There are two Rubys in my life that are causing me giant heartburn. Heartburn so intense and so firey that sometimes the only thing that can squelch it is one (or seven) vanilla buttercream filled chocolate easter egg.
As a child, the only time I could find such sinful goodness was around Easter. There were about two blissful weeks of being able to walk into any Walgreens, any CVS, any grocery store, any gas station! in the country and pick up a Cadbury cream egg (or seven).
Luckily, the great marketing minds at Russel Stover and the like have figured out that most Americans are willing to eat Easter candy ALL YEAR LONG if you'll let us. Our willingness to stuff our faces with cream filled, pastel colored chocolate and fluffy corn syrup got someone over there at the candy factory a GIANT RAISE. He or she figured out that you can shape that chocolate shit into ANYTHING: a heart at Valentine's day, a Santa at Christmas, a pumpkin at Halloween, a flag on the freakin' fourth of July. If there was an adult diaper-shaped chocolate cream candy for Grandparents day, I'd eat it (or seven).
Its chocolate, its creamy in the middle and its under .99 cents. Put it in the bag next to my diet coke please.
Even though the only spirituality I can muster up during this season is a silent prayer for afternoons warm enough to shove my kid outside of the house, I thank Jesus every day for Lindt, Cadbury and even the ever-waxy Hershey's for shoving little bits of goodness into bunny shaped packages.
So Ruby number one is only two years old but has already learned that the easiest way to send your mother on an express train to crazy town is to do/say/want the EXACT OPPOSITE of what your mommy wants/says/suggests. For example, “Ruby, let's go upstairs and play.” “No mommy! Downstairs to play!” “Ok, Ruby, let's play downstairs then.” “No mommy! UPSTAIRS!” – all accompanied by dramatic wailing and gnashing of two-year-old molars.
I tried to suggest we scream, yell, disobey and otherwise act insane in the hopes she would instead choose to sit quietly and obey, but psychological warfare does nothing to the minds of determined 2 year olds. You may as well be trying to make Palestine and Israel shake hands and be friends: they just ain't gonna come 'round.
This particular Ruby-incited heartburn is dulled a teeny bit by frequent sips of vodka martinis and long, hot, locked-door baths. Sometimes she protests this concoction but I insist that what's good for the mommy goose is even better for the baby goose.
The other Ruby causing me gastro-distress is the one that you have probably seen lurking about on various talk-shows. She has red hair, lots of gay male friends, a sickeningly sweet southern accent and is a seemingly perfect candidate for weight loss surgery.
I keep running into this Ruby while watching mindless television to help me dull the ache that the other Ruby is causing me. But this woman who makes me want to cry in sympathy and roll my eyes at the same time is causing me heartburn that no Maalox can cure.
Simply: WHY HAS THIS WOMAN NOT HAD WEIGHT LOSS SURGERY? WHY?!!!
So far, every time I've seen her, she mentions that she's put on some of the weight she lost from last season. Namely, 60 pounds. Namely, 15% of the 400 pounds she's lost. Now, if she didn't care about this weight gain, well, frankly, I wouldn't care either. I sincerely believe that if someone is happy being obese, that is their call. I don't believe that 'deep down' they aren't happy or 'deep down' they want to be skinny. On the subject of weight and weight management, I take people at their word because, honestly, I wouldn't want someone second guessing my comfort level with my own body.
But she comes right out and says she's “ashamed”. She says she wants to “get back on track”. And she says she is a “food addict”. She actually has a link on her Web site to the 12 steps food addicts should take. She sees a counselor, a nutritionist. She has trainers and cooks and supportive friends and has done ALL the things that I (and most of you) have done to 'fix' what's broken in our relationships with food. And she's still losing the battle.
So why not call in the reinforcements, already? Why not GET SURGERY? She's already doing the work that you have to do when you have the Lap Band but she's just needs some additional HELP. Help that no trainers, counselors, foodies or network sponsors are able to give. The badge of courage that she (and seemingly the rest of the former fatties in the press) gets from NOT having weight loss surgery is invisible. The badge of courage is invisible because it is covered in the blood, sweat and tears of working SO hard for something that you just can't do by yourself.
She's just sitting there being beautiful and funny and full of life and personal insight and most of all, being dumb.
She's rubbing those two sticks together SO FREAKIN' HARD and the fire keeps dying out. So why hasn't anyone handed her a lighter already? She's earned it. She deserves it.
I willingly admit that I have not seen the season premiere that aired yesterday but I promise that I'm going to download it and watch it this week, if for no other reason than it will give me an air-tight defense as to why I caved and ate Cadbury egg number eight.
A photo of Ruby #1. Post-vodka martini.
Lately, I've not been able to 'see it'. My weight loss, that is.
Everywhere I go, people comment on how thin I'm looking, how “tiny” I am.
I assume all of these humans have glaucoma or one of those mental disorders where you only see things the way you want to see them – kind of the way my mother-in-law views my husband, her son, who has never done anything wrong or imperfect. Ever.
Anyway, the only thing “tiny” about me is my left pinky toenail. The right pinky toenail is strangely over sized.
And while I do get excited to put on my size 12 jeans most mornings – pause for emphasis ----------- SIZE 12 jeans! – when I look at photos, I still see a fat girl.
This is definitely not unique to me or any other woman who loses a significant amount of weight – or Portia de Rossi who wrote a great book about being fat. Because she once was fat. Her thighs JIGGLED, people! And don't even try to tell me that it isn't traumatic to be a beautiful Australian model/actress who drowns her sorrows by eating an ENTIRE Snickers bar – THE WHOLE THING – and then can't fit into a size 6 dress during a fitting for a Revlon commerical. Because it is totally devastating. And because you can't possibly know what it is like to go up TWO WHOLE SIZES in one year and then be told you're fat by important people. And you can't know the shame of not being able to fit into cute designer clothes or eat in secret or not be able to control yourself around food.
Oh. Wait a minute....
As usual, I digress. So I don't see a thin girl in the mirror. Hell, I BARELY see a thinner girl.
What I DO see is basically the same crap I've always seen: a fat, floppy stomach, stretch marks and chicken legs.
When does the self-degradation finally end? Because here I am, a measly 15 pounds from a weight I thought would finally turn my mirror into a magic one where I looked like a less annoying, smaller-arsed version of a blonde Kardashian (What? You don't see that either? I swear I can be JUST as annoying and my sex tapes are AWESOME). Instead I just see a big belly with too many creases and a few gray hairs in my eyebrows -- weird, I know.
Is your mirror a magic one yet? If it is, or if you believe one exists for you, please let me know in which aisle of Bed Bath and Beyond I can find one.
Because unlike Portia I don't have a stable full of horses or a hot,rich & famous, 50 year old girlfriend to help me realize that I can be vegan with a personal chef and personal trainer and FINALLY be happy with the way I look.
I hate lying. Unless, of course, the lying is to spare someone's feelings, or serves a greater humanitarian purpose or makes you seem more awesomer. Or thinner. Or richer. Or funnier. Or right. Then I'm all for lying. But mostly, I hate lying.
Which is why the last four days have been particularly difficult for me.
Husband, Ruby and I took a trip to Ohio to visit my father, stepmother and this side of the family this past weekend. I love my dad's family. Dad's the oldest of 9 kids who each have about 9 kids who each have about 9 kids and all of these relatives live within about a 5 mile radius of one another. It makes for a great Thanksgiving Day football game, charades marathon and rousing game of “guess how we're related?!”
We're of German-Catholic stock on that side, which means we're all tall, big boned, large breasted and smell of sauerkraut and beer. We only wear lederhosen on special occasions and Lisel, Gretel and Marta do a fine rendition of “Edelweiss” after they've downed a few Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier. Clearly, we also believe that Jesus hates birth control, but He loves a good Pilsner.
Like most families, our get-togethers usually revolve around food and chit chat and often, a game of Texas Hold 'em that leaves at least three family members not talking to each other for a week and one family member $15 richer (Jesus is also ok with moderate, unlicensed gaming as long Pope is getting his cut).
What makes our family unique, however, is that, whilst eating our third chili cheese dog and reaching for that second iced brownie, we are usually chit-chatting about diets.
At any given time you could throw a dart in the room and hit a person on a diet. Our family is the Baskin Robbins of diets. You can't throw a stick without hitting a low-carber, a Atkinsonian, a South Beach resident, a Weight Watchers Lifetimer, Special K Challenger or a Jenny Craigonite. But most of us are still fat.
We talk a good talk, walk a good walk for a few weeks and yet, inevitably, we gain back what we lost during our Slim Fast phase, plus, plus, plus. We're our own research group. Send over the AMA! Send the CDC! Send Richard Simmons! We've tried it all, we've reported back, and guess what? The diets didn't work. We're still fat.
I remember being a senior in college, fighting the freshman 35 for the tenth time and looking over at one of my high school age cousins. She was thin, almost skinny! She wore tight jeans that showed off her cute tanned, belly-ringed stomach and I swear I thought to myself: “She better live it up because knowing our genes, her days in THOSE jeans are LIMITED”. Sadly, I was right and I don't think she's even touched a bikini since her second year of college. She too, is overweight now.
The weekend was great in so many ways. Ruby got to play with her third cousins – or first cousins once removed – or hillbilly siblings – whatever you want to call it. The husband got to eat his own weight in chili-dogs, and I got to witness the relationship between my parents and my child blossom.
But before we edge into the land of sentimentality, let me be frank. The best part of this trip was having all my relatives comment on how awesome I look. None of them (not even my dad) know about the band and here's where I start to cross the 'lying' threshold.
As my family are all diet connoisseurs, they wanted to know “my secret”. “How did I do it? Which diet am I on? How long have I been 'dieting'? How many enemas do you have to get?”
Like other banded friends out there, I pulled out the standard answer for the WLS patient on the DL: “I eat less and move more”.
Technically, this is all true. Technically, this is not a lie. Technically, FOX News is “news”.
Technically I feel like a big fat liar. Without the “fat” part.
Where the wicket gets particularly sticky is that I have two aunts in their fifties who had gastric bypass about 7 or 8 years ago. Although they both lost significant amount of weight (and look & feel amazing), they are still far from the 'normal' BMI range. They don't really 'work' their surgery but they've been successful at going from 'morbidly obese' to just 'overweight'.
They're both happy. They feel they've come 'far enough'. They eat fast food for about one meal a day. They drink lots of non-diet soda. They've thrown their calorie counters to the wind. They don't exercise. AT ALL. They also smoke heavily. And one of them DOESN'T WEAR HER SEATBELT! EVER!
I can safely say these two aunts of mine don't live very healthily. But in THEIR minds, they've won. And maybe that's all that matters. Maybe some people don't need to have a 'normal' BMI or make the right food choices most of the time or get healthy in mind and body to consider themselves a victor. Maybe they just need to lose the weight and be less fat than they were before.
I just couldn't bring myself to tell them or anyone else in the family about my band because I'm not sure that we're on the same type of journey. They feel 'done' and although I share their sarcastic wit, their long legs, their remarkable laughs, this is where our genes part ways:
I don't feel done. I'm still in battle. Its not full on war but the safety is still off my gun and I'm still watching for land mines. I don't know that I'll be at peace with my weight loss struggles until I've changed all aspects of my relationship with food. I'm hoping that Leona will forever be my 'front line defense' and so far, she's working pretty well, but there is a heck of a lot of other work that needs to happen in the head region of this body before I'll feel confident saying “I'm done” and “I've been victorious!”
Maybe once I'm there and feeling like I've won the war against fat, against food, against my own genetics, I'll also be ready to share all my 'secrets'.
A recent photo for your viewing pleasure...52 pounds down
We're cute
I'm stuck.
Figuratively. Literally. Emotionally, even. Stuck.
Can't come up with a good blog topic. Can't get the words out. Can't get the healthy food down very well. Can't get the weight down. Stuck.
Some moments I cleanse the stuck with chocolate but mostly I've been using exercise as catharsis. This is a good thing, I know. But it's not new to me. I've had a few 'stuck' moments in my life where I've turned to compulsive exercise to help me work out the kinks.
The issue, this time, with all my gym rattyness – besides the fact that I turn to Jersey Shore when I'm on the treadmill and find myself nodding in agreement with the occasional Snooki-ism – is that the work outs don't seem to be turning into weight loss. Instead they seem to turn me into a carb-seeking missile which in turn makes me feel bloated, gross and guilty which in turn makes me head back to the gym at full force.
Its a viscious cycle.. Not unlike the “romance” between Sammi “Sweetheart” and Ronnie “Roids”. Frustration, tears, sweaty tight clothing and lots and lots of f-bombs.
I'll be back in touch once I get off this hamster wheel. Right now I gotta GTL.
My apologies, dear readers, for my absence from the blogging community, lately. As you all well know, the business of the holiday season isn't to be taken lightly.
From shopping and wrapping to drinking and puking, well, it doesn't leave much time for personal reflection now, does it? Unless of course that reflection is the one you see of yourself in the rippling water of the toilet at 1am after your friend's annual Christmas party – and then, well that reflection is certainly not worth mentioning, much less commenting on.
In fact, I haven't been doing much of the “this time last year” reflection at all. I've always kind of been a forward thinker. I like to dwell on what COULD happen (good and bad) , rather than on what already happened.
But the other day I was trolling a friends' facebook page, and came across a couple of photos of me that made me so sad:
I'm the big one without a blacked out face
These were taken at my friend Kate's Christmas party last year. I'm sad looking at these photos because I'm probably at my heaviest but what made me get teary-eyed is that I remember thinking I looked SO GOOD that night.
I'd purchased a really adorable silver and gold strapless top from Lane Bryant (because I couldn't find any cute holiday tops to fit me in the regular stores) and wore it with some black pants that had an ELASTIC waist. Let that sink in. ELASTIC WAIST.
Even though I KNEW I was at my heaviest weight ever, I still thought I looked pretty hot. And my sweet husband. My sweet, dear, husband! Well, he TOLD me I looked beautiful. In fact, he he probably even tried to seduce me that night because, well, he is just awesome --- and deprived --- and probably drunk. But anyway, the man knows how to make a hefty girl feel loved.
Then some friends posted this photo the other day and I smiled:
I'm the one who isn't a ghost
Because I look at it and I think I look pretty good. And not too fat. And because when my husband told me I looked beautiful, I believed him. Even if he was drunk.
However, in my very humble opinion, you can't really get a good idea of EXACTLY how I looked at that party a couple of weeks ago so I decided to get dressed up all over again, in my SIZE 14 DRESS THAT I HAVE HAD FOR 7 YEARS and give you a picture you can really worship:
And, even if you are drunk and deprived, you don't need to tell me I look great because, for once, I already know!
I didn't notice this until 5 or 6 years ago when a colleague of mine pointed it out (and mocked me relentlessly) but I routinely use the phrase “Oh, for cryin' out loud!” You know, like, I'm in the check out line at the Piggly Wiggly to buy some milk and Pringles and after waiting 25 minutes for the blue hair in front of me to get out all her coupons and argue with the cashier about whether she can use the .25 cents off Charmin coupon for both bath tissue AND ass wipes or just the tissue and then its finally my turn and the register runs out of ticker tape and the manager has to be called over to replace it because the cashier is a “New Team Member!” and then the manager decides to use this as a 'learning experience' for said “New Team Member!”? That's when I pull out the “Oh for cryin' out loud!”
Now, for those of you who haven't met me or read my profile information, that probably leads you to believe that I am a 75 year old South Jersey grandmother who tells dirty jokes and shakes her fist at bad drivers. Or that I'm Joy Behar.
Unfortunately, you'd have assumed incorrectly. I'm just a dorky 33 year old who complains frequently and loudly enough to SEEM like a 75 year old. By the way, my knees are popping like CRAZY today. Must be a storm coming.
But you see, its not my fault that I say “Oh, for cryin' out loud” or “For Pete's sake!” or “You get married so you have someone to kill the bugs”. I INHERITED these phrases. They're family mottoes! Sometimes we cross-stitch them on pillows.
And maybe its the fact that the holidays are upon us or the fact that my 89 year old grandmother recently came to visit, but lately, I've been thinking a lot about habits and rituals and what I've inherited versus what is 'all me.'
For instance, I bite my fingernails. Yes, it is a nasty habit and probably means I'm a nervous person or need constant oral stimulation (tee hee) or maybe it means I like my nails short. Or that I'm a serial killer.
No one else in my family bites their nails. Not my sister, my mother, my grandmother or my father. They all have lustrous, painted (daddy likes Rockette Red), beautiful nails and have no shame showing their hands to even the most judgmental of Vietnamese manicurists.
Also, I HAVE to sing along to every song that comes on the radio. I simply CANNOT carry on a discussion if there is a song playing in the background that I know the words to (which means there isn't much talking in my car. Unless, of course, we're on the Smooth Jazz station, in which case, we're talking about my impending funeral because I'm about to throw myself out of the moving car). Much of my family is like this. We WILL shush you if you choose to interrupt us during our renditions of any Carpenters' song.
Anyway, while my grandmother and mom were here last week, I took notice of their body types and eating habits. Neither one of them has ever been fat nor have they ever really been skinny. They are both average, pear-shaped, white women who complain mostly about their thighs being a tad jiggly and asking if things "make their butts look big" but in reality, they look like just about every other American woman walking the streets. My sister, lucky girl, inherited that particular shape while I, on the other hand, am a different fruit altogether.
Call it apple, call it top heavy, call it Kathy Bates – I'm basically your average Granny Smith sitting on a couple of Popsicle sticks. Pour some caramel on me and you've got a sought-after State Fair treat. I carry all my extra weight right around my middle, the unhealthiest place to carry extra weight. Also pretty terrible in terms of finding jeans that don't make you look like like one of the Tweedle Dee or Dum twins. This, along with my love for cop show dramas and poop humor, I inherited from my father.
With regard to eating habits, well, I can tell you that I've never ever seen mom or grandma 'binge' on anything other than a sale at T.J.Maxx. Mom's usually on a 'diet' and at any given time you can find a chewy, fake-peanutbuttery, 100 calorie treat at the bottom of her purse. I've seen her turn down homemade cookies with a flip of the hand and claim that she just “can't get enough” of something as mouth-watering as celery sticks with fat free ranch dressing.
Grandma on the other hand, usually drinks ½ a can of regular Coca-Cola at lunch and cooks with Crisco regularly. Although she recently started working out so as to 'watch her figure,' on our recent trip to Starbucks, when our frowny faced barrista asked Grandma if she “wanted whip on her white chocolate mocha” Grandma looked genuinely perplexed when she answered “Well, OF COURSE!”
Although, she, and I, looked equally perplexed when the designer velvet track suit clad soccer mom behind us ordered a “grande half-caf, triple shot, half syrup, gingerbread soy latte”.
See, Grandma simply doesn't see a point in ordering a white chocolate mocha and then butchering it with skim milk and denying herself whipped cream. Why? Because Grandma only gets a Starbucks coffee treat TWICE A YEAR.
Bottom line here people, I inherited the worst of both my mom and grandma's worlds. I basically spent the last 27 years of my life binging on diet food and then turning around and treating myself to more of it for choosing 'wisely' and not eating the skin off of ONE piece of fried chicken.
By the by, Snackwell's Devil's Food low-fat cookies are only low-fat if you eat ONE of them. A box of those cookies will NOT make you thinner.
So, to sum it up, I got fat because of what I inherited and I got fat because of the choices I made. There's really no sure way to know which came first, the fatty or the Olestra.
What I do know, now, is that thanks in a HUGE part to my Lap Band, I'm finally able to take the best and healthiest bits from Grandma's eating habits and Mom's eating habits and come out the other end a thinner, happier and healthier person.
I don't know if I inherited this ability to take control of my life and make it better or if it is something I learned, and it really doesn't matter, I guess. I'm just glad I'm finally able to do it.
Grandma showed me how to make her famous pie crust. LOTS of Crisco
Then she showed me how to make her amazing fried chicken. MORE CRISCO!
I had about 3/4 of a piece, WITH the skin. Just the right amount and YUMMY!
Grandma, Mom and the Little Girl who I hope only inherits the best parts of all of us.
So, I have this friend....
Don't you just LOVE when stories start out that way? In high school such a phrase was often followed by: “who is having sex with her boyfriend and needs to get on birth control but she can't tell her mom and doesn't know where to go to get it” which was then followed by YOUR mom narrowing her eyes at you, getting a little sweaty on the forehead. Which was then followed by you cocking your snotty teenage hip to the side whilst responding “NO! REALLY! Its my FRIEND! Not ME! I SWEAR, MOM!”
Anyway – I have this friend, we'll call her Olive Oil. She's skinny. Really skinny. Always has been, always will be. And she's beautiful. And a whole bunch of other things that are wonderful and lovely and covetous. Like, she never fails to give people the benefit of the doubt. And she doesn't like to gossip. What is UP with that?
You already hate her, don't you?
Here, hate her some more: She once bitched and moaned to me about how she was sad that after birthing two kids she could no longer fit into her size 2 jeans. SIZE TWO. This conversation happened while we were eating our Panera Bread lunches – my salad (dressing on the side!) and her foccacia bread sandwich (extra cheese on the side!) and NON-DIET Coke. She DID get some salad too, that day though. In her lap.
Then I took off my size 20s and wrapped her skinny butt in them and stuck her in the trunk of my car. It was all done with love though.
Anyway, we've known each other for a long time. She's seen me at my heaviest, she's seen me at my skinniest. She's seen me happy with my body and hating my body. What she's never seen me as though, is NOT on a diet.
She's been with me to Walgreens when I was spending my allowance on Metabolife. She's eaten my Everything Bagel after I'd taken off the turkey and cheese while doing Atkins. She's scrunched up her nose at my Slim Fast and tasted a bite or two (and spit them out) of my Jenny Craig turkey and rice soup. She's listened while I've calculated the amount of Weight Watchers points in my chicken fajitas and wondered aloud how I fit in all the exercise I do. After school I'd eat carrot sticks and she'd have McDonalds.
Somehow, amidst all of my dieting and her NOT dieting, I continued to get fatter and she continued to get skinnier. In the abbreviated words of our deteriorating youth: WTF?
So, Olive Oil has been having some issues with feeling dizzy and disoriented and lethargic. She's not yet seen a doctor but she thinks she's has issues with her blood sugar. Her hypothesis was that she had started doing some exercise but had not upped her caloric intake enough to account for the amount of exercise she is doing. Her current solution? Stop exercising.
I suggested EATING MORE, because, well, for a fat girl, that's as instinctual as buying the black one because its most slimming. Elliptical for 30 minutes = a night of eating buttercream frosting out of the can. IT'S MATH PEOPLE.
Then she said something so horrific, so foreign, so unbelievable, I ALMOST put down the miniature Snickers bar I was licking. She said: “BUT SOMETIMES I'M JUST NOT HUNGRY.”
Stop the press! My skinny friend DOESN'T LIKE TO EAT WHEN SHE'S NOT HUNGRY?!
“Are you sure?” I asked? “What about just ½ a cheese stick or maybe a handful of nuts? M&Ms? A Whopper Jr.? I mean, you're skinny, C'MON! Live it up!”
But she insisted. She doesn't like to eat when she's not hungry. Not even a little.
And for the first time in my life, I kinda 'get it'. I'm not totally 'there' yet but thanks to Leona, I'm starting to understand what its like to have a normal relationship with food. I can't say that I don't pop a chocolate or potato chip every now and then, even though I'm full from lunch. And sometimes just seeing that its 6pm makes me hear dinner bells. But they aren't ringing that loudly and sometimes I'm able to shut them out as I would a Michael Bolton song on an elevator.
Every fat girl knows that 'only eating when you are hungry' isn't some giant secret that the skinny girls are keeping from us. We know its common sense. It is just that, for whatever reason, we've been ignoring that instinct for so long that the sense isn't so common.
After 27 years of doing it, eating when you aren't hungry isn't just a bad habit, it's inherent.
They say “you learn something new every day.” What they don't tell you is how hard it is to UNLEARN something you didn't want to know how to do in the first place.
Me & Olive Oil in 1995. She made brownies for our road trip but I couldn't eat them since I was on a diet.
Also, yes, her waist was and is, smaller than my bicep.
