CONFESSIONS OF A FAT GIRL

Take That, Bitter Columnist

As you may recall, a couple weeks ago, I posted a link to a New York Times column in which the author lambasted the new Manhattan JC Penney for its polyblends and larger size selection. I also posted a lovely comeback piece from Jezebel...

Well a lot of you had your own feedback!

"Wow. That's the most awful thing I have ever read... I hope that people don't read that and think that's what NY is. It isn't - the new JCP has been packed since it opened and not all with tourists. With real New Yorkers looking for clothes that fit real people..."

"NY Times alienating even more readers?! No surprise there, I guess. No wonder the written word newspaper is going out of business. Can't wait for their next article entitled 'Isn't it cute that women have important jobs?'"

"I can't imagine a professional talking crap about such a huge population of people. It sure doesn't sound like she values ALL of her readers. I hope the feedback was so horrible that she was reprimanded."

Well, speaking of reprimanded...

The NY Times Goes After Its Own Cintra Wilson

It's been a week and a half since the NY Times published a bitchy review of Manhattan's first J.C. Penney, penned by columnist Cintra Wilson (pictured). She received plenty of unkind words in return for her barrage of insults about the average American woman and her size 12 style. Last week, she declared on her blog that the issue has been "flame-broiled to death" (a nod to the fast food nation she targeted?), but yesterday the Gray Lady gave her a lexical slap on the wrist.

In the piece, Bill Keller, executive editor of The Times, says his mother was a Penney's devotee, and goes on to publicly declare that he wishes Wilson's review was never published, saying it “would make a fine exhibit for someone making the case that The Times has an arrogant streak." Yet they go on to say the real surprise is "that Wilson’s reviews haven’t created more of a controversy before now.“ As the writer herself explains, her biting style is meant for who she believes her audience to be: “1,300 women in Connecticut and urban gay guys in Manhattan.”

Meanwhile, the department store's VP of Communications told the paper, “We found the review very offensive to our customers.” She went on to say that the average American woman wears a size 12 and weighs 150 lbs; while the shop was stocked for their regular customers, in Manhattan "smaller sizes sold out quickly, and the mix will be adjusted to meet demand." But even if more size 2 products are on the racks, will Wilson dare let Penney's polyblend graze her skin?

source: http://gothamist.com/2009/08/24/the_ny_times_goes_after_its_own_cin.php

And thanks to Steph for sending that to me. It made me smile with satisfaction and vindication.

Product Referral

So here's something interesting... a company completely devoted to portion control. Can you stick with it? Can you stay that organized? (Can you afford it?)

It's actually not that expensive and actually, it's quite brilliant. I would imagine a lot of my problem has to do with portion control.

Kelli sent me this link and were I not having financial struggles right now, I might have been quick to buy up a lot of this stuff. I'd actually love to have a food scale and maybe some of this tupperware...

But here's the rub-- as long as there are restaurants, markets, vending machines and a refrigerator in my apartment, something like this would probably end up being useless to me. I'd be all gung ho about it in the beginning, but when the novelty wore off, as it always does with me (hey, I'm just being honest), they'd sit in my cabinet and collect dust.

I really do think it's a great idea. I wouldn't post it otherwise. I am just shamefully, supremely lazy. LOL. If someone tries this and wants to write about it -- I am not kidding -- I would love to hear about it. It would be interesting to me to see if organized portion control can make an earnest difference.

Confessions of a Political Girl

Had to take a break from the usual -- I am going to put these wherever I can. I am invoking the "it's my blog and I'll post what I want to" law.

Live from my apartment... It's Saturday night!

Having the most peaceful of weekends though I admit that I am a bit depressed and, frankly, eating crap.

Tonight for dinner, I spared nothing but the best: chicken salad and 6 small cookies. If only I'd had a box of cheap wine, I coulda really classed up the whole moment. Damned good cookies, by the way...

The good news is I had a healthy lunch and a healthy breakfast. There's nothing like spending the night at my parents house because my mom sort of enjoys fawning over me and when I wake up? Homemade breakfast, which is awesome.

At this point, I am seriously considering making myself a drink with some vodka involved. I am watching James Bond and really, all those on-screen martinis sent a message my brain has well-received.

Cheers.

Here Comes the Bridesmaid

I would not dream of leaving you all out of the fun since I forced my dress and cleavage on your for months now, leading up to this wedding. :)

Seriously, it was just a gorgeous, gorgeous wedding. The setting was so charming and lovely and the bride and groom could not have smiled bigger if you paid them to. The ceremony was filled with laughter and personal touches and I was so shocked when even I teared up a little. I keep thinking all these weddings I've been attending lately will eventually leave me immune to the joyfulness of it all but it doesn't seem to happen. 

We started the day fairly early, so that all of the bridesmaids would have enough time for hair and make-up. My hair was fabulous - you would not believe it. I was completely elated until we all started to get dressed and my shoes didn't fit. What the hell, right? They were fine the day before but stress and heat and maybe something I ate had made my feet swell and my adorable silver strappies no long fit. I was forced to shove my feet into them anyway because you can't very well be a shoeless bridesmaid (although, maybe you can in some settings). It sort of hurt my mood, and I felt really bad for it so I kept to myself for a little while.

My only wish is that people had left me alone. The girls kept fussing over how big my chest was and I was starting to feel really uncomfortable. People kept tugging up my dress, making cracks, telling me a strap was showing. I felt so completely insecure that by the time the bride wanted to take a humorous cleavage shot of all the girls at the wedding site, I was happier to step out of the photo and fight back my tears in a corner.

But I bounce back. I always bounce back. A little while later, when pre-wedding photos were done and we ladies were relaxing in an air-conditioned waiting room, my feet finally fit into my shoes without causing me to wish for amputation. I was delighted. It's the little things.

A few drinks into the reception, I wasn't worried about how I looked anymore and of course, I was, by then, in my bridesmaid flip-flops, sneaking vodka from my flask (as I am classy) and loving life. The room as filled with laughter and happiness and it was impossible to shake the gigantic smile plastered on my face.

In retrospect, maybe my dress just didn't fit me as well as I thought, though, since you can see my bra peaking out in a lot of the photos and I am convinced I look like a bloated whale though some of my friends tell me otherwise. My friend Meghan, whose honesty and opinions I trust implicitly, assures me I look okay so I am trying to lean on that point of view.

What I should have done is take more solo photos instead of putting myself in pictures with skinny girls wearing the same dress as I was. That's when I am utterly upset with my appearance. That's how the dress was supposed to look. That's the right look. I feel like I am the "before" model in a really tragic before and after ad.

Weddings are usually a good excuse to pig out but I actually didn't eat too much. I actually gorged myself at the rehearsal dinner, but I was completely famished by the time food was served and didn't give a rat's ass about what went into my mouth. (The classiness is really overwhelming.)

I did enjoy the wedding cake, though, which was carrot cake. I justify this because it is carrots, which means the cake was really, practically HEALTH food, so who cares that I inahled the piece of cake like a dose of fresh air?

Overall? Ultimately? An amazing, wonderful, magnificent day. In truth, how I looked didn't matter. What I ate was of no consequence. It only mattered that my best friend and her now-husband were completely in love, totally overjoyed, and starting their lives together. As a result, being a bridesmaid in this wedding was an honor and pleasure, worth every internal struggle. I am so very happy for my friends.

Fat School

I'd be curious to know what you all think about this. My friend sent me this link and I read it with a mix of emotions. For someone like me, who tends to lack discipline, something like this, though costly, would be useful. The problem for me here is the follow-up. If the student is treated, then they also need to consider what will happen when the student has left the facility. This has often been the problem for me. A program works while I am in the program, but when the program ends, I always go right back to old habits...

'Fat School'

In the Hills of North Carolina, a Controversial Experiment in Weight Loss

School of Last Resort

By Sandra G. Boodman

Washington Post Staff Writer

Tuesday, May 20, 2008; Page HE01

For many teenagers at Wellspring Academy of the Carolinas, located at the end of a serpentine dirt road, the remote mountain outpost students call "fat school" is a last-ditch stop in a losing battle that has consumed their lives.

The tiny school, which opened last year in a refurbished summer camp in Brevard, N.C., 400 miles southwest of Washington, is designed to test one of the most radical, controversial and expensive ideas about how best to treat pediatric obesity. At issue is whether plucking youths as young as 11 who are at least 30 pounds overweight out of "obesogenic" environments and sending them to a highly structured therapeutic boarding school for rapid weight loss and intensive behavior therapy actually works.

A month's stay at the school, which has a maximum enrollment of 50, costs $6,250, making a year at Wellspring more expensive than a year at Harvard. "We know that moderation has not been successful for these kids," said Wellspring president Ryan Craig, a graduate of Yale and its law school, who characterizes measures like improving school lunches as too little, too late.

A former investment banker who persuaded Aspen Education, a for-profit behavioral health company, to spend $6.5 million to test the approach, Craig opened the first academy in 2004 in a shuttered mental hospital outside Fresno, Calif. Until March the schools, the first of their kind, were called Academy of the Sierras. Two more campuses are scheduled to open, one near Boston and the other near Austin, and a growing number of state child welfare agencies have expressed interest in placing obese children at Wellspring.

"Overall, our success rate is excellent," Craig said. The average weight loss for students who stay eight months (twice the required minimum) is 81 pounds, he said, and the first class of 15 students on average maintained their weight loss 10 months after leaving -- the only results Wellspring has published. Among them is Terry Henry of Exeter, N.H., who enrolled in September 2004 at 15 weighing 558 pounds. He left 15 months later weighing 253 pounds and today weighs about 278 pounds, school officials say.

Henry's success contrasts with the experience of Jahcobie Cosom, 18, of Dorchester, Mass. Cosom, who lost 167 pounds at the school and 30 during his first month home, gained 260 pounds in less than a year, his weight rocketing to 562. He is scheduled to undergo gastric bypass surgery this summer.

"If their families don't change, [students] are going to be back to their old ways of doing things" when they get home, said Anjali Jain, a pediatrician at Children's National Medical Center who specializes in treating obesity.

Jain and other experts question the expense and necessity of boarding school. They say that there have been no published studies of Wellspring that meet the gold standard for scientific research and that an adequate assessment requires a follow-up far longer than 10 months. Regaining weight less than two years after losing it is common, Jain said. "We see that kind of weight cycling in adults all the time," she noted.

But to desperate parents who typically find Wellspring online, packing a child whom classmates have nicknamed "Miss Piggy" off to a therapeutic boarding school seems worth it, despite incurring substantial credit card debt, draining a college fund or taking out a second mortgage. Many have already exhausted less drastic options: camps, personal trainers, gym memberships, therapists and nutritionists, not to mention threats and bribes.

"It will bankrupt us to do this," said Barbara Luciani of Mount Airy, whose 17-year-old son, Nick, enrolled in January weighing 300 pounds and suffering from high blood pressure. "But we were looking at that -- or his life."

source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/16/AR2008051603547.html?nav=rss_health

Diet Diary

Does anyone keep a journal about their eating and exercise?

I find, for me, it's useless. I'm too busy, have too much on my mind and too much else to do and keep track of to be bothered. Jenny Craig would prefer I wasn't this way but they just havent gotten me to get into the habit yet. After all this time, still hasn't taken.

But I know a lot of people do this and it helps so I am just curious what y'all think about the process.

One reader suggested this website FitDay and they have this software I thought I might try some day when I have 30 bucks to spare. They also have a freebie online journal I could try out. If it's on a computer, it becomes infinitely easier for me to handle for some reason.

Anyway, thoughts, dear readers?

A Little Silliness (Randomness)

I always find it nice when I can sit on the couch all night, watching TV, and NOT feel the urge to snack. I consider this a major triumph.

I was devestated to throw out a bag of carrot sticks that had gone bad. FYI - yes, carrots can go bad and they taste NASTY when they do.

Tonight, my parents took me out for dinner and I ordered fish. I resisted the fried and the fatty. Take THAT ye bad foods!!! HA!

Also on my short list of victories: resisting the donuts in the office today. Evil office donuts. I'm onto them and their tempting sweetness.

Tomorrow I am being measured for a bridesmaid dress. This will either be really exciting or really depressing. Stay tuned for details.

Coming Back

I find that when I am at my heavier size, I am far more meticulous about my appearance. Is my pony tail in place? Is my makeup all good? Is that horrible pimple on my chin any closer to going the fuck away?

This week, it's a cold sore. Above my lip. It looks hideous. It doesn't matter how else I might look, it's just nasty and it ruins everything. It's dried out and scabbed over and frankly, I feel uglier, greaiser and fatter as a result of it.

I have a date tomorrow night - do I keep it? I wouldn't wanna look at me across a table. I certainly wouldn't want to kiss me. LOL.

Readers, I need advice. Miracle cures? Amazing cover-up makeup ideas? Should I stay home and put a hot compress on it or just throw caution to the wind and show my scabby face to the world?

I'm pretty grossed out right now.

And my holidays? God, I wish people would stop asking me how my "holiday season" was. Wait, let me rephrase that. I wish people who know I am JEWISH would stop asking me how my holiday season was. They are really asking me how my Christmas was and you know, Hanukkah ended weeks ago. Maybe it's just my foul mood today but all I associate the holidays with at this point is copious amounts of bad-for-me-food and I'm over it.

That being said, I sure hope all of you had a nice holiday. HA!

To Do List

Things I will do tonight:

Make a salad. Eat salad.

Watch some long-forgotten tivo'd TV.

Do at least one load of laundry.

Things I will NOT do tonight:

Eat my weight in chocolate.

Give into my Doritos craving.

Drink caffeine after 7pm.

What can I say? I'm an ambitious gal.