the busboy, and all the other diners while simultaneously trying to look suave wiping puke off my chin. It would make for a very funny scene in a movie, if it were not actually my life.

To complicate matters, this is not just an issue of tasty/un-tasty. I also dislike strong flavors, in all foods except those I grew up eating (even in those exceptions, I find it hard to name a food with a "strong" flavor, unless that flavor is fake cheese or fried). To me, nearly all flavors are strong flavors. My taste buds are apparently hyper-sensitive (or TOTAL ASSHOLES), so something as simple as a pepper will send me fleeing from a plate. Anything remotely spicy (including normal amounts of black pepper) is completely out. Most herbs and spices are also out, which is the main thing that makes food taste like things. I dislike any and all condiments, unless you count salt. Yes, even ketchup, that thing that everyone likes (especially picky children), is horrible to me.

Think of all the genres of food you like to eat. Sushi, pizza, chinese food, wraps, frozen yogurt, paninis, burritos, vindaloo, tacos...yeah, I don't eat any of that shit. Well, that's not true...I do eat plain fried rice from chinese food places. But so help me god, if they put any fucking egg or weird stuff in there, I'm *out*. Of course, this pickiness is not just limited to take-out. Food that one might cook in one's own home is subject to the same rules. If I went through every single cookable item that I like to eat (excluding obvious analogs, like various cereals or shapes of pasta or something), I think I could make it through in about 2 weeks before I had to repeat a dish. And that's being generous and including things that only need to be heated up, like Spaghetti-os.

If you made an Amber Food Pyramid, which I so happened to make, it might look like this:
It's a bleak picture, to say the least. If I'm trying to have a healthy meal with multiple components (instead of, say, an entire box of rice-a-roni with nothing but a huge glass of milk), I end up repeating foods on almost a daily basis. I like 4 salad vegetables (iceberg lettuce, cucumbers without the peel, carrots, and lighter-colored celery....yes, four things that taste like almost nothing), plus corn. For fruit, I like pineapple and watermelon almost exclusively in terms of fresh things. I will also happily eat an apple, but only without the peel, and I'm too lazy to deal with that whole situation, so apples enter my diet in juice form only. I eat raisins, especially paired with bran, so I guess that's another fruit if we're being technical. I will drink orange juice, but I strongly prefer it paired with pineapple juice because, you guessed it, orange juice has too strong a flavor (and too much acidic pucker-factor) for me.

I think the two areas in which I enjoy the greatest variety of foods are cereals and snacks. Of course, all the cereals I like are just variations on a theme: sugar grains. Frosted Flakes is an excellent example. I love the flakes, but I mostly love them because they are frosted. Flaky Flakes wouldn't be nearly as appealing to me. So even though I can happily cruise the cereal aisle and fill a shopping cart with 20 different boxes without even nearly exhausting my options, it's really all the same thing. The snacks are more varied, since there are genres: cheesy, salty, sweet, crunchy, chewy, and so on. But really, there are two categories: sugar and salt. At least, that's how they are separated in my brain, and on my tongue.

The social and psychological consequences of this food "issue" have always been far more dramatic and pertinent for me than any health concerns. Going over a friend's house for dinner in high school was potentially traumatic. Even the super nice parents who understood my pickiness and crafted entire meals around my needs didn't make me feel better, they made me feel worse. The last thing I wanted, and the last thing I still want, is for someone to have to go out of their way because of my food psychosis. Even if the work is very limited, and even if it's something I wouldn't think twice about doing for someone else, I feel incredibly self-conscious and guilty that they had to make special food because of me. If you don't understand what I mean when you read that, I don't know that you ever will.

Even when I was really young, it was obvious that this was going to be an obstacle for me. You see, I don't like pizza. I've tried it, twice actually, just to make sure I wasn't just trying shitty pizza. I don't mind the flavors....in fact, pizza smells great to me and I'm happy to be around it when people order it. But all that cheese...blech. That texture is just too much for me. And yes, I know, I could get a pizza without cheese like the vegans do, but that seems a) stupid and b) depressing. Anyway, as you might imagine, this pizza problem was rather unfortunate for a young child, considering every fucking birthday party and child-filled gathering on fucking EARTH is a pizza party. Seven-year-olds are not quite as polite or forgiving as adults when it comes to food quirks, so I've heard "why aren't you eating? Don't you like it? Everyone likes it." more than once. Though, to be fair, as a 27-year-old, I still regularly get "you don't like pizza?!?!??!" from people my age and older, so I guess it's not just kids that do that. (Oh, and replace the word "pizza" in this paragraph with the word "bread", and it's the same thing.)

You know those commercials for bladder medications with anxious, paranoid people trying to find bathrooms in public places because they gotta-go-right-now? That's how food is for me basically whenever I leave the house. It's not that I'm always hungry or that my hunger is unpredictable like an overactive bladder...but, if I don't know where food is and how I can get it, I'm nervous. I have never traveled internationally (well, okay, I went to Toronto on a music trip in high school, but they still had a McDonalds), and even if I had the money and time to do so, I don't know if I would. I don't want to sample the local cuisine and wander around a new city. That sounds fucking terrifying and awful to me. If I go somewhere in unfamiliar territory, I start harassing people to plan the next meal well before I'm actually hungry, because I'm relying on other people to get me to acceptable food. Before Dan and I were even close to booking the cruise that we're taking in 2 days (w00t), I thoroughly researched the food on the cruise line and specific ship we're taking to make sure that I would be taken care of. It requires a lot of time and energy to be this picky about food, and I'm much happier when I have total control over my own food and all variables can be accounted for.

But even when that's the case and I'm in the green, food-wise, it's still difficult to stay healthy. Yeah, I take a multivitamin to help make up for all the nutrients I'm short on. But in terms of eating things that are beneficial to my body more than they are harmful, well that restricts my already-small list of foods down to a truly pathetic number of items. Even many of the things which I consider to be better-than, if not great, still have their draw-backs. For example, I like white rice....a lot. It tastes like nothing, basically, and with a little margarine and salt, it's a lovely side dish. But the nutritional profile of white rice is basically empty calories. It's like drinking a soda. There is almost no nutritional benefit except taking in carbs with basically no nutrients and no protein. Of course, whole grain rice is chock full of nutrients, but if I liked whole grain rice, then I'd fucking eat it, wouldn't I?

This is the story with lots of other foods. I drink 1% milk like it's going out of style, which is great, except for two minor issues. Yes, it's low in fat and high in calcium and vitamin D, and full of protein. All of that is great. But milk also has significant levels of sugar (lactose, from galactose and glucose) and salt. Of course, these are naturally-occurring parts of animal products, and MUCH healthier for you than the processed, added sugars and salts in shelf-stable prepackaged foods. But if I'm trying to reduce my sugar and sodium numbers, milk is fighting against me, not with me. Even if the stuff I'm getting from milk is "better" sugar or "better" salt, it's not like they cease to exist or don't need to be processed after I ingest them. So if I have a cup of milk in my cereal (which I drink at the end, of course....how else am I supposed to take the vitamin?), a large glass of milk with lunch (2 cups) and a large glass of milk with dinner (2 cups), that's more than a quarter of my calories for the day (mind you, this is only the supplementary beverage!), more than a third of my daily sodium, and a stunning 141% of my daily sugar. I don't care how natural and good and healthy the sugar in milk is....it's still too much. So yes, even milk is an asshole.

I could go on about individual foods for pages and pages. Frankly, unless you're talking raw veggies, basically all food has some horrifying drawback. Fruit has too much sugar (again, the "good" sugar), and if it's in juice or otherwise prepared/canned/packaged, it probably has added refined sugar too. All grains, whole or otherwise, have been assassinated by Atkins and his cult of grumpy, tired, constipated followers (or, more accurately, people who misunderstand the phases and ultimate goals of low-carb diets, and just know that "you can't eat bread"). Almost all proteins (i.e. animals) are moderately high in fat, depending on which animals we're talking about and which cuts you're eating. A big fatty steak is certainly a long way from skinless chicken breast, but the vast majority of meats are relatively fatty and are supposed to be consumed in moderation. Dairy is also usually fatty, with the fat content directly proportional to the deliciousness. I prefer 1% milk, and I don't eat much cheese, so this isn't a huge problem for me, but most dairy is still considered a treacherous food...sure, it'll provide you with wonderful vitamins and nutrients, but look out, it's trying to fatten you up! Oh, and there's a whole category of foods like soy and tofu and legumes and shit, but I don't eat those, so I'm going to ignore the lot of them, you patchouli-smelling motherfucker.

So here I am, about two or three hours out from having eaten breakfast, and I'm already starting to plan lunch. I could eat a chicken breast, a hamburger (no toppings and no bun), white rice, egg noodles, or pasta with red sauce. Those choices are the same for dinner tonight, and lunch and dinner tomorrow. These have also been the choices all week. No wonder I used to get take-out once or twice a week and get fast food for lunch at work. What a fucking boring, tiny list. But of course, the suggestions to expand and vary this list are all lost on me. "For a fun switcheroo, why not have spaghetti squash instead of pasta?" "Try preparing your chicken breast in a tasty veggie stir-fry for a healthy addition of flavor!" "For a protein-rich, low-fat alternative to skinless chicken breasts, go for trout or salmon." No, thanks.

I don't know that there's really an answer to this rather convoluted quandary. I have genuinely considered seeking counseling and/or hypnosis in order to get to a point where I am okay trying new foods, or at least comfortable eating foods I don't love. But I don't know if that's physically possible. My taste buds are so over-sensitive and my gag reflex is so strong (I gag every time I brush my teeth....so, yeah), I don't know if I'll ever be able to chew, swallow, and digest a food I don't like the taste of. It's such a simple thing that it seems everyone else is capable of. "I don't really like it, but I'm hungry, so I'm going to eat it." It's such a foreign, crazy concept to me, and yet so useful. If I were born in the 1930s, I would have starved as soon as I got off the teat. "Old bread? It smells bad, I don't like it. Potato soup? It smells bad, I don't like it. Eggs? It smells bad, I don't like it."

It kind of disheartening, knowing how little I control of my own body in this regard. I can't "make" myself eat, say, alfredo sauce. I will puke. It smells awful to me, and even being near it makes it hard for me to want to eat even my own food. Why is fettuccine alfredo stronger than me? How can it, and so many other foods, so easily defeat me? It's frustrating, to put it mildly. And unfortunately, I don't really know any other adults who are in this boat with me. I do know a few picky eaters, with whom I have bonded over our shared food eccentricities, but those people almost universally have staple foods that socially include them rather than exclude them. They love breads (sandwiches, subs, etc.), pizza, and beer. I don't. And I can see it affecting the people closest to me. Dan hasn't gone out for "ethnic" food since...god, I have no idea. Yeah, he could go by himself, but that's lame and sad. We go to Sunset Cantina/Grille more often than almost anywhere else because they have such a huge menu that he can have the variety he wants while I can get chicken fingers and curly fries every goddamned time. When a large group of people gathers for food, I am the limiting reactant, in chemistry terms. In those cases, you're only as well-fed as your weakest link, and I'm definitely the weakest culinary link.

Hilariously enough, a book I've been reading lately emphasizes viewing food as a source of sustenance and not something to be obsessed over or regulated every second of every day. It talks about developing a healthy relationship with food that is not so lackadaisical that you eat whatever you want all the time regardless of nutritional value but not so restrictive or obsessive that you count every calorie every day for the rest of your life or make ridiculous claims like "I will never have another piece of chocolate ever." Basically, the mantra would be something like, "Food gives my body energy to function, and I should do my best to choose foods that do the best job at that, but I should also allow myself to vary my foods and eat things that sacrifice some of that efficiency for other tangible things like flavor and enjoyment." Sounds reasonable, doesn't it? Hmph.

Diary of a Fat Girl - Episode 4: Battling Unexpected Negativity

I mentioned in an earlier post (more like fixated on) how much easier it would be to stick with a fitness plan if I were totally isolated. Living, eating, and existing in solitude would make for a lonely life, but I would essentially only have to face one struggle: me versus me.

In recent days, I have found myself encountering an unexpected foe: Dan. I'm not talking about the "oh, he likes to be sedentary" stuff, where his natural state is counterproductive for my rejuvenated ("You hear that? Rejuvenated. He was juvenated before, lost it...and got juvenated again. Rejuvenated!") enthusiasm for a healthier lifestyle. And it's not as though he's secretly switching out my 1% milk for whole, or fucking with my scale's calibration...nothing nearly that intentional or direct. In fact, what he is doing, he probably doesn't even realize. Dan has never been extremely conscious of the emotional effects of his words and actions (look for my next investigative series: Is Dan a Cylon?), and it always seems to confuse him when I tell him that something he did made me upset. In fact, on those relatively rare occasions, he gets defensive and takes the (unstated) position that essentially any negative reaction I am having is either a misplacement of feelings or an overreaction, or a combination of the two. It's a pretty good mindfuck, and I'm 90% sure he doesn't realize he's doing it. If it is a coping mechanism to help him deal with people who are inherently more emotional than he is, which I think it is, it's hard for me to think of a more subtly damaging one.

But I digress. Now, Dan would have to be blind, deaf, and mostly retarded not to have noticed how much I've been exercising in the last month or so, and how much I've been using the food scale for that matter. He's working his normal schedule and I'm at home, so he doesn't often see the work being done, but when he asks what I did that day, I tell him, including any exercise. So he knows. Let me relate to you a brief exchange we had (paraphrased). For reference, the cruise I refer to leaves on August 14th, and this conversation took place around July 27th or so.

Amber: I'm trying to work out and do as much as I can before the cruise.
Dan: *sour face* Isn't that kind of...like...isn't is not going to really matter? Since the cruise is so soon?
Amber: *momentary surprised silence* Yeah, well, isn't that kind of go fuck yourself?
Dan: *arches eyebrows, walks away confused*

Of course I understand what Dan is saying. My clothing size is not going to change drastically over the course of fewer than 20 days. Even if I tried some extreme diet plan and never got off the elliptical, I would still only drop like 10 pounds, which would be unhealthy for such a short amount of time (unless we're talking water weight or something). So I understand where he is coming from. Objectively, unsentimentally, technically, he makes a good point. Working out and eating right for a little over two weeks, in the long run, is not going to have a huge effect all by itself. In order to see the kind of changes I want to see, I would need to maintain this for 6 months or more, and that's just to lose the weight initially; to keep it off, I would have to incorporate many of these habits into my life everyday forever. What's 2 weeks in the scheme of forever?

What Dan didn't understand, and probably still doesn't, is that a lot of the work I've been doing recently has been mental and emotional. Getting myself into the mindset of long term health and forming healthy habits. Working on the emotional eating side of the issue and trying to extricate my biological needs/urges from things like "yay for good news, I want chocolate!" and "oh no, bad news, I want chocolate!" Making my health and wellness (which right now almost exclusively means weight loss and proper nutrition for a more active lifestyle) the first thing I think about in the morning and the last thing I think about before bed has been difficult, and it's a big change for me, and not without its challenges.

I have been, almost always successfully, fighting back against all the pessimistic, negative, hurtful things I think to myself when I think about losing weight. I'll never get to a healthy weight. My metabolism won't let that happen. If I don't start dropping pounds soon, I'm not going to have the willpower to stick with this. I'm not going to have time for this when school starts back up. Keeping "skinny clothes" around in the closet isn't a symbol of hope, it's a reminder of repeated failure. I'll never fit into that awesome bomber jacket I bought on sale despite it being a size too small. Nobody is going to want to see me in a bikini on the cruise, and I don't particularly want to be seen in one. It's so pathetic that most naturally-skinny people would cry if they had to go up to a size 10, but I've got size 10 shorts hung up as my goal. By the time I lose any significant amount of weight, assuming I do, it's going to be winter and I'll be wearing big bulky clothes anyway, so it won't mean as much to be thinner. Losing weight will mean losing boob fat, which means I'll go down a cup size; my boobs are the only thing I like about my body right now. I'm going to have to work against this my entire life, and I don't know if I can do it.

I could go on like this for pages. I know you know I could.

But when these thoughts crop up, I eat some veggies. Or put in TurboJam (I know I bring it up a lot...it really is that good. Come over sometime with your yoga pants and I'll indoctrinate you). Or write a blog post. Or meditate. Or go for a walk. Anything except put in a movie and eat junk food, which is my default response. I have been working very, very hard to identify the sources of these feelings, work through them, and find healthy responses to them. It has been incredibly challenging.

So then when Dan says what I've been trying NOT to think for the last month, it kind of fucking destroys my soul. To hear my own venomous negativity come out of his mouth, in a matter-of-fact, amused-by-my-naivete tone...it's hard to explain the effect of that. The hardest part to reconcile is that I know he wants me to be healthier. He has never been judgmental or negative about my weight in terms of attractiveness or anything (though, when I bring it up first, he does carefully say that he wants me to be a healthy weight so that I don't have a heart attack when I'm 32...at least he goes with tact on that one). He has only ever wavered between supportive-but-not-that-helpful and oblivious.

So in order to put his reaction in our conversation into the same person who wants nothing but the best for me, I have to fill in the blanks with some rather unsettling and/or disappointing assumptions. Maybe he doesn't understand that his objectivity came through as negativity. Maybe he doesn't understand that there is an emotional component to my weight. Maybe he thinks my effort is temporary (which wouldn't be unwarranted) and thinks I'm being foolish to expect results in the short term. Maybe he doesn't think I can do it. I don't know. But I don't want any of those "maybes" to be true, because none of them paint him in a particularly good light.

A more amusing but similarly demonstrative exchange occurred last night, when a friend of mine responded to my "hang out?" inquiry. He was already with another mutual friend of ours and they were planning to go out for dinner. He asked if I wanted to join, and I told him that I was trying not to go out to eat as much and that maybe we could hang out after. He said okay. After dinner, he texted me to see if I wanted to join them for JP Licks.

Sigh.

Even if I begged off earlier because of money and not nutrition, JP Licks is like the most expensive fucking ice cream around (okay, maybe not as bad as Coldstone, but at least those bitches will put a whole Kit-Kat in there). Yeah, $7 is less than I would have paid at dinner, but it's still more than I paid for the ice cream in my own freezer that I still haven't eaten. They ended up skipping JP Licks altogether (you're welcome) and coming over to hang out, but by then it was like 10pm, and my normal bedtime is between 11 and 12. Not the most comforting social experience when I'm trying to believe that my new goals won't interfere with my friendships.

While the aforementioned friends were at dinner, I expressed my sadness to Dan that all anyone ever wanted to do socially was go out to eat. He asked, again matter-of-factly, "what else is there to do?" I wanted to shake him and cry, "Are you fucking serious?!?" but I didn't want to put myself out there, not after his comment the other day. My friend Jen came over Tuesday and Thursday of this week. We went on a walk both times, did TurboJam both times, then parted so we could each rinse off the unattractive sheen of sweat we had acquired. At neither occasion did one of us suggest going out to eat. Or ordering in. Or even eating the junk food already present. To answer Dan's question, here are all the things I can think of off the top of my head that I'd like to do: go to the movies, watch a movie at home, lay on a blanket outside and read, go to the beach, go to a pool, go to an amusement park, go to a water park, go to a state park, drive someplace and look at the stars at night (I have mentioned this desire to him many times yet we have never gone; I am psyched to be able to do this in the middle of the ocean on the cruise), window shop at the mall, take a class (there are too many subjects I'm interested in to name them here), or just sit around and talk. None of these activities necessitates a meal. None. Some of them would probably last long enough that we'd have to eat, but the eating is not the center of the activity, nor is it the purpose for gathering. Yet Dan, and apparently most of my other friends, find it impossible to think of just one thing that doesn't involve shoving fried food into our faces. (And yes, it has to be junk food. If you don't already know about my weird pickiness issues, look for the next episode.)

I hesitate to talk to Dan about this for a number of reasons. First and foremost, I have great difficulty initiating uncomfortable conversations (or, at least, ones I presume will be uncomfortable) and I would honestly rather not talk about something than have a painful conversation about it. It's not a healthy way to approach communication and it's not going to strengthen our relationship by any means, but in my head, I would rather live with tension for days than have a 20-minute conversation where someone might get mad. God forbid. Additionally, I have not had mainly positive results when approaching Dan with the aforementioned types of conversations. Of course, there are many factors in this issue (the nature of the conversations being negative to begin with, how I approach Dan/how he perceives it, et al), but honestly, Dan's own communication and interrelation issues make it very difficult to approach him about things because, well, he does get mad, or at the very least, extremely defensive. He sees disagreements as things one wins or loses, not things that people work out together to a mutually satisfying conclusion. I think he is so uncomfortable with the feeling of being in the wrong (whether he is being "accused" or "blamed", or if he just feels that way) that he allows his perceptions and feelings to become tangible "evidence" that he uses to make a case for whatever we're discussing. I don't think anyone has ever accused Dan of being too ready to compromise or not interested enough in arguing, so I don't think he'd disagree with me entirely on these points.

Where was I? Ah, yes. Another reason I don't bring this shit up with him is that I worry about the fallout. I doubt anything obvious and certainly not anything disastrous would come from such conversations. But I do worry about Dan talking to me awkwardly and being unsure how to proceed, trying to insert himself into my wellness goals without really understanding them and certainly not joining them for his own health, or avoiding talking about any of it altogether in order to avoid hurting my feelings accidentally. If all my meals are designed for a specific purpose, and my activities are altered and scheduled for that same purpose, how does one have an open and communicative relationship while not incorporating the reality of those changes? It's like the Dursleys trying to talk to Harry about Hogwarts and Voldemort without mentioning magic.

Finally, and perhaps most abstractly, I worry that Dan will never really be able to get me. What I mean is that....I am, sometimes unknowingly/unwittingly, a total participant in everything around me. I empathize with people unintentionally. When I'm talking to someone (or watching someone in a movie) who's making a sad face, I make a sad face. I don't do it on purpose. I automatically put myself in that person's shoes, and then I express what I imagine they are feeling. I don't mirror their expressions; it's not quite so autistic. I'm not aping, exactly. It seems like I feel everything, I have to relate to people on that level. I've never had any difficulty taking another's perspective or imagining the reactions of others to different situations; I always do it. When I see someone ahead of me trying to get on the T and they're fumbling with their bag, trying to find their T pass, I realize that the driver must see this all the time and get annoyed that people didn't extricate their passes when they saw the T coming. I assume that they must hate it, so I do too. I do the same thing in basically every situation I'm in. It can be exhausting, but it's how I interact with the world. It's also why I cry when I watch sad movies. It's not that the situations are sad, which does pull at my heartstrings, but it's that the characters are sad. If they start to cry, I'm done for. Music does the same thing. I can be profoundly affected by music in a way that is sometimes embarrassing (if only internally, since this is not something I share often). If a singer sings a mournful tune, or even if an instrument plays something sad (in D-minor, for instance, which is the saddest of all keys), I feel that. Deeply and completely.

So interacting with Dan, who seems so numb to everything, especially compared to how I feel, is pretty challenging. Food isn't an emotional issue to him because very few things qualify as emotional issues for him. It's not that he can't feel or anything; I've seen him be sad, frustrated, joyful, excited, nervous, and all the other things one would expect to see in someone. But if his emotional state were a number line, he would rarely stray very far from the zero in the center. He is even almost all the time. I don't know if it's a strength that things don't "get to him" or if it's a weakness that he's so closed off. Maybe it's both, or neither.

But I do know that this gulf between how we each operate can make communicating about emotional issues incredibly challenging. I can't expect him to empathize with me or feel what I'm feeling, nor can he expect me to be objective or to "take myself out of the situation". I'm in it, that's the deal. It's like we're shouting at each other from two distant mountain peaks, both eager to communicate but also frustrated with the other person for not yelling loud enough.

It's hard for Dan to understand this, I think. Much like it would be hard for him to understand how a very specific moment (our conversation about my cruise-related exercise) really represents a piece of a whole host of other intertwined and messy issues that are much larger than this conversation (and yet, the conversation is still important to address specifically). I suspect it would also be hard for him to understand that this post isn't really about him. It is, but it isn't. That's why I'm not announcing this post via social networking. If someone wants to read it, that's all well and fine, but the main point of all this was the writing. The publishing gives a sense of accomplishment and purpose, yes, but frankly my darlings, this one is for me, not you.

I'm tired. It's past midnight now. Dan's already in bed, as rare as it is for him to beat me to it. I don't this post is a very good piece of writing, but I also don't think it needs to be. It was helpful to write it. I hope I still feel that in the morning.

Diary of a Fat Girl - Episode 3: Working Around the Stupid Bullshit (i.e. Life)

It has become exceptionally clear to me that I will pounce upon any and every opportunity to be healthtarded that presents itself. This impulse is served by both internal and external forces. Internal forces are difficult to ignore (c'mon me, let's do that thing we love - nothing!) but also have the fewest consequences when they are ignored (fuck you, me...I'm going to do something, with or without you!). External forces, like life, are a little trickier. They are also difficult to ignore, but unlike the internal forces, sometimes shit actually happens depending on what a person does.

For example, this past weekend we had Dan's sister and her family over. She has a 3-year-old son, so whenever he is involved in any plans, we basically just try to keep up and prevent him from accidentally killing himself every two minutes. He is of the rare ilk that cannot often bear to sit in front of the television for long periods or otherwise be stationary. He requires movement, and more importantly, he requires being outside. It was 92 degrees out this Saturday, but goddammit, this kid wanted to be outside. He has no concept of heat stroke or, you know, death, so he fidgeted endlessly while his mother sunscreen'd him, then proceeded to work his way through a huge playground like I work my way through a plate of rice-a-roni. Thankfully, when we had spent over an hour at the park and his naptime was approaching, he did not throw a shit-fit when we left the playground, and we happily returned to the house, where we watched some of Cars and waited for the child to finish his tiny servings of various random foods (this kid is about as picky an eater as I am, which would be amazing, except he's 3, so that shit is normal). When he finally fell asleep, we had about two hours to kill before he would require us to go do more things.

These two hours could have been spent doing anything in the house that didn't make noise. I could have easily stolen away to hop on the elliptical and listen to my amazing workout jams via headphones without disturbing anyone. I could have done some high-intensity (but nearly stationary) ab work. Shit, the kid's not mine, I could have left the house and gone for a very, very sweaty walk. But instead, I did what everyone else did: I rested. I engaged in conversation not based on repeating a three-year-old's observations of the world around him, watched some programming not appropriate for children, and ate the grown-up lunch. I knew that from about 4pm to 8pm, I would be on again, and I would need all the energy I could muster. So I rested. That evening, after the child had rather maturely announced that he was tired, so we should pause Cars and finish it in the morning (I shit you not, he clearly and casually stated this intention, then marched into the bedroom...it was fucking hilarious), the events of his nap time pretty much continued into the evening. We watched a movie, talked, and eventually I read a little Harry Potter and went to sleep. The next day, we did the same shit again, only after the family left in the afternoon, I was basically comatose for the rest of the evening. I had no plans, no requirements, no commitments, nothing. I sat, laid, and plopped. Not necessarily in that order.

Now with an entire day of retrospect, I can still say that I was not overestimating how absolutely exhausted I was by the end of the whirlwind 30-hour visit. But I look back at the activities and I wonder why the hell I was so tired. On Saturday, I stood in the shade at the park with my desperately-panting dogs. That evening, I went to the library and colored. Sunday morning, I slowly walked around the Museum of Science. There was no triathlon to be run, just some casual family activities. Granted, I'm not used to trucking around my ass trying to keep up with the ADHD-like behavior of a toddler, but it really wasn't that difficult. In fact, I enjoyed all of it and was happy throughout.

But examining things closer, it becomes all too clear where my exhaustion came from. It wasn't that I was tired from being active; I was tired from being social. Interacting with other humans is so incredibly tiring for me, you would not fucking believe it. I can't really explain why, nor can I justify why a small list of people do not make me tired when they're around (these are, naturally, those closest to me). I don't know why it's so difficult for me to just be with people. It's fucking exhausting. If I know that I have social plans on a Saturday, I will consciously avoid making plans Friday night, just because I know I can't book back to back like that. It doesn't work for me. Even if the two events are inherently different - say, a family dinner for one and some friends at the movies for the other - I still feel so drained after the first event that I find it difficult to power through the second.

Thankfully, a few things are exempt from this. Work doesn't count. The structures of my job and the blessed ability to isolate outside of class time make it easy to recharge in small bursts, and teaching actually energizes me as opposed to drains me. Of course, there are plenty of instances in and around teaching that are huge energy sinks, but the actual instruction, collaboration, and discussion-leadership in teaching is a source of energy for me. So work doesn't tire me out. But basically everything else where I'm interacting with people does. Which kind of sucks.

Dan loves being social. He doesn't need it desperately, but he truly enjoys it, much like I imagine most normal humans do. If he doesn't leave the house for an entire day, he gets cabin fever pretty acutely. I don't understand this feeling, nor does he understand how I can stay inside literally all day and be fine (happy, even). Now I know where his nephew gets it from.

The problem with being exhausted from extended social circumstances is that they happen all the time. That's life, son. It's much easier for me to get into exercise and push myself to do work or get moving if I'm isolated. When I have social commitments scattered throughout my schedule, those become my periods of activity, and I use the remaining free time to recover from the social events. If I go out to lunch with friends on a Saturday, I am much more likely to nap, watch a movie, and/or sit around on the computer for the rest of the evening than I am to suggest going out again or even just being active around the house. I went out; I'm tired. That's how that shit works.

There is another insidious feature of social engagements that I've mentioned briefly before: everyone, myself included, always needs to eat shitty food when we get together. Hey, want to grab lunch this week? Why don't we make a date for that restaurant we both love? Why don't we go celebrate by horking down 1000 calories? No one ever offers to bring offer a nice salad or to join me in preparing a delicious home-cooked meal. That shit does not happen, ever. People do that at home, if ever, so when they go see friends, they want to use that time to indulge. Which makes sense. Unfortunately, it adds up pretty quickly if you have more than two friends, which I'd like to think I do.

I'll give you an example. Tuesday of last week, I had a chicken finger date with two friends of mine. We met up at Kelly's Roast Beef. It was fucking delicious. I got the kid's meal, but it doesn't matter, it's still pretty bad for you. Then, Thursday of the same week, I made plans to meet up with another friend; she suggested going out for lunch, but I talked her down to coffee. I don't even drink coffee, but a "cold beverage on a hot fucking day date" sounds a little geh. I had a Coke, which isn't the worst thing in the world, especially compared to another bout of Chicken Finger Influenza (tastiest. illness. ever.), but it's still a soda I wouldn't have had if I had stayed home. By myself. Like a healthy person...right?

Then we get to the weekend. Dan's family arrived Saturday morning and left Sunday afternoon. In that time, we managed to order in chinese food, italian (for me, chicken fingers, of course), and then BBQ (fried chicken for me, of course). We could have prepared food at the house, but again, that's the shit you do in your own domicile. They don't come to Boston very often, so we all felt the impulse to eat our way through many restaurants, some favorites and some new experiences. So we did. I did what I could with the meals I selected (ate smaller portions, took the skin off the fried chicken, drank milk or Pepsi Max instead of full-calorie soda) but I was still doing the exact fucking opposite of everything I've been running my mouth about. So when they left on Sunday and all I could bear to do was rest some more, I (understandably, I think), felt rather shitty about myself and did not have a very positive start to the week.

But this is the bullshit that happens all the time. And if I can't find a way to deal with it, then I lose. I lose at whatever this thing is I'm trying to do. As much as part of me would enjoy being the fitness-nut hermit that lives on a craggy mountain precipice, I know that it's not plausible nor healthy to isolate myself to the point of becoming asocial. I like these people whom I choose to see, which is why I choose to see them, so I have to find a way to incorporate the social element into the life I want to be living. If it's hard to do this shit with just Dan around, how the fuck am I supposed to make it so that my entire social circle is on board with my fitness and wellbeing goals? "Oh, I'm sorry guys, I can't go out to eat for another two weeks because of my eating plan. Do you want to go for a walk instead? I have Slim Fast snack bars in the cabinet for when we get baa-a-a-a-ack!"

On a side note, the Double Dutch Chocolate ones are actually really good. They're not candy bars - let's not be rediculos - but they're pretty good.

But yeah, it's hard to figure out how to be social and not derail all the shit I'm trying to do. Of course, as a friend-of-my-brother's-and-former-childhood-tormentor-turned-facebook-friend pointed out to me, it's not all or nothing. You can't approach this shit with the black-or-white mindset, because that sets you up to fail. Going to Kelly's last week didn't "ruin" anything. Ordering out this whole weekend, while unwise, didn't "ruin" anything either. They were negatives that should be accounted for in other ways, like other meals being healthier or workouts being harder/longer. But to determine how to make the negatives be less common...that's a tricky one. And it's something I'm still working on.

I'd probably write more, but Gus has been slowly working his way into a position that makes it very difficult to type. His body is against my leg with his entire head wrapped around the side of my monitor so that I have to move the Firefox window just to be able to see what I'm typing. He is looking soulfully into my eyes as I write this. Okay...he can haz attenshunz. Night all.

Diary of a Fat Girl - Episode 2: Living with a Skinny Kid

First off, thanks to the people who actually contacted me personally after reading my last post. Who would have thought you could use the internet to connect with people?

Today I'd like to talk about an issue that has become increasingly pressing over the last year. As many of you know, Dan and I bought a condo last year and moved in together at the beginning of last summer. For the most part, it's been a lovely journey through commitment-ville and relationship-town, and we actually get along rather well, which I suppose is important if you're going to cohabitate.

If you have had the incredible misfortune of never having met Dan, he's basically a super tall Harry Potter. He's like 6'3" or some preposterous height, he wears glasses, he's got brown hair...all he's missing is a lightning bolt scar and Ralph Fiennes as a mortal enemy. Anyway, for all that vertical mass, he's like 165 pounds (for reference, this puts him on the lower end of the "healthy" weight range, if we're talking BMI).

The problem here is that Dan has all the same shitty habits that I do, but for whatever reason, his body reacts by ignoring all the calories and inactivity, and just kinda...staying skinny. It's not that he eats a lot, he just eats incredibly bad food. He has bread for entire meals on a relatively regular basis, eats snacks before dinner when he gets home from work, and spends every waking moment either on the couch or in front of the computer (and this is after being at a computer at work all day). The most vigorous physical activity I've ever seen him do is play pool. He will admit, so I don't feel bad stating it publicly, that he is a truly, impressively lazy person. This, of course, means that he is not at all muscular, but I don't think he really minds that.

So, basically, I have a partner in crime who will eat junk food and order out for wings and stay on the couch with me watching Firefly allllll day, except I will gain five pounds and he will go on looking exactly the same. And don't get me wrong...this isn't an "it's not fair" kind of thing. Different people have different metabolisms and reactions to food; shit happens. His mom's relatives all pretty much look like Dan: taller than average, skinnier than average. My family...well, my size is not a surprise to anyone who has met my family. I'm not bitter about my genetic profile versus Dan's. It's just how it is.

No, instead it has simply become increasingly apparent how unhealthy our household dynamic is. I don't have enough passion and strength to cry, "no! I will NOT get T. Anthony's with you!" because, well, T. Anthony's was probably my idea, and I tend to get rather grumpy when having to make food decisions (as many of you are all too aware). And I like eating dinner with Dan, but my incredibly limited palate (again, another issue for another day) means that we only really have like 5 meals in common, which get old pretty fast. I love pasta with red sauce, but how many times a week can you have that before you go crazy? Keep in mind, too, that I'm making my own lunches now that I'm home for the summer, so I'm getting sick of all my food options twice as quickly as normal.

I tried to involve Dan, at his request, in my weight loss goals some years ago. We had a particularly emotional conversation wherein I essentially told him that feeling fat and horrible makes me not want to bone. Well that got him invested, let me tell you. Unfortunately, and not that it's his fault, Dan doesn't really know how to provide support in the way that I need. I don't like being policed and monitored, so having him watch me look at food in the cabinet was not working for me. He's one of those objective, left-brain people I addressed in my last post, so it's hard for him to understand the emotional, subjective side of this whole issue. He can identify the issues, project possible solutions, and create action plans to implement those solutions. He does that all day at work. But that's not really what I need, so at this point, he is on the outside looking in, wondering WTF is going on when one day I'm working out for two hours and the next I'm eating french fries.

Maybe if he were a picky eater with weight issues and bad knees who wanted to shed a few pounds, then we could work together. But he's not a picky eater, and he doesn't want to lose weight. So basically, we're doing two different things and if I'm going to make any progress, we have to be living two different lifestyles. Which sucks, because we live together and like spending time together. And unless I want to start preparing elaborate healthy meals for us every night, we're going to end up eating separately almost all the time, because half the meals we both enjoy come in styrofoam boxes. That makes me kind of sad.

But at the same time, it's not fair to me if all of the things he likes to do are actually hurting me. I like doing them too, which is why we do them together, but I also like going for walks. And shit, I even like doing Turbo Jam, despite the fact that it kicks my ass. I'm one of those people who gets delightful endorphin rushes from exercising (I know everyone is supposed to feel that way, but most people I know feel like puking, or napping, or eating after exercise); that's one reason why it's even sadder that I'm still fat. I like physical activity. But I also like sitting around. And Dan does, too. So we do that together. And it ain't healthy. Really, it's bad for both of us; just because he's skinny doesn't mean he's in shape. But I'm not the boss of him and it's not my job to keep him healthy. I have enough to worry about with my own body.

I suppose I could try to get him to exercise with me, but I know he wouldn't want to and wouldn't enjoy it. The Venn diagram of foods that we both like and foods that are healthy would basically just be two distinct circles, so a shared healthy menu is out, too. If all of our meals and all of our activities are different, then did he just become my roommate? Blech, this sucks. Stupid skinny kid.

Diary of a Fat Girl - Episode 1: What a (Fat) Girl Wants

Hi, my name is Amber, and I'm a fat girl.

Hi Amber.

And yeah, I said it..."fat." People act like that word is the n-word of body shapes. Euphemisms may make people feel better (I could be husky, plump, curvy, heavy, big, or whatever else) but as any writer will tell you, often the simplest words are the best. Those same writers (and Billy Crystal in Throw Momma From the Train) will say that you should write what you know. Well, this I know.

I've been fat for almost as long as I can remember. I wasn't one of those 70-pound kindergartners who ends up in background shots for news stories about childhood obesity, but by middle school I had started plumping up like baking bread. Coincidentally, that was around the time I discovered that Mountain Dew and Doritos were FUCKING AWESOME.

Since then, it's been a steady rise with a few brief excursions down to "not as fat" land. By the start of college, I was in the 170s. I actually lost weight my freshman year because Nico and I occasionally dragged each other down to Case Gym at 8am to zone out on a recumbent bike for a half hour before our 10am classes (Jesus Christ, just typing that reminds me how fucking awesome college was. 10am is the start of the day? Holy hell.). Given that I'm barely 5'4", I should be between 110 and 145 lbs, give or take (though I seriously doubt I'd look normal at 110lbs). Right now I'm around 193, with a BMI over 30. As the Wii Fit so cheerfully tells me every time I do the body test, "that's obese!" Optimistically speaking, I need to lose about 50 pounds. That's a lot.

That's not to say that 193 is the heaviest I've ever been, though; for a good portion of the last 12-18 months, I've been between 195 and 198. To most, the difference between 193 and 198 may not seem like much. But 193 is basically 190, and 198 is basically 200. Remember the episode of Sex & the City where they talked about their scary ages? Well aging doesn't scare me. I'm comfortable being 27, and I'm fine with the looming spectre of 30. Treating time like an enemy doesn't go well for people. But 200 pounds is my scary weight. For whatever reason, if I hit 200 pounds, the world fucking ends. So when I got on a scale after a long estrangement and saw the unforgiving digital read-out pop up 198.2lbs, something happened. The high E string broke. Twwwiiiing!

If I had started consistently exercising and eating better at that point, well, I certainly wouldn't be writing this post, would I? "But Amber," you say to your computer screen, "if you freaked out when you saw your weight and you're not functionally retarded, why didn't you just do what you needed to do and get down to a healthier weight? You know what to do and you have the means with which to do it, so what gives?"

That's the question, dear friends. For anyone who's never been a fat kid, it probably doesn't make sense. This must be especially perplexing for you left-brain people out there. And trust me, I know. Objectively, anyone who is medically capable of losing weight and is able to exercise should be able to trim down. This is especially true if the person has the means to afford fresh food, the desire to be skinnier, and an unparalleled passion for raw cucumber. Why the hell wouldn't this person already be at a healthy weight, much less be actively remaining fat?

Remember what I said before about the Mountain Dew and Doritos? Well, that goes for a lot of other things too. The things that make you fat are FUCKING AWESOME. Sitting on the couch all day is awesome. Chinese food is awesome. Those little Dove squares with the "indulgent"-type sayings printed on the inside of the wrapper are awesome. I had one after lunch today. It was fucking delicious. It is genuinely difficult for me not to go get another one (or 8) right now, knowing that they are freely available in the kitchen. I'm not hungry, I just want one.

And this is the real crux of the problem, at least for me. All the positive visualization, Excel spreadsheets, and determination in the world don't make me not want chocolate. Or soda. Or chicken fingers, god I fucking love chicken fingers. I actually have a date to go eat chicken fingers tomorrow. At like 3 in the afternoon. I don't even know what meal that is. But I'm already pretty excited.

I digress. The point is, I still want all the bad food and the bad habits. I enjoy them, on a very basic and fundamental level. Fried foods = happiness. Sedentary lifestyle = happiness. Chocolate = happiness. Like many children in the 80s, I was rewarded for accomplishments with a trip to McDonalds. The kids' meals are appropriately named. Those meals did genuinely make me happy. But, like some children of the 80s, I continued to equate food with happiness, and not often the healthiest food either. Sure, veggies make me happy too, but they're not exactly filling or readily available on the go (that's a whole 'nother topic for a whole 'nother day).

So now that I've got 20+ years of emotional dependence on food under my belt (har har), I find it a bit difficult to decide to stop eating fried foods, for example. I can decide to keep less of it in the house, which does work in some short term situations, but I'm a grown-ass woman now. I can just go to the store. And shit, the walk back from the CVS is uphill, so I can even justify whatever shitty candy I purchase there with the 50 calories I burn on the walk to and fro'.

In order to be healthier and lose any substantial amount of weight in the long term, I have to want to do the things that I often don't want to do, and I have to not want to do the things I so completely DO want to do. I know, a lot of auxiliary verbs, not the clearest sentence. But I think you get my point. I have to invert all the current ratios of food and activity. Ordering delivery or going out to eat three times a week has to become a once-a-week-or-less thing. Making plain chicken breasts in a skillet has to become a more-than-once-a-week thing. The amounts of time that I spend on the couch versus on my feet need to be reversed. And, in a very basic sense, I don't wanna.

That isn't to say that I can't, or even that I am not currently trying to do that. I have exercised more in the last two weeks than I did in the 6 months preceding that period. Of course, that sudden increase in activity also practically paralyzed me, so then I had to go back to the couch to rest up, so that back-fired a little bit. I have DVDs of Turbo Jam, 10-Minute Solutions: Pilates, 10-Minute Solutions: Blast Off the Belly Fat, and Jillian Michaels - 30 Day Shred. I have Wii Fit, Wii Fit Plus, and even a Zumba Fitness game for the Wii (I've never done Zumba before and this game is fucking impossible to play if you can't already do the moves). I have some horrible contraption called 3D Abs, and another called Leg Magic. I have a twist board that I think I've used once. To top it all off, I have a $600 elliptical machine. I'm one week into a month membership at The Ring Boxing Club (hence the fucked up muscles and rest time) and in August, I have 5 90-minute Zumba classes with Jackie, both of which I got through Groupon. Considering the arsenal of machines, workouts, and classes at my immediate disposal, I should be basically jacked, or at least "beach-ready," right? Yeah, right.

I don't think I can possibly explain coherently why I'm still fat. Except maybe to say that I still really like doing and eating all the things that made me fat in the first place. I'm in love with the idea of being skinnier, healthier, and all-around happier. It does motivate me to make some smarter choices. It's motivating me to go into school tomorrow to help move furniture around and do other physical labor that I'm not being paid to do; it may seem altruistic on the surface, but really it's just a workout that has some real purpose. I think maybe if my job were to dig ditches or help people move then I'd be in much better shape because the exercise would be built in and have an actual goal associated with it. One of the most jacked Ninja Warrior All-Stars delivered water to office buildings; if I could even lift a single Poland Spring jug, that'd be something, and this guy just skips up multiple flights of stairs with the things.

But for now, my exercise is fragmented, unconnected, and unincorporated into my reality matrix. Getting on the elliptical for a half hour might give me a sense of accomplishment and boost my energy for the day, but it's completely separate from everything else that day. It need not come before or after anything else, no one else cares whether I do it or not, and there's no immediate consequence if I don't bother. During the school year, it's much much harder. Do I really want to wake up at 5:30am to work out before I have to go try to shove knowledge into 50 unwilling brains? I'm tired just writing that. Do I really want to come home, drop my bags at the door, and change into work-out clothes so I can use my last remaining minutes of energy to run in place (or kickbox in place or whatever else)? I even take multivitamins with caffeine in them to help get my ass in gear, but I don't think anyone told my body that the caffeine was for exercise and not obsessive internet gaming.

The fact that I find it so difficult to get into good habits over the summer is pretty depressing. My whole idea was that I would have the summer, about 9 weeks in all, to get going with this whole exercise-and-better-eating thing (I don't like to use the word "diet" because that implies a finite starvation plan), so that by the time September rolled around I would just have to make some adjustments and keep it going. The fact that my time would be limited would be less of an issue because the workouts would be integrated into my lifestyle. I'd already have momentum and I'd be used to the healthier habits, so it wouldn't seem like such an impossible chore to exercise after work or to eat leftover chicken and rice for lunch. IT WAS A GOOD PLAN, GODDAMMIT.

Of course, I am just now entering my 20th day of vacation. It's still the first chunk of summer, so using the past tense might be jumping the gun a wee bit. But it's hard not to get dismayed. In the past, I've been used to a quick loss of 5 or even 10 pounds because of all the water weight I'm carrying around in case I get lost in the desert, I guess. But according to that damned Wii Fit, I'm down about a pound in the last 3 weeks. I know that there are so many factors in play and that my body could be healthier without being lighter, but it's disconcerting. Healthy weight loss is like 2 pounds a week, and I'm not even close. Part of it, I'm sure, is that I'm still sitting on my ass too much and much of my better-eating work is undone by all of the dining out we've been doing recently. Everyone is available and wants to hang out, and for whatever reason, this always means going out to eat. I guess I should be happy in one sense, since we're all in such comfortable financial places that we can afford dinner out more than weekly, but it's really not helping me. Trust me, it's delicious, but at like 1500 calories per meal, I should be fasting for a day after that shit.

I feel like I'm at a crossroads, and it's one I've been at before. I can choose to keep doing what I've always done, maintain these unhealthy habits, but also be tortured by the desire for a thinner body and a healthier life. I know there are a lot of people out there who are happy-fat; these people don't care how many calories are in a milkshake because it tastes good and they are going to have one. With the incredible depth and breadth of knowledge the internet has given me, I can no longer be blissfully ignorant; happy-fat is out for me. My other choice is to actually try, all the time and really hard, to do what I know I should do. There are no good reasons not to do the latter, but I can think of lots and lots of weak, shitty reasons not to. It's hard. I don't have time. I'm too tired. I don't wanna.

Perhaps my underlying fear is that I really can't do it. That all the effort in the world won't amount to jack shit, and I'm going to be fat no matter what I do. I have enough biology and chemistry working against me where I worry that it's a real possibility. Perhaps even scarier is the idea that I could actually get to a healthy weight and be in a much better place, but that the work required to get and stay there is more than I am actually willing to do. I'm not in the mindset right now where I would literally do anything to be thinner. It should be clear by now that I wouldn't do anything...I didn't put down that Dove chocolate after lunch, did I? I didn't get my ass on the elliptical today, even though my muscles are finally starting to calm the fuck down, did I? Maybe instead of asking myself Can I? I should be asking myself Will I?

That's a good fucking question.