I’m skipping the customary apology for falling off the diet-wagon and really, truly embracing a gluttonous lifestyle. I wish I could regret this, but I can’t because of the crazy amounts of Pollo Loco I was able to enjoy. That said, this time around things are different (wait, I’ve said that before- but I swear! promise!).

First, I didn’t wait until Monday to go on my diet. This only makes sense and is truly impressive to life-dieters. All life-dieters know the way diets usually happen. You decide to go on one, you think “well it makes no sense to start it today since it’s Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday/Friday/Saturday/Sunday,” and so you must wait until Monday. You just have to, don’t ask any more questions it’s the way the fat-free cookie crumbles. I decided to go on a diet on Wednesday mid afternoon and on Wednesday night the diet had officially begun. I, once again, didn’t have a moment where I had visions of a diabetic me dying of an infection caused by a leg amputation. I just really want to fit into my new blazer.

Secondly, I joined Weight Watchers. Did I say join? I mean hate. Everything is so cheesy, everyone is so encourage-y and they believe in inner beauty and have weekly newsletters about Jennifer Hudson. Hatred aside, every single person I’ve met who has dropped a dramatic amount of weight and has managed to keep it off, did it via WW. I also realized that I don’t really know how to eat. I know how to pig out like I’m going for the gold at the Stuff Your Face Olympics, or I know how to eat like I’m on a deserted island with an endless supply of water and no solid foods. Anything in between and I’m completely lost. In the three weeks I’ve been on WW I’ve already seen myself start to understand how food works without really trying. It turns out, a pint of ice cream is not a regular portion size. When I go out now, I gravitate towards things like steamed veggies and egg whites. When I know I’m having a bagel for breakfast, I pack a yogurt and fruit for lunch instead of…another bagel. I have yet to meet any of the little goals set for me, but that will come. And I really hate the meetings. A bunch of fat people sitting around talking about challenges and choosing broccoli over a loaded baked potato is truly a fucking nightmare for me. I go only so that I can weigh in and have someone track my progress. Right now, I still feel that I need someone to hold me accountable for this. I still need a little hand holding. So fine, WW, I’ll sit with the fat people for 45 minutes a week, and I’ll be that girl that holds up the drink order at happy hour while I hunt down low-point options on my iPhone. You win.

Something else that made me jump on the weight loss train again- I realized that most of the stupid people in my life are skinny. Not all by sheer genetic luck, a lot are skinny because they don’t order the entire Value Menu at Taco Bell and instead opt for a salad. How do they manage to do something that I feel is so hard when they’re so incredibly dumb? It makes me really uncomfortable. I know the difference between “you’re” and “your,” I need to get this shit done.

Lastly, about the gym. The gym will happen as soon as I’m not so tired from counting points and making smarter food choices.

Let’s skip the walk of shame and pretend I’ve been doing a healthy, serious diet for the past few months, which, is partially true. I was good then I cheated then I was good again then I sorta cheated and at the end of the day, I gained back what I lost and am back at my starting weight. We could also look at it this way … I maintained my weight just fine, thanks for asking. 

Things are really no different this time around. I still don’t fit into 90% of my clothes and I still hate everything that’s green or leafy (btw, thanks, skinny doctor bitch, for that lil’ lecture on how satisfying leafy greens can be. i tried them. you’re full of shit.) But as opposed to all the other times, I’m working out and putting in extra effort to plan out my meals, cook the night before so I don’t end up having a chicken pot pie (drools) for lunch. So dear God, why haven’t I woken up skinny yet?!

I have faith it will happen sometime soon since my approach to motivation has changed- or rather taken on new form. I’ve always been that girl that uses cruel and unusual forms of “inspiration.” I hang clothes that don’t fit me on all of my doors to constantly remind myself that I’m “not there yet,” I buy clothes a size or two smaller (this may or may not explain the closet full of clothes I don’t fit into), I’ve made Kim Kardashian my laptop wallpaper (and maybe my iPhone one too), I’ve weighed myself every day. I’ve done it all. Inspiration and motivation have never been about patting myself on the back. So asking for my sister’s help was not a means to fish for compliments on my shrinking appearance. If anyone can talk me out of eating a whoopie pie in the most cruel and unusual way, or even with just a stare, it’s her. She’ll remind me of all the times I said I was going to lose weight and didn’t. She’ll point out the clothes that I have yet to wear. She’ll give me the stink eye and I just know she’s thinking “oh from this angle her double chin looks like it’s multiplied and had baby chins.” When I go into a hunger-crazed, blacked out state where I only see taquitos and cupcakes, I can usually ignore these sweet motivational bits and bite right into something delicious. But when she brings up my mother…well that just makes me want to jump on a treadmill and wipe away my tears with a bagel. 

I’m always quick to criticize everyone people that feel entitled and deserving of big shot jobs and paychecks without having suffered at the bottom of the food chain, getting coffee for everyone at the top and having your self esteem and your college-graduate dreams shot to shit. How else do you build character and perspective? I’m a big believer that you need to go through that period in your life where you wake up everyday and you feel like shit about your job and you want to drink yourself to death every night, but you still do it and you still put effort into it. Having had several jobs, each one better than the last, I realize that to reap the rewards, you really need to pay your dues.

So this makes me wonder, why the fuck won’t I just eat my vegetables? Promotions don’t just happen, and neither does skinniness- for those of us on the losing end of the genetic lottery, at least. A bright orange billboard on my way to work reads “Stop eating fast food. Lose 20 pounds.” Really? You don’t say. Thanks for the tip, stupid. And yet…I want to go Taco Bell everyday and wake up 60 pounds lighter a week later.

So, after a two month dieting hiatus (it was Girl Scout cookie season) that didn’t go nearly as disastrously as it could have (something to be proud of!) I know I need to suck it up and eat some fucking vegetables. So, it’s back to that. And if I ever forget why I’m eating leaves and sticks and not a mexican pizza with nachos on the side, I have my trusty billboard to give me the finger every morning on my way to work.

…that is the amount of clothes in my closet that actually fit. That does not mean the clothes in this 10% fit well- let alone that they’re cute.

I get feverish at night thinking of what I’m going to wear to work the next morning. I start having Walmart-people thoughts like, ‘well no one’s gonna notice that I wore the same shirt yesterday….right?’ Inevitably, I end up rotating the same few pieces week after week, when I have a closet full of beautiful and oh so expensive clothing I could be enjoying. If eating celery and lettuce (cruel) will get me into the gorgeous anthropologie dress that’s been hanging in my closet without ever seeing the light of day, then so be it. I don’t have to be a happy camper about eating my vegetables, but I will be one when I’m able to wear the dress- in public. 

“Then there’s one thing to be done, ” he said. “We shall have to wait for you to get thin again.”

“How long does getting thin take?” asked Pooh anxiously.

“About a week, I should think.”

“But I can’t stay here for a week!”

“You can stay here all right, silly old Bear. It’s getting you out which is so difficult.”

“We’ll read to you,” said Rabbit cheerfully. “And I hope it won’t snow,” he added. “And I say, old fellow, you’re taking up a great deal of room in my house- do you mind of I use your back legs as a towel-horse? Because, I mean, they are- doing nothing- and it would be very convenient just to hang the towels on them.”

“A week!” said Pooh gloomily. “What about meals?”

“I’m afraid no meals,” said Christopher Robin, “because of getting thin quicker. But we will read to you.”

Bear began to sigh, and then found he couldn’t because he was so tightly stuck; and a tear rolled down his eye, as he said:

“Then would you read a Sustaining Book, such as would help and comfort a Wedged Bear in Great Tightness?”

Winnie the Pooh | A.A. Milne

I don’t know how or why it happened and I probably don’t even want to know, but somehow I ended up welcoming 2011 looking like a blown up version of myself. Not even a gorgeous pair of L.A.M.B shoes could make up for the excess fat spilling over my all-black outfit. Yes. All black in hopes of concealing the extra twentythirtyfeelslikeseventy something pounds that have taken over my body. My nails were black and my fingers did not look skinnier. I looked festive. Hopefully everyone who celebrated with me last night only saw me as a floating head, which is obviously how I’ve been looking at myself, seeing how I oh so devastatingly lost track of my diet. 

The worst part about having a cheat meal is not the post-meal guilt, or the desperate need to find any way I can to stop my body from digesting the shit I put in it. The worst part is having to trick my brain, once again, into “diet mode” the day after. It’s like convincing a kid to be happy about getting a pack of gum for Christmas while everyone else gets brand new bikes and bags full of cash (this being my ideal gift). It takes a few days of talking myself into it, and that’s where I’m at right now.

My mother came to visit and I was pleasantly surprised that she kept pointing out how good I look and how much weight I lost. In the past, this was enough to stop the constant slide show going on in my brain of all the delicious food I’m not eating. This time, it only made me want to reward myself. And again, here we go with the fat-people talk. I held my own at the Cheesecake Factory and willed my lettuce wraps to taste just like the fried mac and cheese balls. Unsuccessful, lettuce wraps taste like lettuce, which is really disappointing. While everyone else got to enjoy pizza and bread, I had leaves.

Afterward, we went to the supermarket and browsed through the cereal isle for what seemed like longer than anyone should ever be in a supermarket for a combined amount of time. Every single box of cereal looked mouth-watering kind of yummy. Cereals I have never in my life been interested in before were calling out my name. After forever, my mom went for Cacklin’ Oat Bran, delicious and not so horribly bad for you. And just like that, I was in a bad mood for the rest of the night.

There’s no real reason for being in a bad mood, at least no reason that would justify it. Plain and simple, she gets to eat cereal and that pisses me off. So yes, I’m bitter that for the time being I’m not eating cereal. And I’m bitter and resentful towards anyone who has won the genetic lottery and gets to eat all kinds of cereals, breads, chocolates and even oatmeal. I understand this is my choice and I am voluntarily subjecting myself to this, but I wouldn’t have to do this had I been born a skinny person. So there. See? Boom. Free pass to be as bitter as I want to be, at least until I get used to my pack of gum and stop making googly eyes at everyone else’s delicious looking food.

a cookie cliff is that tiny, brief moment where you have every intention of eating something sinful and delicious, but the skinny-voice inside you says ‘if you do this you’ll be a fattie for life, you’ll wear elastic waistband pants and you’ll hate yourself in the morning.’

I’ve been standing on the edge of a “cookie cliff” for the past two days. Obviously it’s my hormones trying to sabotage me and I’m trying my hardest not to jump right off the cliff and onto a delicious stack of pancakes. (Or a burger, or anything deep fried) To keep myself at bay I’ve resorted to weighing in my bloated, water-retaining self every single morning and, while this is definitely the most masochistic thing to do, it’s the only thing keeping me from a drive-thru.

Last night while I was eating my boiled egg I found a stack of take out menus my roommate has been collecting since we moved. At the top of the stack was the ihop menu. I took it as a sign from God that I should eat pancakes, went to grab my coat and decided to try on one of my “inspiration outfits” before heading out the door. I figured if this blazer fit a tiny bit better then I was making progress and I could reward myself. That right there, that was fat-people thinking process. About 85% of my closet is “inspiration” clothing which really means none of it fits, and neither did the blazer.

I’m not going to pretend I had a deep, enlightening moment culminating in the realization that a stack of 940 calorie pancakes, drenched in trans fats and high fructose corn syrups and whatever other cancer-inducing chemicals ihop probably uses on their food to make it taste delicious is what made me not go. It was really all about the fact that this beautiful 98 dollar blazer still has the tag on it. And yes, it does fit a lot better than it did two weeks ago, but I still can’t wear it outside my room, much less to ihop to stuff my face.

So God and my hormones are both trying to sabotage me and they can suck it. I boiled another egg, had a big glass of water and went to bed. And fuck you ihop, I’m sure your delicious looking Cinna-Stack (cinnamon bun filling pancakes drizzled in cream cheese frosting…) taste like shit.

I decided yesterday was the day, my first cheat day in two weeks. I had a sandwich- the whole thing not just the inside. I got through the first half just fine, had two bites of the second half and had to call it quits. I’ve been eating like a bird lately and I just couldn’t handle so much food (I have to pause for a second and acknowledge that I just wrote that).

anyway. I didn’t have any major cheat-day cravings for the rest of the day…and then they all hit at once. I went to ihop (yep. where the fatties eat unlimited pancakes for 5 bucks). I had an order of fries that I split with my two roommates and ordered banana pancakes with the syrupy strawberry goodness and whipped cream on the side. At this point I was thinking more in terms of what would take less time to recover from on the scale, than about the yummy carbs and sugars. They brought me a stack of four pancakes, of which I only had one. I had a couple of bites of my friend’s nutella crepe and called it a day.

My body felt like shit. I could barely walk and I felt like I was going to throw up any time I moved. I felt really heavy and as much as I tried I couldn’t suck in my stomach. Still, cheat days are necessary- if only to feel like shit afterwards and remind yourself why broccoli tastes good. In this case it turned into a “cheat meal” not an entire day of feeding my body crap, so pat on the back for that. This can put an end to the constant daydreams of pancakes, fried food, sugary treats and greasy deliciousness. For at least two more weeks anyway….