Heroin by Hostess

I gained three pounds this week. I wasn’t shocked at all. Disappointed, yes; shocked, no. All was going according to plan until Tuesday when I had a co-worker lie to me. I won’t go into detail here but suffice to say that I was hurt even though I was warned by more than one person that I should watch out for this person. Why do I even bring it up? Because this is my M.O.: I get focused as far as getting fit, eating right, exercising, etc. and then something stressful happens in my life and I let it all go to hell.

It happened last year when my company laid off a close friend of mine whose job I ended up absorbing. This isn’t a recent thing either. I was losing weight back in 1987 (yes sports fans, I’ve always been a heffer!) when my cousin was killed and I just stopped trying for a while. So this is something I know I need to work on. I need to figure out another way to stay focused on my health during stressful situations. I had a crazy roommate in college who would clean when she was stressed.. so much so that when she sneezed, a chemical reaction would go off in her nose and it would light up. I swear it actually happened.. I wasn’t drunk! But I digress…

But in the midst of all this, something wonderful happened this weekend. I threw away a perfectly good box of Hostess Donuts. I mentioned in last week’s blog that we have people in fixing our shower. Since they are working all day, I make sure to have donuts and energy drinks available for them. Last Saturday, we made sure they took the rest of the donuts with them when they left. This week, 5 donuts were left in the box. I told Jovian to give me one of the plain ones. He, trying to be supportive in my weight loss efforts said “no”. I insisted. He said “no! I’ll lock them up.” I told him “I already had one earlier in the day, just like you did so give me the donut.” He again said “no! You’ve already had one.” I said “you did too, so let’s throw them away!” I figured at this point, I was going to win and get my donut. Wrong. He said “you won’t throw them away.” He then put the cake donut in his mouth daring me to take it and take a bite. I told him to give me the box. He put the donut from his mouth back in the box and gave it to me, telling me “you won’t do it.” (I’m frugal by nature so wasting perfectly good donuts goes against my Scottish heritage and let’s face it, I’m fat…I don’t tend to throw away dessert..) We walked over to the garbage can and I tossed them in. Then I shook the can to make sure they were ruined.

I’d like to say that it felt good. It feels good now. But at the time I can only equate the feeling to how Steven Adler must have felt watching the rehab police flush his heroin down the toilet while on Sober House. It was a scary feeling; a true feeling of addiction, but I came out of it proud and Jovian was proud of me for standing my ground as well (he mentioned he had the same feeling when the donuts met their demise.)

Goal this week: if I get stressed at work, pop out for a walk. Exercise for at least 30 minutes every day.

The Argument In My Head

This week there were contractors coming over to fix the shower in my apartment. While I was away last week, my boyfriend was in the shower and parts of the floor began to collapse. Jovian, my boyfriend, mentioned to me that he was actually feeling anxious and preparing retorts in case the contractors made any inference that the collapse happened because of our size.

I won’t attempt to say that I speak for all obese and overweight people out there, but I’m sure many will agree that this has also happened to them. I too have played out scenarios and arguments in my head because I was worried about being blamed for something because of my size. In my last apartment, after moving in, I noticed that there seemed to be weak spots in the flooring. When I mentioned this to my apartment manager, she told me “those are suspended floors.” I knew better and lived there in fear that I was going to fall through rotted floors. Now, if I were of normal size, I would have been jumping up and down on these floors just hoping to own an apartment building. Because I AM obese, in fact, according to many charts, morbidly so, I was sure to be careful but was constantly preparing myself for “it’s your fault because of your size” that the floors are bending.

The apartment that I currently live in with my boyfriend is old. There is a lot that is falling apart with it although the floors seem sturdy—knock on wood.. but not too hard! Unfortunately, the management company is shit and only care to fix something when it has actually collapsed. In other words, there’s no preventative maintenance going on here yet he still was worried about being blamed.

As a fat person I worry about fitting into seats at concert venues and airplanes, about chairs breaking under my weight and about small children actually calling me out on it. I’m telling you, five year olds can be brutal in their assessment of your stature. Why? Because it hurts. Embarrassment hurts.

The contractors were great guys who spent eight hours here demolishing and preparing to rebuild our shower. I overheard Jovian talking to one of the guys, Effraim I believe, and he noted “this has been rotting away for years, this is nothing that you did.” Believe it or not, we wanted that said out loud and even though it was said, we’re still worried about getting a bill from the management company for the shower. Time will tell, but the argument has been prepared: “The shower didn’t collapse because of our weight, it’s because you’re cheap ass bastards!”

This week I weight 243.4!! Down two pounds this week for a total of 8.6 pounds lost since September 20th, 2009!!

292: Never again!

What better day to start a weight loss diary than on the day that Kevin Smith gets kicked off a Southwest Airlines flight for being too fat. How embarrassing for him!!I'm not going to get into any major arguments over this but there has been a change in the seat dimensions over the years (at 292 pounds-YEARS ago, I fit with no issue but as I lost weight, the seats seemed more snug on United in particular). On the other hand, I also wouldn't want to have paid for a seat that I now have to share with someone else the size of me. So I'm conflicted... When I fly alone, I won't need an extra seat, if I'm flying with my boyfriend (another fatty..I luvs me the cuddly men!), I may just look into purchasing the whole row so we can just laugh at the people on stand-by hoping to get to their 3rd cousin's wedding saying "ohhh NOW you want to sit with us!! Bwahahahahahahaha!!". Sorry, got carried away. For my portly friends, might I recommend Virgin or Jet Blue.. they seem to have more room to spare. Kevin, Virgin would never do you like that!

But on to the first blog of my weight loss diary! I come to you now, a proud member (for the millionth time) of Weight Watchers and ready to do this. I can't remember when, but I did weigh 292 pounds. I'm now at 245.4 after starting weight watchers again back in September at 252. As of today, I'm down 6.6 pounds since September 19. This is a tough, slow road, but I must remind myself that at one time, I weighed 292. I will never be that big again and it's time to set the smaller goals.

Next goal: 239. It sounds strange but I feel like once I get into the "30's", there's no going back to the "40's". Just like there's no going back to 292..

Until next time...

Charlene