You know who I hate? Most people. You know who I hate specifically? Women who lose weight when they’re "stressed." You always know who they are, because they don’t shut up about it.
“Ever since we started renovating our waterfront property and planning our summer getaway to Europe, I’ve been so stressed out I just can’t keep weight on! No matter what I eat, I just keep dropping sizes! I mean, look – I haven’t had visible abs since I was a teenager!”
Equally obnoxious, are people so busy they forget to eat. How many brain cells have to misfire before a body forgets to eat? A plane full of athletes can crash in the Andes, and despite being busy trying not to die, they remember to eat something – even if it’s one another.
Darwinism dictates that people who eat food survive. Those who can’t - die. Unless of course, you’re just busy, in which case, eating food is only as important as remembering where you left your keys or remembering that your sunglasses are actually atop your head.
I hate these people, because I am not one of them. I’m an entirely different freak of nature.
Last year, I lost 50 pounds with Weight Watchers. In the six months I was broken and unemployed, I gained it all back. I’ve been following the Weight Watchers program again for the last three months, and I’ve since gained another three sizes. I’m now the largest I’ve ever been in my life, and gaining an average of 3.5 pounds a week, regardless of what I put in my mouth.
One week I managed 3 hours of working out with a personal trainer, one hour of deep water running, four hours of walking and two hours of cardio, while eating at a doctor approved number of calories considered safe for sensible weight loss. I gained another two pounds.
Nobody can tell me why my body is doing this. Weight loss is a mathematical equation. Calories consumed versus calories burned. For me, one plus one is adding up to three, and nobody knows why.
Doctors don’t want to test me for a thyroid problem, insisting that my sensibly restricted diet and exercise will work. Eventually. Other doctors feel it’s simply my body reacting to stress. I’ve been through a difficult time, and my stress hormones are continuing to pump too much cortisol. Eventually, it’ll stop. Hopefully that happens before I become wedged in any doorways.
In the meantime, I’ve had to buy new underwear, stretching the fabric in the store to the width of a Smart car before deciding they were close enough to fit. If this continues for another six months, I'll be wearing the Smart car.
I’m wearing a lot of billowy dresses bought at thrift stores, because nothing I ever owned fits me anymore - not even the one pair of fat pants I kept after losing 50 pounds, just to show how far I'd come. (Ha!) I shop at thrift stores, because I can't afford the extra $45 plus size clothing stores tack on to every item, in order to cover the costs of the extra six inches of material.
(Can somebody please explain to me why so many plus size clothing items have anchors on them? Or stripes? Or cats?? Do I really need to be wearing something that makes the connection for other people that I'm roughly the size of a small fishing boat? Do I need to look upholstered, or like the world's largest walking optical illusion? Does my clothing really need to tell people I'm likely going to die alone??)
When I wear my dresses, I either have to have some very hard-working bike shorts underneath, or remember to smear some anti-chafing lotion between my thighs. If I don't, the friction could result in my ass bursting into flames and my thighs turned to raw hamburger.
Even with summer dresses lacking in a waist band, I come home sporting welts. My underwear digs, my bra digs, my sleeves dig, and even when I have no sleeves, my underarms rub raw. Dignity is out, but discomfort is always in.
I don’t recognize myself anymore, and the first time my personal trainer made me look in the mirror to check my form while lifting weights, I started to cry. She hasn’t made me look again since.
Being this uncomfortable affects everything I do. I don't really like going out anymore, as in, leaving the house. I've missed special events and parties, because I would have had to wear a bathing suit. I've cried over "fun" pictures I'm tagged in from a recent vacation, because I look like a house. I spent an entire webcam date with Alex, wrapped in a blanket, swearing to God it was because I was cold.
And then some times it gets even more ridiculous. Some of you may recall that earlier in the year, I spent some time hiding from Alex’s mother behind a laundry room door while half naked. That was fun. (And by fun, read: not fun at all.)
On Canada Day, I hid for ten minutes behind a giant street art installation. A fibre glass rainbow colored whale to be exact. On this occasion, I was hiding from the guy I happened to be with when my vagina exploded. I saw him, but he didn’t see me, thanks to my quick thinking and the giant-ass whale. At least my evasive maneuvers are becoming more original. I stopped hearing from him the day after it happened, and haven’t seen him since, so recognizing who he was shocked me a little.
I didn’t want him seeing me and thinking to himself, “Hey – there’s that girl with the stunt vagina. Thought she was dead.” Or, “Wow – didn’t that girl used to be skinny?” Hence, me hiding behind a giant whale. As one does.
Admittedly, my diet is faltering. If I continuously gain the same amount of weight regardless of whether I choose the spinach salad with dressing on the side or the Triple Chocolate Turtle Pie with a bottle of wine on the side, I can tell you right now – I am not strong enough to keep choosing the spinach salad out of principle.
I can keep it up for a few months at a time, but when I bust out of a dress I wore just last month without going off my diet or letting up at the gym – you best believe this bitch is going to eat EVERYTHING.
And then when I inevitably do, I will hate my fat self even more.
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