Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don't

Mondays kick my ass. I work all day and then go directly to school from 4pm until 9:45pm and don't get home until almost 10:30 at night. I usually try to eat something at 3:00 before I leave work for school and then I usually get some caffeine (in the form of diet cherry coke) at around 8:00 so as to avoid a school-induced coma. I don't eat during class and usually end up starving by the time I get home. Yes, I know you're asking, "Why not just eat something during class?" Well, I'll tell you why. I'm a big ol' freak about eating in front of people. I just rarely ever do it in general and I especially never, ever do it at school. At work it's ok, I'll sit and munch on some almonds or a cup of yogurt at my own desk in my own private corner but I just can't do it in class. Yes, I know that's crazy talk but here's why. My grad school program is a very action-oriented, participation-required program. Most classes are set up with us sitting our chairs in a circle or if we are at desks, they're arranged in a square format to make it very easy to see and talk to one another. Which I guess is great for the spirit of the program but also makes me feel very self-conscious when I'm sitting there. I always like to keep my notebook on my lap so I can "hide" behind it and I often wonder if the people sitting across from me are staring at how my thighs totally spill over the sides of the chair. These are the kinds of thoughts that just race through my mind! When I’m being that body conscious, I can’t even imagine eating. To make matters worse, there’s a café on campus that is about ten feet away from the door to our classroom. It’s not just any run of the mill café, either! They have a Burger King, Pizza Hut and Sandwich shop in addition to all the cookies, candies and other junk they sell. A good majority of my classmates usually buy their dinner from the shop and they end up eating it during class. In fact, due to us being in those classes from 4 until almost 10, everybody is either snacking or having full on meals during the beginning of our 8:00 class. Except me. No, not me. I can’t imagine eating in front of everybody. I always get these really crazy fatgirl thoughts. I think that if I were to eat crap food, then everybody would be secretly thinking, “No wonder she’s so fat! Look how she eats!” and if I were to eat healthy, nutritious food, then everybody would be secretly thinking, “Hmm, why is she so fat if she eats that healthy? She’s probably on a diet (which she needs!) and yet she’s still as fat as the first day of school! I guess it’s not working for her or even more likely, I bet she cheats when no one’s looking!” I realize that this is all in my imagination, nobody really cares what I’m eating but even just drinking my diet cherry coke can sometimes evoke the “Do you drink diet because you’re on a diet?” question which leads to my paranoid mind believing that people are thinking all sorts of things about me. On top of this, I am always afraid of the whole chance of getting food stuck in my teeth/crumbs on my mouth/yucky breath/spilling food in front of everyone, etc… So I just avoid that whole situation and even though I know no one even remotely gives a rat’s ass about my eating habits, I end up starving. What is it about being fat/dieting that makes you a narcissist? It's almost like you focus so much on yourself: your food, your body, your triggers, your emotions, that you become paranoid with the belief that others must be thinking about these things too.

Puppy!

So I have a wonderful new puppy! I have the greatest picture of him attacking my gym shoe. Obviously he is opposed to anything exercise related as much as I am!

Puppies Don't Know (And Don't Care) If You're Fat

I bought a puppy this weekend! He is the most wonderful little thing, just two pounds of fur and love. Funny thing, I always look down at my lap when I’m sitting and am constantly dismayed by how plump and wide it is but my puppy seems to think it is the most wonderful place to curl up and take a nap. It’s nice to know that my soft, cushy fat is good for something! Also, I’m adding to my list of “Reasons Why Lynne Should Lose Weight” reason #9,972: Avoid making the joke in the picture above a tragic reality.

Twinkie Madness!

I have a love for all things sweet but I have a particular weakness for Twinkies. Hostess, why do you bother making your fruit pies, ho hos, and cupcakes? They are nothing in comparison to the beauty that is the Twinkie! Oh Twinkie, your lovely yellow sponge cake as golden as the sun seduces me like no man has yet been able to. Your light vanilla cream filling, tasty in its own right, compliments and never deters from its cakey surrounding! My dad is the only other person in the world who holds a love for Twinkies that rivals my own. My dad and I always give each other boxes of Twinkies as birthday presents. We kind of make a joke of it like, “Ha, ha, here’s your box of Twinkies and your real present”. But we both know deep down we’re not joking around. He could give me a platinum bracelet and I’d probably look at the man and say only half jokingly, “Umm, thanks!… So where’s my Twinkies?” I have had a weird craving for a Twinkie this whole past week that just won’t go away. So, in that time-honored Greek tradition of catharsis, I thought I’d try to write a little bit about it to hopefully be able to work through this, exhaust my feelings upon it through expression and to come out renewed and relieved of tension (hence this post). In addition, as part of this catharsis I think I will also try my hand at a little poetry. Here goes: Oh Twinkie, Twinkie, my little cake For a taste of you, my life I’d stake. Yes, a bite of you would heaven make But your banishment is for my sake. Oh Twinkie, as friend, you are a fake I should instead have a diet shake. I know it’s not good but bare with me; it’s a work in progress! The only other alternative would be to actually eat a Twinkie and you don’t want me to have to do that now, do you?

As Luck Would Have It

I have pretty feet. Yes, you read that right. I have pretty feet. My feet have a very feminine shape, the toes are cute and they look great in any pair of shoes from stilettos to strappy little sandals. I’ve actually had compliments on my feet and both men and women have often commented that my feet are attractive. So are you wondering what’s with the narcissism? It’s just that I realize that I can spend hours verbally picking apart my body. I could chart and diagram every one of my problem areas, I could write volumes on what’s wrong with my ass/legs/stomach/arms, I could probably even write a poem about my fat and publish it as “An Ode To My Cellulite”. Yet it is very difficult for me to ever acknowledge the parts of me that I do like. One time I had a pedicure and the lady told me my feet were very pretty and that they were lucky feet. I just snorted in laughter because there is never a part of my body that I’d consider lucky. Did she mean I have lucky feet in a rabbit’s foot sort of way? Because that whole dead animal foot hanging from a key chain thing freaks me out and strikes me as not so lucky. No, instead my use of the word luck is usually used in the following way, “It’s just my luck that my ass is the size of a _____.” (Fill in the blank with volkswagen, truck, or house depending on how hard on myself I’m being.) In short, I realize that I focus so much on the negative and feel very uncomfortable acknowledging the positive when it comes to my body. Even more, I know that I am not alone in this behavior. How did this come about? Is it due to culture? Socialization as women? Personality? Cosmo magazine? Fear of bad hair days? The moon’s gravitational pull? The war of 1812? Who really knows why we do it? I bet there are many of you out there who are familiar with this. I bet you guys have your own body parts that you “secretly” like. Do you have nice hair, a pretty smile, a cute little button nose or some other body part that you’re proud of? I bet you do! I guess my point in this post is just be nice to yourself. Be proud of the wonderful things about your body and don’t dwell on the bad.

New Foundfatland

First: I never, NEVER wear shorts. I live in one of the hottest places in the United States and I never show my legs in public. (Hence the reason I am a raving bitch during the dead heat of summer.) The only shorts I own are pajama shorts and shorts that I wear to clean the bathroom and that is the extent of my leg showing collection. Second: I do not own a full-length mirror. Every mirror in my house is from the thighs up or higher. My point? I go months without looking at a reflection of my bare legs. I never see my legs in any mirror when I’m wearing shorts around the house because none of my mirrors show that far down. When I’m in public where there may be a chance for a full-length mirror you can be damn sure that I have on pants that go all the way down to my shoes. I am like those women in Victorian days, “Don’t show anything! Not even an ankle! It’s improper!” Anyways, so here’s what happened. On Saturday I was getting ready for the wedding in our hotel room. I was bent over blow-drying my hair when I happened to catch a glimpse of my reflection in the full-length closet mirror behind me. I don’t think I could have come up with a more unflattering pose to view the glory that is my gigantic ass and big fat pale cellulite-y legs even if I had tried. Wow! I knew my lower body was my main “problem area” but wow! How did I get pockets of fat behind my knees? I mean I know why. I know that it comes from eating too much and exercising too little. I mean why and when did it choose to accumulate on the backs of my knees? I really had no idea that it looked that rippled and fatty back there. It was like discovering new fat! Well, “discovering” new fat in the same way that Columbus “discovered” the new world, in which the whole vast expanse of it was already there existing, just not previously seen. I guess I have been in denial about the fact that from the back, my legs look like stuffed sausages. Note to self: Begin steady regimen of donkey kicks!

How Is Lard A Main Ingredient?

Hello everyone, I’m home from Oklahoma City and I have missed you all! I spent this whole morning reading everyone’s blogs just to find out what everyone has been up to. My vacation was crazy; we squeezed so much into four days that I am just exhausted and I feel like I have been gone for a lot longer. Overall, I did well this vacation. I tried to eat healthy for the most part and when I did eat non-nutritional food, I enjoyed it, savored it and didn’t overdo it. I kept my portion size intact, even if I did have “bad” food. I had ice cream on Saturday but I had a one-scoop sundae and not the three-scoop family size portion that I normally would gravitate towards. I only ate meals and didn’t spend the days grazing on snacks (very unusual for me!) The best thing is, I only ate crappy food on Saturday and Sunday. By Sunday night, I was looking for a salad because my poor body was tired of the fried crap that I was eating. Even though I didn’t eat very much, the food just made me feel bloated and tired and so it was easy to go back to making healthier choices. For me, this is a huge accomplishment! I tend to be an all or nothing eater. I always have this, “Well I’ve blown it now, I guess I better eat it all” attitude. The fact that I was so controlled this week and didn’t eat to the point of sickness leads me to calling this one a success! Even though there was a lot of positive this week, of course there were also the “negative fat girl” moments. On Friday night we went to a Mexican restaurant. The restaurant brought out chips, salsas, bean dip, cheese dip, guacamole and fresh tortillas as a starter. I’ve been to a lot of Mexican restaurants but I’ve never seen one bring out this much food as the complimentary appetizer! I really didn’t want to eat any of this stuff because I was trying to limit my crappy eating to the weekend. As everyone else was digging in, I tried to find something reasonably healthy on the menu. Everything was cooked in lard, deep-fried and oversized. I looked around the table at everybody happily eating, laughing and talking and for one moment I just had this little pity party for myself. Why was I the only one at the table struggling? I was just struck by the irony that I was the only one not eating and the only one with a weight problem. I guess maybe it was envy that I felt. Envy that there are other people who don’t have these weird issues. For some people in this world, food is not an enemy. For some people when they’re invited out to eat, there’s no feelings of dread, no pep talk to stay strong, no feelings of guilt when there’s failure. I’m so used to the relationship that I have with food that it’s hard for me to imagine what it must be like to deal with food in a normal way. What is it like when food is not this symbolic thing, when it’s not a foe to struggle and fight against everyday? Food for me is a passion, a tempter, a traitor, a comforter, a false friend. What would it be like if food was just food? I can admit this to you guys: For one small, split second, I wanted to cry. Now granted I was jetlagged, I hadn’t eaten all day and I just had the week from hell at work and was suffering from serious lack of sleep. Yet that crying feeling really was there. I felt really mad at myself for being such a big baby and of course I did the old, “Boy that’s pathetic that the fat girl wants to cry because she can’t eat crappy food” thoughts at myself but then I realized that it was more than that. I felt like crying because it was just another reminder of how sometimes I just want to be like “normal” people. I just want to be able to go to a restaurant, order something and eat it. No guilt, no pressure, no explanations to others as to why I eat what I eat, no helpful suggestions from people who have never had a weight problem. It was the idea that no one could possibly know what I was going through. Anybody at that table would have just seen the happy, smiling Lynne. No one could have possibly guessed the crazy emotions beating against my chest and ringing in my head as I sat and joked along with everyone else. I guess it was just from feeling tired of having to feel this every time I encounter any situation involving food. I actually ended up ordering grilled chicken breast marinated in limejuice, replaced the lard cooked beans and rice with a side salad and passed the tortillas to the rest of the table. In the end, a very successful choice considering all that I was up against. After I ate I was so satisfied and proud of myself. How sad that my emotions can bounce around so much! I guess Friday night just showed me how far I still have to go mentally (and how important sleep is to emotional well being!)

Oklahoma! Not Just A Musical

Hello my darlings! Just a quick post to let you know that I’m off to Oklahoma for a family wedding. Wish me luck, as I navigate wedding cake, reception buffets, open bars, and the Vacation Temptation to eat anything that I can get my chubby little hands on! I have to say that the next few days should prove interesting. I have what the lovely Alea refers to as blogitis. I got it and I got it bad! Four days without access to blogs! I’m sure by Saturday I’ll be twitching, sweating and going up to perfect strangers and asking them if I can score a hit off of their laptop’s internet. “Come on man! I need it! Let me read a few posts just to take the edge off!” Have a wonderful week and I’ll be back on Tuesday to catch up with all that you guys are doing out there! I’ll also post to let you know if I ate so much that I was forced to buy two plane tickets because my expanded ass now requires two plane seats!

A Taste Of “Normal”

As promised, I thought I’d tell you about the “successful” weight loss experience I had a few years ago and the unexpected effects that it had on me. (*Warning: This post is long, I'm sorry, it’s just a lot to explain.*) Although I have always been on the chubby side, I packed on considerable weight the first year of college. I never weighed myself but I estimate that I must have been flirting with the 200 pounds mark. I was miserable, none of my clothing fit and it made me feel very insecure with my appearance. I was always trying out different diets but never with more than 15 pound successes and then I would quickly gain the weight back. I began to think that no matter how much I disliked being fat maybe it was my fate to be that way. Maybe it was just a nuisance, to be tolerated and unhappy about, but a fact of life. All of my life I considered myself a fat girl and my weight bothered me badly but at that point I began to think that I could never be anything else but heavy. I felt confident in every area of my life except my appearance and I figured whatever I lacked in visual appeal, I made up in substance of person. I knew that people (and the opposite sex) thought badly about being fat but I didn’t think that it applied to me. I thought that there was more to me than the fat and that people saw past that. It’s like I knew that I was fat, I disliked being fat, but it wasn’t all that I thought about. It wasn’t what I obsessed over, cried over, and worried over; sometimes I would even “forget” that I was fat. I figured most people ignored it once they got to know me and that my weight just kind of “disappeared”. Then I went on the Atkins diet and I lost 17 pounds in two weeks right off the bat. I was shocked to say the least. At the time I was working 46 plus hours a week and going to school full time. I hardly ate at all and when I did eat, not only was it very minimal in carbs but also it was low in calories (not recommended by Atkins). I lost weight very quickly; within eight months I went from 186 pounds (size 14/16 US) to 121 pounds (size 5 US). I know that this sounds strange but I didn’t realize how small I got. It seems impossible but the best way that I can explain it is that I lost the weight but did absolutely nothing mentally to adjust to it. I isolated myself during that time, obsessing over numbers, carbs, two jobs, bills and school. I was running on five hours of sleep or less and was just mentally cut off from myself. I felt like a zombie at the time, going through the motions without any kind of thought about who I was, what my goals were, or what I wanted to do. I wore my clothes until they were too baggy to stay on and then I would buy a few clothes in a couple of sizes lower. This led to me never really knowing what my body looked like because it was constantly covered up in way too big jeans and shirts. I distinctly remember a time when my clothes got so big I knew I had to go shopping. I picked up a pair of pants in size 11, found that they were too big in the dressing room and then grabbed lower and lower sizes until I finally had something on that fit me. The fact that I started off with an 11 shows just how out of touch with my own body I was. I remember another time when shopping for jeans and I saw the size five number. I assumed that it must be that the brand had weird sizes. I never thought that it was because I was actually that small. Something that I never anticipated was the reaction from other people. People meant well, I know that they did but I didn’t know how to take a compliment because it just reminded me of what was wrong with me before and I didn’t know what to do when people said something well-intended but hurtful. I just had no idea how to handle either situation. (Trust me, I wish that this were the situation I was dealing with now! I wish that learning how to say thank you when someone says something about how thin I look was my biggest problem. Instead, my problem is saddlebag thighs!) My immediate family was very supportive and happy for me; I really felt that my weight loss was a non-issue with them. It was more the reactions of co-workers, acquaintances, and well-meaning individuals that I found to be confusing. I often felt like people said things to me that had a very “thank goodness you’re not fat anymore” relieved sound to them. I worked in a center with many young people my own age. Once I lost weight, they talked to me differently and treated me differently. A few of the guys even asked me out when they had never showed any interest in me before. Suddenly I was girlfriend material, I finally realized what it was like to turn the head of a man walking down the street. I had never known what that felt like before. I actually had a family acquaintance say to me, “Now that you’re thinner I think I can tell you this. I always thought you had a prettier face than your sister. Other people probably don’t say it but I’m sure there are others who are going to start thinking it also.” I know he intended this as a compliment but I felt offended by this. To me it seemed like an insult to my sister and a backhanded compliment to me. I had no idea that someone would even compare me to my sister. It all of a sudden occurred to me that I had been that old cliché term; I had been “the smart one”. I almost felt like people didn’t see a point in censoring themselves anymore. It was as if now that I was thin, they could talk about how heavy I was without it being painful to me. I got so many, “Oh, you look so good! You were so, you know (arms gesturing outwards)… and now you’re not! Good for you!” I even got “Wow, you were so big the last time I saw you and now you’re skinny!” I even got a few comments more honest, blunt or hurtful than this. You’d be surprised at the things people will say to you. I think what bothered me the most is the fact that I had been naïve to just how different people will treat you depending on your weight. I thought people who knew me saw past the weight only to find out that even good friends changed how they treated me. More than anything I felt embarrassed and vulnerable. It was easier to never know these things then to realize that all this time I had been blissfully unaware of what the world thought of me. I had changed my physical appearance but I had never changed how I dealt with stress, boredom, or other emotions. I ended up turning to food in these situations but was unable to go back on the diet after binges. My willpower and determination were just exhausted; I had spent so long on a crash diet way of eating that I was suffering from burnout. On top of all this, I realized that my body wasn’t going to look like the girls you see on TV or in magazines. I still had all the same problem areas; they were just smaller in circumference. I know now that my body will always carry the proof that I was overweight; there will always be cellulite and flabby body parts no matter how much diet and exercise I do. Yet at the time I had unrealistic expectations about what the end result would be and ended up unsatisfied and disappointed. I just did what I knew how to do best: I turned to food. It was familiar and comforting and it felt good to not restrict myself. It’s almost as if I got this weird idea that letting myself eat was a way to be nice to me and that sensible eating was something mean and restrictive. I knew chocolate cake and I knew mashed potatoes and I recognized that familiar, soothing feeling that comes with eating these things. My eating just got worse and worse, I gained all my weight back and I gained it back quickly. That’s how I’ve gotten to the point that I’m at now. I carry a lot of baggage from this experience. I think especially because now that I am heavy again, I wonder what people think of me. I never really used to think about this too much. My self-confidence isn’t only shaken in how I view my appearance but it has trickled into other areas of my life. I doubt myself much more than I ever did before. I sometimes feel like I don’t have anything to offer other people. I know that I was never this insecure before and if I did have doubts about myself, they were usually within reason. Now I sometimes wonder if there’s anything more to me other than fat. I swallowed the food but the fat has swallowed me. I want to find out that there’s an enjoyable, funny, loveable, deserving person with a personality underneath the Fat. That’s why this time I’m so obsessed with developing the inside as much as the outside. I want to make a permanent change and this time I want to enjoy it. Whew! Well, I know that was a lot; hope I didn’t bore you too much! If you’re still here, thanks for reading!

Super Bowl Snackday

Oh my friends, today was Super Bowl Sunday and there was nothing super about it except for the amount of food that I managed to put away. I was so determined this morning that I was going to eat healthy and moderately. I even brought some healthy snacks to my sister’s house so I would have some better alternatives to the potato chips, dip, Doritos, and assorted sweets that I knew would be standards on the snack table. Then I got there and proceeded to eat all of my snacks and then moved on into sampling other things on the table. My eating wasn’t anywhere near as bad as it could have been but I still failed to keep my resolve. I keep reminding myself that it wasn’t that bad, it didn’t turn into the ugly binge I have been known to fall into. Yet the thing that bothers me is that I recognized the kind of eating I was doing. It was “eating because the food is there” eating. I have spent the last twenty-something odd super bowls hovered over the snack table. So today when I went to my sister’s house that familiar urge to eat took over and I assumed the familiar position of vulture at the snack table regardless of actual hunger. I think on top of feeling disappointed in my eating, I’m disappointed in my exercising too. The other night I was just too tired to workout so I decided to give myself a night off. I figured maybe my body was trying to tell me that it needed some rest. Since then I have come up with some really good excuses not to workout this week. I hate how quickly I fall back into old patterns. I had really wanted to have a good week this week because next week is going to be really rough. I’m coming up against some major deadlines at work and I’ll be working some long hours in the next couple of days. I feel tired already just thinking about it. Sorry guys, I know I sound pretty down in the dumps. Did I mention that I get really bad PMS? I get really bad PMS! In fact, as I proof read this post and see that nothing in it is even remotely funny or interesting, I realize that the above has been written by TOM. (and TOM is a bitch without a sense of humor!)

The Cake Fairy Did It

Today at work I took a file out of the cabinet and stood at the break room table while I looked at it. I then walked back to my desk, grabbed a paper off the printer and walked back to the break room to put the file back in our archives. Lo and behold, there sitting on the break room table, was the biggest honking piece of German Chocolate cake I have ever seen in my life. There it sat, in all its majesty and glory! Delicate little crumbs and drips of icing were scattered all over the plate and table and a plastic knife and fork rested on a napkin next to it. As I walked past it, I did such a hard double take that I almost got whiplash. That cake was not there when I was looking at the file! I know that it wasn’t! There was no way I stood at that table and did not notice a triple layer slab of German Chocolate cake one foot away from my line of vision. I looked around because there was nobody in the break room with me. All of the other staff was in the front of the building. In order for someone to even get to the break room, they would have had to pass by my desk without my noticing. They would have had to cut that ginormous piece of goodness, place it on the plate, purposefully set out a napkin, knife and fork, resist eating even just one bite, and then somehow walk back past me without my noticing. They would have had to do this without making a sound and all this would have had to take place in a matter of less than two minutes. Real, actual thought that ran through my mind: “Am I hallucinating?” Yes, for one split second, I wondered if I was delusional and seeing imaginary baked goods. I mean come on, who decides to eat half a cake? Better yet, who decides to eat half a cake and then just walks away from it? I mean, who’s that hungry yet also that forgetful? No, a hallucination seemed like a more rational explanation. I just stood there kind of puzzled. I went back and sat at my desk and nobody walked past me to claim the cake during the rest of the twenty minutes of my shift. Yes, it was a true mystery. A mystery wrapped in a riddle wrapped in an enigma wrapped in milk chocolate, caramel, coconut, and pecans. On the drive home I started working on a theory to explain this event. Here’s what I came up with: The Cake Fairy Did It. Hey, just because I’ve never seen her doesn’t mean she doesn’t exist! I’m starting to think that maybe the cake fairy left that piece of German Chocolate cake there just for me. I bet she goes around leaving goodies to all the little fat girls who renounce sweets. I bet she sprinkles flour instead of pixie dust and I bet she smells just like chocolate. Just a theory…

Body Talk

Stomach: I’m hungry! Let’s go get some Chinese take out! Mind: No. You can have a salad and some sugar free j-ello. Stomach: Screw you, Mind! Chinese take out it is! I’m sure Mouth agrees with me. Mind: I already told you no, Stomach. We're having food with at least some kind of nutritional value, not crap! Feet: Well I’m not driving to pick you up any food, Stomach, and I’m not standing in that kitchen while Hands makes a salad, Mind. I’m tired and I’m staying right here on this couch. Ass: I’m with Feet on this one. . . . Yes, this is the argument that I've been having with myself for the last hour. I'm proud of me for not giving into the urge to eat fried rice and orange chicken but I'm supposed to be working out right now and I just don't have the strength. I have just enough strength to feel guilty about not exercising but not enough to actually do something about it. So I think I'll just keep on laying here on this couch, hungry but too lazy to actually get up and make myself something to eat. By the way, as my body was having the above conversation with itself, the knee that I bruised from my fall yesterday was whining "Ouch! Hey everybody pay attention to me, I hurt!" the entire time.