Monday Weigh-in

Weight: 223.2

So I am down 4.8 pounds the first week on the damnable Weight Watchers flex points plan. The crazy thing is that as much as I am loathe to admit it, WW makes sense, it's logical and it works. I can eat whatever I damn well please today as long as I am accountable for it and make adjustments to everything else I put in my mouth.

This initial 4.8 may well be water. I really don't care. It is 4.8 pounds less on my scale and my ass than I had a week ago so rock on. On to a new week and a good week. The funny thing is that when I have the eating thing under control, everything else in my life and in my head seems to go so much better. I feel better about everything in general, Which is pretty nice and I am not willing to give that up.

So I joined Weight Watchers this week -- the online version because I am too antisocial when it comes to the issue of my weight. I don't want to sit in a room with a bunch of other fat people and chatter happily about points and sugar-free pudding and how much I weigh. My fatness, though out there (obviously) for the world to see is not open for discussion. I don't want to talk about it-- at least not at the moment. I just want to deal with it and do so effectively. I have had a good week, so far. Part of this is because I have only needed to contend with one social event and as much as I pre-planned mentally on how to avoid partaking of the junk food that is a huge part of get-togethers with my girlfriends, it wasn't even an issue. Someone offered me some chips only once the entire time and I said I had slept late and therefore had just had breakfast so I was still full. No big deal. I have remained within my alloted WW points each day this week. But the weekend looms ahead, and weigh-in on Monday. Wish me well. I feel pretty strong at the moment.

Monday weigh-in

Monday weigh-in: 228.6. Argh.

I have been circling around the Alli displays at Walgreen's lately and reading what I can in recent newspaper and magazine articles about the over-the-counter release of the fat-blocker. It occurs to me that I really don't want to risk having an oily discharge, gas and explosive diarrhea. So I think I'll pass on the Alli for now. My decision is to join Weight Watchers. AGAIN. Fuck. But I'm doing it online this time. I just cannot stand the simpering women at the WW meetings in my town. So off we go to online WW. Today. It starts today. Wish me luck. And no loose stools.

a step in the right direction

So I went to the gym today and did 35 minutes on the treadmill. Good for me.

File me under "the fat girl"

It happened again the other night. I was at a social function and the stick-woman standing next to me at the punchbowl looked over and said "Oh, hello, you're Beth, right?" To which I replied, "No, my name is not Beth, I'm ______." She looked confused and I could see her flipping through her mental filing cabinet--you know--through the file where she's dumped all the fat people with the post-it note "fattie" attached. Then she said "Oh, I could have sworn you were Beth."

Here's the thing: Beth and I look nothing alike save for one feature: we're both fat girls. But she has different hair length, texture and color, I am at least two inches taller than she, she has no sense of style, dresses like a garage sale refugee and wears glitter on her face and neck every day. (Were I 12 years old or otherwise totally devoid of even a hint of common fucking sense I might consider the glitter.) The outrage for me is that during my fat years, I have repeatedly been mistaken for other women who have absolutely nothing in common with me looks-wise other than fatness. I have been mistaken for women decades older and younger than I, blondes, brunettes, redheads, short, tall, it does not matter to some people. All that they see is a fat girl.

I have curves for miles. And miles. And...you get the point

Yes, I do have curves. Some of those curves are drooping a bit but still -- I love my curves. I would love them more if they weren't so wide. And droopy. But the point is that I have everything here that I need to feel good about me -- the raw material exists. It's not like I am fat and homely. It may sound appallingly shallow of me, but I would rather be fat and pretty than skinny and homely. Yeah, that does sound appalling. But frankly, this idea that has accompanied my self-destructive overeating all these years has somehow comforted me -- yes I may be fat, but when I lose weight I will be a bombshell and a half. Because I have a pretty face. And if I had a dollar for every time some old lady has said to me "Honey, you have SUCH a pretty face--if only you'd lose some weight..." not to mention everyone who has said it behind my ample back, I would be rich, no doubt. At the very least I'd be able to buy myself a new Coach bag. My weight this morning: 228.

I am a fat ass but I long to be freed of my fat straightjacket

Hi there, Fat Ass,

There is nothing to say here other than this: if not when, when? What the fuck are you waiting for? Diabetes? Cancer? Early death? A lifetime of unrealized hopes, aspirations, yearnings buried forever under adipose tissue?

Every summer since I was 13, I vowed to lose weight and return to school a svelte vamp. I would show them. I would wow everyone who had ridiculed me for being fat or ignored me because I was invisible because I was the fat girl. Every fall I slunk into the first day of school fat, embarrassed, self conscious, uncomfortable, less and less myself. The connection between who I am on the inside and what appeared on the outside to the rest of the world seemed to be looser and looser, disappearing into layers of fat, becoming more frayed until I became totally disconnected from me.

It has been this way for years. And years. And years. I start out every day with the best of intentions. Every day I try. Every day I have failed. But I will not give up on me. I am in here somewhere, I know it. And one day I will emerge. I have to.

So this fat that drove a wedge between and the rest of the world --and most importantly, alienated me from me -- must go. It has to. But how? I don't know yet.