Fat and Happy?

Years ago, in my "thin" days, or more precise, my "thinNER days" I went on a shopping excursion with a friend. We went to a neighboring town to visit our Mecca, otherwise known as The Outlet Mall. After a rather fun and productive morning of bargain hunting, we decided on a little respite, so we ventured into Outback Steakhouse for lunch. There we decided to relax by having a beer, then we proceeded to share a bloomin' onion (I LOVE those things!!), and lastly, we each had a salad. I know, the irony of a salad following a bloomin' onion is beyond absurd, but that's what we did.

After our meal, our adorable twenty something bubbly waitress asked us if we were interested in dessert, to which both of us declined. So she proceeded to ask us if we were feeling "fat and happy?"

Now I admit, I am sometimes a little too literal. But never in my dieting career had I ever put those two words together. I proceeded to discuss this issue with my friend, who probably wished for many more beers at that point, but the concept just alluded me.

There were many days when something bad may have been going on, or work was getting me down, but if the scale showed a good number, then my mood would change instantly! And I realize that since I spent so much time obsessing on every little thing I ate, that the scale was a huge means of validating all my hard work.

Back then, I was a little…OCD. Ok, maybe just a little more OCD, than I am now. And perhaps age has mellowed me a little, which might also have a correlation with my weight gain. But my point is the concept of being fat AND happy is still beyond my comprehension.

There are times when you just want to give up. You want to blow off the diet and eat with abandon! Burgers and fries, pizza, anything fried, mashed potatoes, but when the scale moves a little too high, past that line in the sand, or when you can't sit down in your favorite jeans, that's when you realize there is no such thing as being fat AND happy.

You know the whole psychological theory of the vicious circle. You're unhappy with yourself, so you eat, then you gain more weight, and it makes you more unhappy with yourself, so you eat some more. Well, I don't know about you, but it doesn't feel like eating is about hurting myself. It feels comforting, pleasurable, and safe. But the outcome: weight gain….always makes me VERY unhappy.

I look around and see people who are bigger than me, and people who are smaller than me. Are their lives really any better or worse because of their weight? And I look at some of those bigger people and wonder, do they not care about their weight? Do they think they look hot? Does it bother them like it bothers me? So why can't I just be content with myself the way I am right now and be fat and happy?

Part of me wants to blame the media for this attitude: magazines, television, Victoria Secrets, Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition!! All these things make me feel badly about my body. And ok, I admit to being…FAT right now. But even when I wasn't fat, when I was truly within a normal weight range, I still FELT fat! And even back then I didn't feel fat AND happy!

Is there such a thing? Do you know anyone who really is content being overweight? I want to meet those people! I want to join them for burgers, fries, and milkshakes and discuss how they feel about themselves. Because I want a piece of that. I want to feel that way too!

And I wonder, is this strictly a female thing? Because it never seems that men worry about it as much as women. Because it's always in the back of my head that men are judged on what they do, and women are judged on how they look. I know you can argue that GQ and other men's magazines promote that "thin is in" idea for men as well. But I'm haunted by the expression, "You can never be too rich or too thin." That sort of speaks volumes does it not?

At any rate, while I am still going to strive to lose weight and get healthy, not only because of vanity, not even just because of the clothes(although that IS a big one for me), but mostly as I get older I realize my health will deteriorate. And I would rather enter that phase of my life in a healthy, well maintained, fit body, because then I would probably stand a better chance of at least being happy.

As for fat AND happy, I'm afraid that's a combination of words I will never be able to embrace.

Tales of XL and other Horror Stories

I think I already established that I am currently on the high end of my weight range. Let me rephrase that, I am ALMOST back at my heaviest weight…ever!! Needless to say, it's not a good place to be, not for me anyway, since weight has such an impact on my self esteem. And, as if that number on the scale weren't bad enough, the real self-esteem crusher comes the minute I step into a store dressing room.

Let me preface by saying that I LOVE to shop!! I especially love to shop for clothes. I don't know where this love of shopping developed. Since I was a fat kid, I don't recall clothes being important to me early in life. I remember hating the whole thing as a tween 'cause I was fat and therefore not easy to fit. And I don't recall liking it too much in High School either, since again, I was WAY heavier than the average teen. So, I think my love of clothes shopping developed somewhere after college. That's when I became a "normal" size, and I actually thought I looked good in clothes, well some of them, anyway.

But you know, now that I think of it, I seem to be forgetting that I come by this love of shopping honestly enough. It's in the genes! No, not the jeans, I was right the first time, I inherited the "shopping gene" from my grandmother, Rose. She was a clothes horse from way back. She was probably there when they actually broke ground at the original Filene's Basement! Well, maybe not, but I did grow up shopping in the original Filene's Basement, and it was pretty much because of her. But you know, this shopping gene must skip a generation because my Mom wanted nothing to do with clothes shopping…ever!

Anyway, somewhere down the line my love of shopping grew. Over the years I also cultivated shopping buddies. My very first shopping buddy was one of my college roommates. We never shopped together in college, probably cause we didn't have any money, but somehow, instinctively, we knew we shared that bond. Lori and I lived in different states, so we would meet in neutral territory and shop the discount bargain places all day long! Ironically, we used to meet in the parking lot of a mall, but I don't think we ever set foot in the actual mall itself. We had a vast array of discount places where we hunted down bargains. We would meet early, shop all day, break to eat, then shop some more. Ahh those were the days!

Over the years, I have slowed down a bit regarding my shopping, I still love the thrill of the hunt, and still refuse to buy ANYTHING at full price. These days, though, I just don't have the endurance to do the all day shopping marathons like I used to. But more recently…shopping has become a chore. I've been in this place before, and it's never fun. Last time I was this size, I joined WW and lost a bunch of weight, which allowed me to shop with abandon because I was in, my opinion, a "normal" size, and needed to build a completely new wardrobe! Now…I describe myself as being in moose-sized clothes. Truthfully, I am on the threshold of plus size clothes, and that is usually the line in the sand that makes me FINALLY do something about my weight.

But…let's not forget XL!!! Let me tell you, being a fat kid was not fun, being tortured by other mean kids because my Mom equated food with love, was also not fun, but when size large no longer fits…now that's the scariest thing I've ever experienced!!

Those of you who have never been bigger than the average person cannot possibly understand the feeling of XL. It's kind of like branding, like Hester Prynn in the Scarlet Letter, but instead of a red A, I feel like I should be displaying a red XL stitched on all my clothing. My letter of shame, if you will.

I suppose I could go to the plus sized stores and start shopping there, (I know this is terrible, but I refer to plus sized stores as fat chick stores). Hopefully those clothes will be too big for me…hopefully! But for now, I am not willing to resign myself to this current weight. I guess I would rather shop the bigger sizes in the regular stores, where there is barely any selection, and certainly nothing cute to choose from. Which is worse, fitting into all the clothes at the "fat chick" store, or continuing to remind myself that I am getting too big for the regular stores? Maybe I will continue to troll the discount stores on the off chance I can find a few mismarked Larges and delude myself into thinking I am only the occasional XL.

Or maybe this will finally be my line in the sand, and make me finally do something about my weight, so those tales of XL will only be a scary memory. One can only hope…

Peanut Butter is my Crack...

When it comes to food, I often go in phases. I will eat an abundance of fish, or beef, or for a while I was deeply into soups, and even slightly obsessed with a vegetarian chili recipe I found in Cooking Light magazine. In addition to main course phases, I am especially fickle when it comes to my snacks.

I am a snacker from way back! I recall a low-fat yogurt mixed with cereal snack (before you could even buy such a creation), sugar free based pudding shakes, (mix dry pudding with skim milk, ice, and a little vanilla), and I went through a rather long and severe diet ice cream stage, but as I have recently cut carbs from my diet, I have focused in on my recent snack infatuation, which is currently bordering on an addiction: peanut butter. Well, low fat natural peanut butter, as if that somehow makes it better.

A dear friend (Leanne, you know who you are!) recently encouraged me to try a low-carb diet. I have had so much success losing weight doing Weight Watchers in the past that I totally ignored the whole low-carb frenzy when it was in vogue. Instead, I insisted on towing the WW company line "All things in moderation" and tried to live by it. Course, if I had a solid grasp on "moderation" I would not have a weight problem to begin with, so I think that's where the chink in the armor began. But getting back to Leanne, I mean low-carb, she swears by it, and has been doing this type of diet for years. So, since Leanne is thin and pretty, (which means if I didn’t love her, I would hate her!) I decided to take her advice and try it, since it so obviously works for her.

At first I loved it!! I went from my "almost" vegetarian diet to ingesting massive quantities of protein, foods like beef, and salmon, and eggs, and tuna fish mixed with real mayo. It was so new, and exciting, and seriously, any diet that will let me eat real mayonnaise with abandon, is high on my list!!

So, I ate steak, fajitas, beef of any kind, really, and lots of it, since I didn't have to worry about how much I was consuming. And truth be told, I lost about seven pounds my first week. Of course, half of that weight loss was water weight, but still, the scale drastically dropped, and it made me happy. I thought I was on to the next great weight loss phase of my life.

After a while, I found myself eating the same things over and over, which is just something I typically do, and I'm usually ok with that. But after eating eggs and cheese every morning, I was starting to get a little bored with breakfast. But breakfast wasn't the biggest hurdle with this new low-carb lifestyle. I thought, since I was never a big sweets person, that I would be ok without all things sweet. But after weeks of protein, minimal veggies, and lots of high fat foods (mayo, bacon) I realized at night, I craved something…sweet.

I've never been a big fruit enthusiast. I like it ok, especially summer fruit, but I can easily pass on apples, pears, bananas until you realize you can't have any…EVER! Then you realize how much you actually do want these foods. Hmmm maybe that's the point of the whole low-carb thing, to make you realize just how much you miss things like whole grains and fruit.

In an effort to pacify my longing for sweet things at night…I gravitated to the first low-carb sweet thing I came across: Peanut Butter! Leanne suggested I could have "some" in an effort to kill that sweet craving. But I know Leanne, she somehow assumed when she told me I could eat "some" she envisioned me eating a tablespoon of it, or two, at the most! But for me, well let's just say I still don't have a grasp on the word Moderation!

So every night, after the usual routine of coming home from work, making, eating, and cleaning up after dinner. Spending a little time with my husband, I would bring the jar of low fat natural peanut butter with me into the living room and settle in with it while I watched whatever was on the dvr. I have learned to stay away from the food channel, despite how much I love it, cause it always makes me want to eat. You know, years ago, when I used to go to the gym for cardio almost daily, I used to change the tv at the gym to the food channel. Sort of counterproductive, huh?

I keep digressing off of my peanut butter topic, maybe because it's become just too painful to discuss. After a while, I couldn't watch tv without it. And despite numerous attempts to stay away (not buying it when I went to the grocery store), I would make quick last minute trips just to pick some up. I became truly addicted! And sadly, I was going through about a jar of it a week!

Let me tell you something, dieting may be hard, working out regularly may be hard, and quitting smoking was incredibly hard. But giving up that low-fat natural peanut butter was a experience I will not soon forget. I'm happy to say I am completely peanut butter free now. I did it cold turkey too, and it was excruciating. So hard....I don't think I can even talk about it without tears. But sometimes, in the late hours of the night, I just KNOW my husband is spreading that incredibly yummy stuff all over a slice of white bread. Full fat peanut butter on white bread! I ask you, does it get any more decadent than that, nutritionally? When the smell comes wafting in from the other room, despite his attempts to hide it from me…those are the times when I know, deep down in my soul, that peanut butter is my crack...