CONFESSIONS OF A FAT GIRL

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.

Here's Honesty

My God, I am so exhuasted right now I am actually crying. And not just like dribbling tears from my tired eyes. Like I actually put my face down in my hands and sobbed. It felt sort of good to be honest but when it's all done, the reasons for the tears still leave me feeling shitty.

For starters, my financial situation just blows. I have had to ask my dad for money again- not a lot but even a little hurts my pride- and I can never get through an e-mail or phone call about money without tears these days. Ridiculous.

Work sucks. It just does. I love what I do and my co-workers are really teriffic people but my boss is doing a really good job killing me slowly and securing my future in a mental institution. It makes me even more depressed because at my last job, I had three crazy bosses but I was paid better and the job was so easy it was a joke. I took this job to get into the field I wanted to build my career in and I am 100% sure I did the right thing but there are days and moments like this where it hurts a lot to consider.

School is finally getting to me. I've actually done a pretty good job managing my life, my job and whatever else thrown at me combined with grad school up until now but my final paper is due tomorrow and I've had it. I really only have a couple pages left to write but I am so exhausted and so sick if THINKING that those two pages may as well be 45. So then I wonder, "how the hell will I get through my thesis next semester?" and I want to throw something into a wall.

TV sucks. I know that, in the grand scheme of things, sounds incredibly lame but in my loneliest times, TV has been my best friend and I admit it. I am a TV junkie. And with this strike, there is shit to watch. I have stockpiled episodes of things I will watch gradually and slowly but in a week, the Tivo will be empty and I will be sad. This actually depresses me.

And lastly, as a result of this or maybe just because I am stupid, I am eating like a cow. I said it in my last entry- seriously, if it's edible and I can reach it, I will put it in my mouth and digest it without hesitation or really any regret. I know it is wrong, I know what I am doing as I am doing it and it just continues. At lunch today, the amount of bread I put away was shameful.

I will not, I will not, I WILL NOT cancel my Jenny appointment this week. I have to get my ass in there and face the music. Maybe a little reality will shock me back into some sort of sanity.

Okay, really, just two more pages. I know I can push it out.

And by the way, as an afterthought - not to harp on it or anything- but if I don't get some nookie soon, I will be a far grumpier gal and it will be an ugly situation!

Productivity

I've been gradually cleaning out my apartment, ridding myself of excess weight in other aspects of my life. I somehow feel lighter as a result of doing this and it's been excellent exercise beside because I fill up a box with trash, walk it back to the dumpster, back and forth like that for several trips. I'm lifting things and moving things and when I am done with a part of the project, I am usually sweaty, tired, but feeling great.

I haven't had a cigarette since Sunday. This has been hard. I've "quit" before and it's usually a relatively easy thing for me to do. But this time around, maybe because I am doing so much else to improve my life at once, I am crabby and antsy over it. I know if I just get through a couple weeks of it, though, I'll be okay. I'll have proven myself. I actually think quitting before this weekend will turn out to be a smart move because I don't plan to do any major socializing this weekend and the pressure to smoke always comes in that. I don't know why though - most of my friends have actually quit by now or cut way back.

I have to admit I cancelled my Jenny Craig appointment today. I ate some major craptastic food over the weekend (it always is worse in my head then it actually is) and I had lunch plans with a coworker that was not going to be entirely conducive to my Jenny diet. My appointment was at 3, post-lunch, and when I felt bloated and crampy this morning, I knew that I was cancelling.

Ah yes, woman problems 5-8 days a month. The best excuse ever.

My mom is being magnificent in preparing for tomorrow. She called me today to go over what she was making to make sure there would be food around for me to snack on and eat at dinner. She's amazing about making sure I can participate and feel normal while my cousins are gorging themselves on crackers and cheese spread and fatty dips. I'll have skim cheese and veggies and some protein. With dinner, my mom is making a big salad because I like to have some veggies with every meal and I never eat her string bean casserole (I can't get past the smell - a weird thing with me). She also was concerned I'd blow it on desert but I think I'll just bring one of my jenny cakes with me and see if that makes me happy. Or I can eat a bowl of strawberries and maybe I'll bring my Cool Whip. We'll see. Being with my family is a test indeed because nobody eats like a big Jewish family at the holidays.

Hell, we don't even need a holiday, just a time and a place!

I find that with the four-day weekend already in progress (work ended at 2 today - isn't that nice?), I already feel more relaxed but I have two loads of laundry to do and a ways to go before the weight is completely lifted. I told my mom last night that if I can just make it to New Year's without totally flipping out, I'll be fine.

Countdown to my 10-year H.S. reunion? 16 innerving days.

Sex

Oh yeah, I know that title got your attention.

I believe I have written about sex before and so I apologize in advance but given the.... er, FUN subject matter, I didn't think any of you would mind.

You know, the one thing I've give to coupled and married people is that at least you've got that built in, sort of mandatory companionship. I've not been a huge fan of relationships since... well, since I was about 23 (5 years ago), but I get that about it.

I have a point, by the way, and it's relevant - just stick with me.

So once I was thin and it wasn't like I was raging sex-a-holic in those days. And by the way, when I say thin, I am referring to a size 12 which in my eyes now is thin but was porky then. And so I find now that I am heavier, I crave comfort more. It is, I'm sure, because I am less secure in myself at this weight, and so you do the math. I miss cuddling and I miss hugs and, by God, I miss SEX.

Yeah, it's been a little while. Not the longest I've ever waited by far but it's been enough time that I am starting to miss it.

But how to get it...

You know how they (who the hell are "they?" Those assholes) -- you know how they say girls can always get it when they want it? I don't agree. Do you think some guy sees me from across a crowded bar and plans to get in my pants? Do you think a group of buddies scope me out and make bets with themselves? Let's not kid ourselves. I'm last resort girl. I'm "hot chicks 1-10 went home with their boyfriends so what's left" girl.

Pause here. Before all my friends start giving me the "stop being so hard on yourself" lecture just don't. A little realism never hurt anyone. And I'm trying to hilarious while I'm being real so maybe I can make us both laugh!

Moving on...

So yeah, I miss sex.

And more than that, like I said, the cuddles and the hugs. That sensation that runs up your very core when someone comes up behind you and slides his arms around your waist and nuzzles into your neck... you know what I mean.

But when you're a "fat girl" it's like these things are impossible to attain. And all I want is for someone to just see ME. Cause I think, fat, thin or regular sized, I'm a catch, dammit!

In the meantime, I have a little furball of love curled up in my lap and he loves me no matter what! Isn't that sweet and wonderful? And lucky.

                                        

Happy Halloween!

I know you'd probably like to see me in my costume. Here I am:

That's Mike as Wolverine. He pulls it off well.

Getting ready was a lot of fun. I enjoyed playing with makeup.

 

You gotta love the shiny blue eye shadow.

Anyway, it's not so much related to my blog but I had to show you some of my favorite costumes of the night:

My friends Ryan & Shaun made a perfect Mario & Luigi.

Missy was the Stanley Cup. She made that herself. It's pretty amazing. Becky, a native of Canada, paid homage to her homeland as a sexy Mountie.

Jason went as The Iron Giant. It's pretty amazing. You can'r really tell but the eyes light up. Very cool. Jason always goes above and beyond.

Rick and Ariel. Really, you didn't get much hotter than this all night. And Ariel made that corsette herself. Which is awesome.

Kirsten made this herself and that little helicopter really twirled all night! Go-go-gadget Kirsten!

Halloween, not even Wednesday, and already you are a success. Thank you.