Surprise! I’m back.

Sweet little baby Jesus in a manger with a halo shooting out of the top of his head and eating brownies.  I know that’s a weird exclamation but words really are useless after the photographic carnage I witnessed yesterday.

Have you ever seen a photo of yourself that made you absolutely despair? And I’m not using that word lightly here. I mean a photo that makes you stop and completely reevaluate your life choices and everything you stand for? A photo that makes you a little queasy, frankly?

Y’all, I know you may not believe me here but I really don’t have low self esteem.  Well, okay, I think probably everyone does just a little, about certain things, but overall, I’m not hermiting myself away or hating on myself.  I am, in fact, today being extra gentle with myself and trying to show me the love.  However.  However.

I have just seen 300 pieces of photographic evidence that I look terrible.  Not in comparison with anyone else.  Just in comparison with me.  With what I thought I looked like.  I know.  Why do my looks matter?  Because they do.  You know what I’m talking about.  They just do.  And I can feminist and love-myself and looks-don’t-matter all I want.  But at the end of the day, when I sit down at my computer and open up a CD full of breathtakingly unflattering photos of a face so couched in fat that I can’t recognize myself, it makes my chest pang just a little.  And that’s just the way it is and you can’t help the way you feel about things.  So it hurts.

And it’s also freaky, because that is NOT what I see when I look in the mirror.  You have to know what I’m talking about here.  I can actually see my cheekbones and the shape of my face.  I can!  I know what I’m supposed to look like.  I know how I feel.  And it’s not…  what I saw in those photos.

I’m having a down day.  Clearly.  I know, everybody gets them.  But what sears my heart is looking back over the weight that I lost, represented in this blog over the past few years and knowing that had I stayed with it, I would be down to feeling pretty good right now.  Certainly healthier and I would have moved on to my plastic surgery blog.

Kidding.

And also, not.

Isn’t this the cycle, though?  For most people?  You lose a bunch of weight, and then you don’t, and then you gain a bunch back, and then you get depressed and you start the cycle again.  I guess all anyone can do really is to try.  I have this great aunt who lost like, seriously folks around 150-200 pounds through this chain diet center.  And she was so successful that she was featured in all their local newspaper ads.  She really did look great.  And she turned into this huge snobby bitch about fat people.  And then the karma fairy stuck it boot in her ass (it’s the American way) and she gained it all back.  Allllllll of it, y’all.  If I lose 150 pounds, I will… well I’ll be severely anorexic, but if I get down to my goal weight?  I promise I will never be an asshole about it.  That’s my commitment to you the viewer.

Today at the office we’re having a bake-off.  Dieting was much easier when I worked in an office full of men.  Women like to bring in food.  But I cannot blame them for my chins.  Instead, I will take my character-building lumps, go to the grocery store this weekend, and start fresh tomorrow.

I can do this.  I can.  Right after I have a good cry.

And now, I take my Big Girl Pill and share some of the shame inducing photographs.

Here is how I feel about all of this:

 
I am thiiiiiis wide:

Look at my arm.  Just look at it! 

Here you can almost kind of see the shape of my actual face, sans padding:

And finally, here is what I am going to need to get through this.

Secrets and lies

Is it true what I keep hearing about it being safer to stay at one weight, even if that weight is shall we say, elevated, than it is to be constantly going up and down? Cause if that’s the case, then why not just stay… elevated? I mean, right? Is that just me bullshitting to try to get out of eating the squash and zucchini I bought this weekend for dinner tonight? Speaking of which, let me digress here and talk about my grocery shopping habits if I may. Every two weeks I go to the store. It is my most hated chore, but my only option is to pay a small fortune to have turkey sausage and other questionable hippie food delivered so, off I go. I follow the sage advice given by most diet plans: stick to the outside perimeter, never venture into the hinterlands of the actual aisles wherein lie dangerous boxed carbs and sugary bits with questionable motives. And I come home with diet bread, which molds because I can’t stand to eat it, and vegetables, which go bad because they make me gag, and fruit that I eventually pick up only to find it waaaaay too soft and more often than not sitting in a pool of its own excrement. Although I have a theory that everybody does that with fruit. If it happens enough that Eddie Izzard has a bit about it, then it’s not just me.

Point being, I don’t bring a lot of crap into my home. I have the fridge and cupboards of a thin person. How then, you may reasonably wonder, have I re-gained like, what, I don’t know I haven’t weighed in a while, maybe 20 pounds? Ish? 20-ish pounds? Maybe not that much. My clothes are starting to feel tight, that’s all I know. Well, part of the problem is that I have been rehearsing and performing in a show for five weeks (with another weekend to go) that requires me to eat a lot of junk food. And really, there’s nothing I can do about that. But that alone isn’t enough for this kind of weight gain. And my pantry isn’t the culprit. It must be the eating of lunches and the fact that when I get home at night, instead of eating one meal, I snack off and on. And on. And on and on and on. Until DAMN. “Does this jacket make me look fat?” “No, your face does.” I miss Chris Farley.

So. So, so, so. So. I make the following declarations, before Syd and everybody: A) this shall not stand. B) it’s never too late. C) I have a heinous sinus headache today that is kill. ing. me. D) I will NOT let the egg mcmuffin I had for breakfast throw me for the day. Egg mcmuffins are allowed three times a week on the LAWL plan. Which I am still on. Even though I don’t go weigh in anymore. Or eat their crap-o bars. Suck it, Sandra. E) I swear to you all that I am not going to snack into oblivion tonight. I’m not. Because I’ll feel that you are watching me. Remember that 80s song, by that black guy who had like a british accent, and he was all “I always feel like, somebody’s watchin’ meeeeee, and I have no privacy, whoa oh oh oh.” Remember that? He had a jeri curl. And Michael Jackson sang background vocals on the chorus. That has nothing to do with anything, I just started thinking about it. And I don’t want to think about dieting because it’s hard. So I’m trying to change the subject. And I have a really bad headache and I just want something to make me feel better. Like a whole pan of lasagna. And I know that nobody reads this anymore because I haven’t updated in so long so I can say things like that with no shame. In fact, I could say a whole lot of things that I would never otherwise say if I thought anyone were actually reading this still. Like, oh I don’t know, I’m not a lesbian, but I would still do Salma Hayek. Or Angelina Jolie. Or, one time, my first year out of college, I joined a dating service. Not the online kind because I’m old and they didn’t have those back then. But one of the old fashioned kind where you had to go in and browse through binders of people. And I’m secretly afraid of dogs. And if you ask me if these pants make you look fat, I will always tell you no, even if it’s a hideous lie. Always.

And I not-so-secretly wish I were thin.

Hee, I said “vagina”

I don’t know if anyone who reads this website actually went to see me in The Underpants, but if so, I must send a huge THANK YOU.  You know I mean it because it’s in all caps.  And a very special shout out to my friend and former co-worker Ken, who told me after the show that my face looked “soooo thin.”  A blantant lie to be sure, but I think if he added an “-er” to the end of that, then it would be true.  Anyway, it made me feel good.

Things I ate this weekend include:

eggs

toast

Subway sandwiches

1 McDonald’s “premium” grilled chicken sandwich

1 cookie

1 chocolate vagina on a stick

salad

summer rolls from the sushi bin

soup.  looooooots of soup

diet bars

tea.  looooots of tea

trail mix

carrots

We’ll see what that all adds up to this week.

I am so not following this LAWL diet I can’t even tell you.  Still losing weight, yes, but not the LA Weight Loss way.  But I don’t think it really matters, do you?  I mean, loss is loss.  I even tossed around the idea of just leaving the program altogether.  Why stay, right?  There’s a lot of turnover at the LAWL and there’s a new crop of gals there who, well, frankly don’t appear to love their jobs.  Not that I blame them.  But you know it’s one thing to sit behind a desk and quietly seethe about the turn your life has taken.  It is quite another to do it when your job is to work with innocent, diet-abiding clients.  Especially when said clients are already kind of irritable about having to be there to begin with.  I’m just saying.  They’re getting sloppy.

From the What the Hell is Wrong With These People Department:

I was standing in the lobby last week buying bars and apparently you need some kind of advanced degree to operate their computer system because it always take three or four of them hovering over the thing to get the job done.  So this murder  (clutch?  herd?  wedge?  gaggle?) of couselors was lurking, lurking over my file and the computer, asking each other questions and inputting information while I stood at the counter of the tiny lobby, chin in hand and looked around boredly at the woman and the couple sitting, waiting for their turns.  So one of the couselors said, “okay you need to input her weight, what was it?”  “215.”  Right out loud.  Just like that.  I jerked my head up.  I couldn’t believe it.  And then she did it again.  “What was that?”  “215.”  So I said, “um, please don’t say my weight out loud.”  They both got this look on their faces like, “oh yeah.  Why did I just do that?  I can’t believe we just did that.  That was stupid.”  And they apologized more than once, so I really have to chalk it up to temporary insanity.  Either that or they’ve becomed completely desensitized and they just don’t think about it anymore, or truly don’t care, for which I am tempted to give them snaps, if I can still do that.  Is that too 90s?  I don’t keep up with the kids.

Yeah, yeah, I know, I’m gonna keep going for now.  If nothing else, they’ve got the only scale I’ve weighed on so I need to keep weighing on it.  Maybe that’s their ploy.  Their racket.  Their hook.  First they get the kids hooked…

T minus 45 pounds and counting…

It’s better to look good…

Kids, never take your bowels for granted. And that’s all I have to say about that.

In the past week as I’ve been ill and looking for comfort reads and pretty things to look at, I have bought In Style, Vogue and today, Vanity Fair. Don’t judge. I rarely break down and read Harper’s Bazaar because while all magazines are Fattist Dillholes, HB comes right out and admits it. And I really prefer my fashion magazines to lie to me, frankly.

Anyway, I bought this month’s Vanity Fair today, the one with Tom Ford on the cover trying to stick his tongue into the ear of a naked Keira Knightly while Scarlett Johanssen lounges nekkid across the bottom of the shot. You can see her butt. Seriously, does this child have parents? Would you ever do that pose knowing your mother would see it? Oh, what, I’m the only one whose parents ever shamed her? Fine. Keira Knightly’s body looks so airbrushed I had to smile. But there’s something about looking at this that made me feel, I don’t know, I guess a little irritable in general. Because all the bras at the website www.figleaves.com, recommended by In Style were all very beautiful, if you’re a 32B. If you’re Keira and Scarlett’s size. Which I believe we have well and truly established that I’m not. Jealous, not because I want to look like them, I honestly don’t, but because these women don’t have to worry about their bodies or their health or the ability to get around or fit comfortably into an airplane seat. They can just wear whatever they want, shop wherever they want, their bodies will not fail them. They are free to concentrate on other things. Free to be judged on their minds and not their packaging. Free to wear cow print without fear! Free to wear purple without having to ask someone if it makes them look like Barney! Free to oh dear god I’m all of a sudden starving. Seriously. How is that? I just ate a freakin’ apple. Isn’t roughage supposed to fill you up? Stupid roughage. Fuck roughage! Supposed to fill you up? Doesn’t. Supposed to make you poop? Doesn’t. Wait, am I sounding like my mother’s mother? No, I’m not. If I were, I’d be chiding you for touching my collection of Avon perfume collectible bottles and coaching the cowboys in the westerns appearing round the clock on my t.v. But do you ever find yourself, those of you in your 30s anyway, sitting around talking to close friends or family about your health and your bowel movements? Telling them “I’ve got this thing…” or “Have you ever had…” or “Does this look bad to you?” Oh shut up! You know you do, too!! Wait, what was I talking about? Look out Hondo! He’s hiding behind that rock! He’s got a gun!!!

Right. Actresses and their perrrrrfect little bodies.

But then, actresses do stress about their bodies, don’t they? Maybe more than any other women, anywhere. Their bodies are their jobs, after all. And as far as their bodies failing them, I read a story in Vogue last night about a model who was diagnosed at 25 with melanoma. Not delighting in that, I’m just saying. It can happen to anyone. And aren’t really beautiful women always complaining that people often don’t give them a chance to be smart or witty because of their looks? Are we all in this body obsessing thing together? I want to say that I truly admire women who genuinely love and fully accept their own bodies. It’s just that I’m not sure I’ve ever met any.

Perhaps dieting is the least of my worries. Maybe I have more important work to do elsewhere. Maybe a lot of people do.

But before I throw it all to the wind, let me give a little shout out to my less-fat ass that lost 3 pounds in the last week. Which gets me back down to my pre-holidays weight of

T minus 43 and counting.

Olympics and Pr0n

Re: my concern as to whether I should accept this part at the Rep despite the fact that I may have been cast as a fat sight gag, apparently I am smoking crack (according to some heretofore very reliable sources) and also, a wise friend confided, delightfully, that he would do a nude scene if it were tastefully done and important to the storyline, if it meant he could show of a rockin’ bod. Although I think he may have meant that in an “if I were you” kind of way. I don’t think he’s an actor so that would make his choice to do a nude scene even more interesting.

For the record, if I had the body of these Olympic figure skaters, people, I would be doing porno. And not the tasteful, plot driven kind. Hard core PORNO. Watch for that “T minus” number to hit around the 130 mark. And then look for me in the back room of your favorite Korean video store.

A brief side note on the Olympics: I didn’t watch most of the opening ceremonies but I did watch the parade of athletes part, which is my favorite. I love the teams that only have one athlete and the African teams. Cause, you know, where the hell do they train? (why, the U.S. of course) My favorite part was the 52 year old lone athlete from the Virgin Islands. She’s competing in luge. Sorry, I don’t think I made that clear enough. She’s fifty-two earth years old. And she’s not one of those hip, Hollywood looking 52 year olds. She looks like my mom. White hair, glasses, a little too heavy for an athlete. It’s her sixth Olympics. She beat cancer. I. Heart. Her.

Dick Buttons got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. He is ripping these pair skaters new holes. The chick commentator keeps giving us the all-important who’s-a-couple-in-real-life info. Which, A) come on. It’s hard enough for women to get commentary jobs in sports, could you step it up with some hard facts? and B) How can you be a pair skater and not be a couple with your skating partner? Anybody whose crotch gets that close to my face owes me at least a drink, if not jewelry.

I digress. It’s a severe sinus headache weekend, and as we all know, I take weight loss any way I can get it. My jeans should be feeling a little looser by Monday…

T minus 40 and counting.

It’s all an act

So I have good news and I have possibly overthinking news. First the good. I have been cast in two small roles in an upcoming show called Dearly Departed at the TN Repertory Theatre. That means I will get paid a niiiiice little chunk of change and get to act on a big stage and nothing on the set will have come from my living room and props and my costume will be someone else’s problem, not mine. Ahhh, the joys of professional theatre. Of course, I haven’t asked for the time off yet to do this (they rehearse during the day) but I think it will work out. My company is in restructure and it needs me.

Now, the possibly overthought bit.

This is a “southern comedy.” Think Greater Tuna, if you’ve ever seen that. Many of the parts are doubled up, so I am playing Nadine and Delightful. Nadine is a very funny part, she has one scene, and should be a lot of fun. And more importantly, easy. And then there’s Delightful. In the play, Delightful’s father, who was a mean, ornery type elderly man, has just died. Delightful deals with her less-than-ideal upbringing by constantly eating junk food. She says three words in the whole show. Not three lines, three words: “Okay,” “beans,” and “bye.” That’s it. The rest of the time, she appears in scenes and eats and, and this may be where I’m overthinking this, basically sets up the fat jokes. Now, the thing is, maybe they aren’t fat jokes. Nobody ever calls her fat. No one ever references her size. It could still be funny if a thin actress were sitting on stage stuffing her face and being mute and looking vapid…. but it’s funnier with a fat girl.

In all my years of acting, I have never been offered a fat girl role. I know, it’s actually amazing, what are the odds? But I really haven’t. And now I’m a little concerned that I may have just accepted the role of the fat sight gag. Maybe it could be played either way. With or without a large actress. But they’re not going with a thin actress. They’re going with me. Over the last week since I was invited to the callback, I have wavered between excitement at the prospect of working again with the Rep (an experience I thoroughly enjoyed a few years ago when I did a few bit parts in Christmas Carol), and righteous indignance at what I was being offered. Are they offering me this because I’m funny? Or because I’m a physical gag? And does it matter? For what they are paying me and the future potential of working with them again, shouldn’t I just suck it up and not even think twice about it? Are my friends and family going to be embarrassed when they see the show because they know, but don’t want to point out, that I got the part because I’m fat? That’s the worst part. Am I simply overthinking this? I do that sometimes.

If I had been offered a part in Metamorphoses at my regular theatre company, I would have taken that part and definitely turned Dearly Departed down. But ironically, I wasn’t eligible for a part in Metamorphoses because I am too fat. Odd how suddenly out of nowhere, my weight it coming into play with regard to performing, even as I am losing it. (yeah, slowly, I know)

Look, I’m gonna do it. Of course I am. I’m just saying, if the role were only Delightful, without Nadine, I’m pretty sure I would have turned it down flat. Even though it would have been the easiest money I had ever made. I don’t need the money. And if I don’t work at the Rep ever again, it wouldn’t really matter, I get plenty of work elsewhere. But I want this funny Nadine scene. And I want the change in schedule from my daily grind. Plus the money will be helpful and let’s be honest. It’s nice to work every once in a while for a fully funded theatre company where all I have to do is show up and act. I’m just wondering. To the point that I have to move the question to the top of my Burning Questions list.

1. Am I selling out?
2. To what extent does my size help me as a character actress and to what extent does it hurt?
3. When you order pasta in a restaurant, why does it always come with a side of bread? Like you aren’t getting enough starch already?
4. Indian food isn’t really all that fattening, is it?
5. Why do restaurants always used white cloth napkins that leave schmutz in your lap? Why don’t they change to black napkins? Who the hell is wearing white pants? Ever?
6. Are all my Burning Questions really food related?
7. How did that happen?
8. At what point did American parents become obsessed with their children?
9. Do these pants make me look fat?
10. Buying some flowers for yourself on valentine’s day: sad or sassy like a Mento’s commercial?
11. Does this look infected?
12. What’s in this year’s Oscar nominee gift baskets?
13. Where’s my Oscar?
14. What the hell is wrong with muslims? People draw unflattering cartoons of God and Jesus all the time and you don’t see us trampling anyone to death. Well, not over that anyway.
15. Is it possible for Sarah Jessica Parker to get on my nerves more?

Yeah, I’ve got me some issues. Don’t act like you’re surprised.

T minus 40 pounds and counting.

God bless the Sagittarius

YES!  Check it out, y’all.  In light of yesterday’s entry, I decided to read up a little on Sagg rising.  Just, you know, for kicks.  I don’t live my life by astrology, but I’m here to tell you that it’s weird how accurately it can describe some people.

Read this part:

You are usually very honest, though it is also true that your too-candid remarks can sometimes be misinterpreted as rudeness. Negative influences associated with Sagittarius rising stimulate a tendency for self-indulgence, which makes you pompous, grossly overweight, dependent on drugs or alcohol, or too opinionated and cynical. On the positive side, Sagittarius gives a love of drama and the theatre, good food and drink, dancing, sports, animals, and, as a rule, you’ll never miss an opportunity to travel. You are likely to be involved with publishing, education, religion, art, or music, either as a profession or hobby.

IT’S NOT MY FAULT!!!  It’s my sign to be grossly overweight!  Is was ordained!  In the stars!  Yes!  This completely absolves me of any personal responsibility for my weight and health!!  I’ll never be thin no matter what because the stars decree it shall not be so.  I can’t fight that.  I can’t fight the universe.  I can’t….  I….  but….. it says…….

<sigh>

Fine.  FINE.  I know.  Yes, I hear you.

I said I know.

Why do you always have to ruin my excuses?

MyFat.com

You know my favorite part of the State of the Union address was A) the part where W. said that Americans were the only ones liberating concentration camps at the end of WWII, and B) the part where he said it was now required for every American to join MySpace.com as part of his “No Employee Bored At Work” program. I, for one, support this new program and look forward to W’s next, Jesus, what does he have, 14 more years in office? Wow. I’m not anti-W. I’m not pro-W. As we’ve discussed before, I am a militant moderate. I’m just to the point now that I was with Clinton toward the end of that whole young (albeit admirably chunky) intern debacle. He’s good, he’s bad, WHO CARES? Can we just move on to beating down on someone else now? I’m bored.

Now about this MySpace thing…

Sydney made me do it. And I can’t say I have been altogether unhappy with it. I’ve found some people with whom I haven’t connected in a long time and I love that. Although I wish more people from my high school would stop having babies for 5 minutes and discover the internet. They’d better get moving. It’s law now. (”Strategery!” - W.) Anyway, some people have really cool home pages on MySpace. They put in colored backgrounds and songs and graphics and whatnot. Whereas I? Can’t figure out how to post to the message board. Seriously, I can’t believe I managed to get my photo up. Bless my heart, I’m pitiful. My parents’ college dollars at work.

I’ll tell you one thing I have discovered, though. Sometimes, “people” send you an “I want to be added to your friends” notice…. “people” who have ulterior motives…

For example, some guy, we’ll call him Dillhole, wanted to be added to my list. He seemed okay. I got all excited. Yay! Someone thinks I’m cool and wants to be my friend! Whereas in real life, Dillhole is in a band, and just wanted to get everyone on MySpace on his little message list so he could advertise his suck-tastic garage band “gigs.” I eliminated Dillhole from my friend list with extreme prejudice. Spamming, ulterior-motive having bastard. That’ll teach him! Just like I teach all those telemarketers when I hang up on them! No doubt they immediately stop and examine their lives and what they’re doing before storming right into their Indian teenage manager’s office and throw their headsets in his Cheeto crumb covered lap and say, “you know what? She’s right! Ms. Algagree (my to-date favorite telemarketer variation of my name) is right! I do suck!”

What were we talking about? Oh yeah, MySpace “friends.” So now whenever “people” send me a request to be added to my friend list, I check them out thoroughly first instead of just adding them willy-nilly.

And now, MORE to the point. This morning I received a request from someone calling herself “Flaunt.” I don’t know that I have any friends who would call him/herself that, so I was suspicious. I went to the page. This person appeared to have other friends. The photo told me nothing, so I clicked on “more photos,” expecting to see pics of a person I did actually know, and who would shortly be receiving a taunting message from me about that retarded name and weird photo.

Y’all, “Flaunt” is the name of a “trendy, plus size boutique” in Nashville. A plus size… clothin… boutique.

Now.

I’m not even going to pretend that I do not shop in plus size stores. I do. I have an as-yet-unused Christmas gift card to Lane Bryant in my kitchen drawer. It’s all true. I am still a plus sized girl. But what I couldn’t figure out is how they knew to market to me. I didn’t put my weight or clothing size in my profile. I didn’t mention anywhere that I was size XL (say it with me now, “for Xtra Lovely”). How did they know to send me this? Where did they get their informa……

My photo.

These bitches looked up all the Nashville females and then looked at their photos to see if they were fat. I have a decent photograph on my page. I didn’t realize I looked all, you know, like I needed to be marketed trendy, plus sized clothes. You know, when you’re overweight, especially if you’ve been that way for at least ten years, you just kind of get used to seeing yourself. It’s not that you can’t see that you need to drop some weight, but when you see photos of yourself, or worse, on video, it’s a little startling. I guess no one sees herself the way others see her. I just finished a play called “Spoon River Anthology” and I wore this outfit that I thought was kind of flattering. But then I saw the photos from the show and said, “good lord, is that I what I look like?” But you know, a lot of people say that, even the thin ones. It’s weird. Reality vs. perception. And not just when it comes to looks. I was recently involved in a discussion about astrology and learned that your sun sign general description, what you would think of as “your sign,” (Virgo, in my case) is the way you are inside, or the way you see yourself. Your moon sign, or rising sign, (Saggitarius in my case, a trait I share with Elvis) is the way others see you, or the way you present yourself to the world. Virgo and Sagg are two very different signs. Am I really two entirely different people? Neat and anal on the outside, soft and chewy on the inside? Thin and confident on the inside, chunky and second-guessing on the out? I always thought what you see is what you get with me, except for the weight. I am more than what I weigh. Wait, that’s not… I mean I am more as a person that my weight. Not that I weigh more than I’ve been… no… forget it.

So to make a long story even longer, I am not adding Flaunt to my friend list. Not because it’s for XL girls but because I don’t wear trendy clothes. Shout out to all my libarian and kindergarten teaching homies! Word! My denim jumper, wooden jewellry, sensible shoe wearing peeps! Woop!! Woop!!

T minus I don’t know I haven’t weighed in since last week and counting.

That’s me on the right. I got me some teeth.

 

The who? In the what what?

You know I don’t like to use Craig Kilbourn speak lightly, but I will make an exception this time and proclaim a hearty BOOYAH!!  Somehow, against all reason, I am down 1.2 pounds since Monday.  I cannot fathom how that happened since Monday night I snacked like a house a’fire and last night I ate a southern fried chicken salad from O’Charleys.  (seriously y’all, that stuff is like kryptonite.  I have no power in its presence.)  But the scale doesn’t lie, so again I say!  Booyah!

Also, yo ho ho and a bottle of rum (pirates (TM))!  For I have definite confirmation that Suck-It Sandra resigned her job as Chief Discourager and High Priestess of Assholery at the Brentwood location of LA Weight Loss.  I really <holding for applause>… no…. I really can’t take all the credit for this.  I must acknowledge and thank my fellow husky girls for their part in frustrating her and arguing with her and pointing out her crack-smokery to the point that she was driven out.  Truly, it was a team effort and a testament to the power of irritable dieters en masse.  And so, to you thin people out there, I say to you….  watch your backs.  You piss off one of us, you piss off ALL of us.

Did you see this article on the New York Times website?  Ooooooh, girl I can’t tell you how happy this makes me.  Not that I don’t love the french.  You know I do.  And not that I’m happy about obesity in general.  It sucks.  In any language.  But you know how they are, the french, with their “ooooooh, Americans are zooooo fat!  And we are zooooo zkinny!  We can just eat whateeeeever we want!”  How many people sent me stories about that book “French Women Don’t Get Fat“?  How many?  My mom wanted to run right out and buy it for me.  I told her not to bother because A)I already know why traditionally french people have been able to eat well and not gain weight.  It’s the same way americans used to be able to eat well and not gain weight.  I don’t need to know any “french secrets” because I already know how not to be fat.  I just, for whatever reason, have chosen to ignore those facts.  And B)French people are fat!  Why?  For the exact same reasons Americans are fat.  The poorer the region, the more people rely on fast food and cheap, crappy “food product” to feed their families.  TV is a big deal in France now.  Video games are selling like gang busters.  They’re no longer twenty years behind America in, well, everything.  But y’all, Y’ALL, you have to read this article.  Especially the very bottom where it talks about the perception of fat women changing, as it relates to attractiveness.  I’m telling you right now.  If this trend continues?   I am brushing up on my subjunctive and passe compose and moving to France Bel Grande.  Toute suite!

 

T minus 40 pounds and counting.

I owe you an explanation

Okay here’s the thing. I have been having some problems. With eating. Um…. a lot. I’ve been eating. As in, foods that are not on the diet. So, ah, well y’all I feel bad about it. Because everyone’s all supportive and I feel like you’re rooting for me to win and I’m not winning right now. I’ve fallen to the middle of the pack. But I’m wearing a fetching hot pink jersey and you can all still see me in here and I hope you’re still rooting for me and haven’t given up and instead of just going to get that hot dog and then coming back to your seat, just decided eh, what the hell, I’m just going home. I’ll catch her next home game. Cause I’m still here. I AM. And I was kind of afraid that everyone would be disappointed in me, so I feared good, honest reporting. But Sydney said that when Judgey McOhMyGodYourAssIsHugeEnstein applied to re-up his Martini Ministry membership, she exercised her option to blackball him from the club, and that I should keep writing and be honest and that it’s okay to fail sometimes. Oddly, that was the exact teaser for a very special episode of Moesha three years ago….

So I have good news and bad news.

The bad news is that I have gained a little bit of weight back. I’m still in my new pants size, haven’t gained that much. But I am, well, having trouble with the stopping of the eating. Especially at night. I have no idea what it is about my apartment that compels me to eat, but am here to testify that it does. It’s very weird. I’ve gotten the naughty lunching under control, but I can not be trusted at night and am seriously considering installing some kind of shock device in my kitchen.

The good news is, I have not seen Suck-It Sandra in many, many moons at the LAWL, and I believe her to no longer be in their employ. Karma’s a bitch.

The better news is that I am reconciling with the diet and it has moved back in to my apartment. See, the thing is that during the holidays, I wanted to spend them with my family they way we always do and the Diet wanted to spend the holiday it’s own way and I just really didn’t want to do that because with the Diet, Christmas dinner consists of all this weird, low fat food and no desserts (it’s just not Christmas!) and then you have to go around the living room and open presents one at a time so everyone can ooh and aah about what you got and then Christmas day they want to take a walk and exercise and crap and Christmas day is all about eating leftovers and sleeping in the big chair by the fire! So. I put my foot down and said that as a matter of fact, I’ve been wanting to spend some time apart anyway. So go do your own thing and after the holidays, call me. And I thought, of course, that I’d never hear from it again, because it was pretty hurt. I said some things I shouldn’t have, like calling it unflexible and set in its ways and that it liked other women better than me (you should see all the women who have lost more weight than me in a shorter period of time, thankyouverymuch, immortalized in guilt-inducing polaroids all over the diet center), and that I just was feeling smothered.

But last week, it called. I’ve been watching Sex and the City on Netflix and I am here to tell you that those women are T.H.I.N. Thiiiiiiin. Sarah Jessica Parker’s character said she’s a size two. A size? Two. TWO. Where does she keep her internal organs? Size two?!!? I can’t really say that I’m inspired by these women, but I will say that I hate Carrie Bradshaw, as she embodies everything stereotype, everything I hate about women, and it has made me thankful that although fat, I am not a neurotic man-stealer, impoverished and whiney about my $40,000 shoe collection, a wearer of fugly clothes, and that my interests and range of knowledge are wider reaching than sex and fashion. Does that sound condescending? Good. I have decided not to apologize for that. Anyway, if nothing else, the stupid show re-empowered me to be strong and to give love between a woman and her Diet another chance.

I’ve got some goods. I’ve got good hair. I can entertain the masses. I have the willpower to make myself meet with Nervous Little Trainer every week. And as Kim Coombs at Union University once said to me of my whitened, straightened smile, “Rachel, you got you some teeth!” (or as my cousin calls them, “gleaming fruits of capitalism”). And Jeff Lewis did address me as “skinny” at the Russian new year’s party. Which is not something that just every 219 pounder can say.

219? I weigh 219…. Jesus I outweigh some football players.

I’ve got work to do….

 

T minus 39 pounds and counting. In the right direction now. For real. I mean it.