I'm Not the New Me by Wendy McClure

While yesterday was, of course, “Fat Tuesday” (aka: Weight Watchers meeting/weigh in day), I saved my fat kid talk for after I’d finished I’m Not the New Me. After all, I can only regale my “readers” (aka: close friends who are good enough to click through my Twitter/Facebook links) with my “waaaaahhhhh, I’m fattttttt” talk so many times a week XD Plus, I found myself quite liking and, more importantly, relating to Wendy McClure’s book, once I got through the beginning. As you may recall, I wasn’t feeling the book at first. In fact, three or four years ago when I received it as a gift, I started and then put it down, never to pick it up again. McClure does herself no favors in the opening chapters, jumping inbetween comedic scenes of personal realization, with a tone that is meant to be funny, but just comes off as grating and somewhat confusing.

But once I got through the first fifty pages or so, the book really picked up and, more importantly, I realized “oh God, this is me.” Not completely, of course. McClure started out bigger than I did, and has the backstory of growing up with an obese, yo-yo dieting (stomach stapling) mother, plus her tendency to burst into tears at any moment (she describes herself as always having been “sensitive”). I’ve also never shopped at Lane Bryant, though I have been the fat girl in the department store unable to find anything that fits, or is flattering. It’s when McClure stopped trying so hard to make her Fat Story interesting and funny that the book took off — my first “OMG I KNOW” moment was when she was shopping for a dress to wear to a wedding, to show off her new size 18 figure. She writes:

“The whole idea is that Lane Bryant understands how you feel: you bring your fat girl pain to Lane… Their very generous fitting rooms with wide, stylish veneer doors convey Big Girl Entitlement. All in all, Lane Bryant does a very convincing job at being a mall store. I’ve heard that thin girls will sometimes walk into Lane Bryant and for the longest time have no idea where they are.”

Then there are forays into website maintenance, “meeting people from the internet,” online dating, Weight Watchers comedy, disastrous relationships, fat girl pain, gym aversion and so many other things. Often McClure tries to hard to be pithy and insightful — many of the “chapters” are just 1-2 page vignettes wherein McClure expounds on Something Brilliant, with punchy, purposeful prose. Some of her realizations are poignant, others are muddled and just seem superfluous.

Regardless, overall the book works. I found myself eager to return to it, despite my early reluctance. Particularly McClure’s relationship woes, and experiences with the online world reeled me in — I can relate, in so many ways, though I would almost have liked to see more depth of analysis. But, then again, McClure isn’t a sociologist, and while on some points she aptly outlines the psychological traumas and dilemmas of a fat girl shedding pounds (and finding that, after all, she is NOT a different, better person), she misses some opportunities for analysis where she’d rather be funny. This is probably just me projecting my own interests onto her story and, hey, the benefit of being a writer myself is that I can always cover these topics, instead.

If you’ve ever done Weight Watchers, or just been overweight and uncomfortable, and want to read a real account of someone who struggles with the weight loss process and finds the big “happy ending” elusive, it’s a good book to read. Plus if you have experience with online culture — fandom friends, I am looking at you, while very “early 2000s,” there is a lot to relate to, particularly “JournalCon” and the friendships McClure develops with other denizens of the online webblog universe. Alas, I’m Not the New Me seems out of print, though you can buy it used from Amazon. However, McClure does still maintain her website “poundy.com,” the site that launched her book, though it is now, of course, a proper blog, instead of a Geocities collection of web pages (I had one of those, too! I liked that about the book, too, oh, websites in 2000/2001). You can read it here. You can also “catch up” on what happened after the book here.

She gained the weight back, it seems, which honestly makes me like her, and  her book, MORE. Because, hey! So did I. *awkward chuckle* Weight loss is a struggle, it’s real, and I’m Not the New Me carries a (potentially grim?) but real message: I’m Not the New Me, and can I ever be the New Me? Or will I just be Me only less fat? (that’s from my last post, not the book XD)

I like it when a book surprises me like this

While inspired by the book at hand, this is more a personal post with some cultural commentary. I’m Not the New Me is a now-out-of-print book by Wendy McClure, gifted to me several years ago by a lovely friend (madgirl.org — she is my partner-in-blogging-novel-writing-and-general-geekage!), lost in the wake of a move or three, and finally remembered and reclaimed on my last trip home. The title has stuck with me over the few years despite my not having read the book, because I think it aptly describes my own personal weight loss journey: Ten years of on-and-off Weight Watchers, growing out of my teen years and into my twenties, and 30-45 pounds coming on and off and on and off, God dammit, I AM NOT THE NEW ME. WTF.

It’s the most common weight loss mantra: when I lose the weight, I’m going to be a different person. A better person. A prettier person. I’ll gain self-confidence and DATES! and be fabulous — the star of my own personal movie. I could write a movie! And be the star! Or something.

Well, I’m a different person alright, but not the super thin, ridiculously fabulous version I’ve envisioned through my weight loss journey. Heck, I STILL picture “thin me” in my mind when planning out my fantasy dating life. But I’m not thin me. I’m still pretty awesome, but, come on, I’m fat.

I’ve been a fat kid my whole life. A funny thing happens when a girl hits puberty: she packs on the pounds. Thanks, estrogen! I really enjoyed porking up to a glorious 125 pounds by third grade. FYI: the average 9-year-old is supposed to weight about 75-80 pounds. Again: I WAS 125 POUNDS AT AGE 9. When I moved to Atlanta when I was 12, I went up to the 140s. Three years later, when I ventured on my first Weight Watcher’s quest, I was in the 180s (or low 190s? I DON’T EVEN KNOW ANYMORE). Granted, I also shot up to 5 foot 9 around age 12/13, and grew a bizarre but lovely inch around 17/18, so the pounds were distributed across a large frame. And, thank you estrogen (genuinely this time), I settled into curves in my late teens and early twenties that hid the fat more proportionately. But still, I am a lifelong fat kid.

Now I’m a fat adult. Yay. Without getting too gory, let’s just say that I weigh over 200 pounds now. Bizarrely, with a few annoying exceptions, I still fit into a size 14/16, which I have for the last fluctuating 20 pounds. Every time I join Weight Watchers/get back on the wagon (after all, I’ve not quit Weight Watchers for the last year and ten months, I’ve just failed monumentally, all the while attending my meetings), I repeat the mantra: I’m going to be a different person. Someday. Maybe. Hopefully.

Weight is intrinsically tied to personal identity, and can most commonly boiled down to two things: I’m a fat person or I’m a thin person. Is it really so different to be one or the other? Well, come on, YES, of course. To be fat is to be other, even in a society like America’s where the average woman is a size 14 and obesity is a way of life in many parts of the country. Regardless, it is Not Okay to be Fat. We see it on TV, in the movies, in magazines, advertisements and even in books (I can count on one hand the mainstream books that have fat heroines. Most are written by Jennifer Weiner.).

The Biggest Loser is the most glaringly obvious example, being the quintessential fat makeover show — it’s uplifting and heartwarming, and people get the CHANGE! and be BETTER PEOPLE! But, um, it’s also a show that centers around the idea that fat people are horrible and miserable and should engage in a competition where they must change. And if you don’t lose enough weight, you’re a failure. Um. Ok. And let’s also think back to Shallow Hal. Remember that movie? The one that offensively lambasted fat people and featured Gwenyth Paltrow in a fat suit breaking benches. Nice.

Then there’s the more subtle, subversive anti-fat message: how many shows or movies can you think of with viable main characters who are fat? I’ve blogged about Drop Dead Diva and how surprising I find it, and other than Kathy Najimy on Veronica’s Closet in the 90s, Kirstie Alley on Fat Actress on Showtime, and a few other shows with token fatties (Rosanne, other situation comedies with husbands with beer guts), there are very few, and those that do exist rarely portray fat characters positively.

This is a far bigger issue than I can cover in one post, but it’s true: fat is an identity. Thin is a (very subconscious) identity. I highly doubt normal-sized people sit around thinking about their not-fat identity. But if you’ve been a fat person, do you really fundamentally change and become a “new person” when you are no longer fat? I’m only 25, but I’ve spent more than half my life being fat, and I don’t know if the hang-ups, self-esteem issues, defensiveness, etc. of being fat will ever go away. I’m Not the New Me, and can I ever be the New Me? Or will I just be Me only less fat?

Will my life magically change because I’ve lost weight? I’d kind of like if people liked me for me (omgcliche), and can I really trust people who come on to me just because I’m thin? Then again, I find it patently annoying as hell when people come on to me just because I’m fat (newsflash: fat girls aren’t always easy). My self-esteem isn’t that low, bub. Or is it? I DON’T KNOW.

Watch me, as I journey. I’m not the new me, I’m frustrated, but ever-delusionally hopeful. And mostly I like the title.

Ok. I am going to share my massive failure with the blogosphere, if only to hopefully shame myself into doing better. Or helping people. Either one. Ha.

Let me just put it out there: I fail at life and weight loss.

Oh, don’t be hard on yourself, right? No, wrong, I need to be hard on myself. I’ve gained TEN POUNDS in three weeks, and now weigh MORE THAN I EVER HAVE IN MY LIFE.

…

W.T.F. I think this is the short, beautiful girl’s revenge, LOL.

I could list all the reasons as to how this happened, but it boils down to my core weight loss issue: lack of control. I had many moments over the past few weeks, where I just didn’t want to control myself. I ate what I wanted. I deluded myself, once again, into thinking I could act and eat like a normal person. I can’t. Three meals a day doesn’t work for me. Chips, cookies and juice don’t work for me. I didn’t even have that many big events in the last month, so that’s not even an excuse. I thought I was back on the wagon, but being lenient on myself, in tiny increments over the last few weeks, has simply added up.

I have reached a cross-roads, it seems. Simply eating well — or trying to (and failing?) — isn’t working anymore. I don’t have the natural, resting metabolism I had at 14, when I dropped 20lbs in a year.

I think I have to join a gym. Watch as I recoil in disgust. I don’t like gyms. They make me feel bad about myself (oh, the horror, of putting on lycra workout clothes), they’re expensive, and honestly I’m just LAZY and won’t go for my money’s worth. I’ve avoided joining a gym for years. I’m “not a gym person,” I’ve told myself. It’s true, but I think I have to suck that up, deal with the cost, and join the one that is geographically closest to me (to increase the chances I’ll actually go), and try and establish a routine. I’m hoping my roommate will join with me, as social obligation to another person is more likely to make me go.

So this is proof that no matter how smart you are about being fat, no matter how rational, that you can go careening off the wagon, landing with a splat on the pavement, at any time. Fifteen pounds ago I could delude myself, but now? Dude, I’m fat.

And that is SO not on.

During those last, grueling days of summer, when I was working 90 hours a week (15 hours a day, 7 days a week), getting only 5-6 hours of sleep a night, and generally hating my life, I went careening so far off the proverbial wagon, I think I hit the highest I’ve ever weighed in my life. I’m not sharing that number (too psychologically damaging!), but I can guess it in my mind. Guess, you ask? Oh, come on, you think I got on the SCALE? No siree. The Weight Watchers Scale of Doom did not see hide nor hair of me for about a month.

I went back today, and it was… cathartic. To be fair to myself, several of those skipped meetings were because my Hell Hours didn’t permit me to even take 20 minutes out of my morning to pop into my Weight Watchers at Work meeting, though that argument only held water for the first few weeks. After that, it was all about the dark, secret knowledge that I’d put on 5-10 pounds in a ridiculously short space of time. And it taught me a lot about myself.

Apparently I’m a stress eater. And apparently I have never been stressed. Ha. I found myself so miserable in my daily routine that I literally counted down the time between meals. Because if I was eating, then I didn’t have to be working. Or at least not on the phone (ah, the hell of working for a management team hellbent on turning volunteer management into a sales position – I still find myself thinking about call stats when I make calls on my personal cell phone). This meant three meals a day, despite learning long ago that I can’t eat three days a meal without blowing up to the size of Shamu, plus snacks. I snacked constantly. I did, afterall, sit four feet away from a giant snack closet. Floor to ceiling filled with chips, crackers, candy, nuts, soda and alcohol (did I mention that we started drinking every day at 5:30? Do you know how many empty calories there are in alcohol? Oi).

Weight Watchers, I think this is what we refer to as Hell in a Handbasket.

I’ve known for some time that I’m a social eater. I eat when I’m bored, I eat when I’m happy, and I love to eat with groups. Dinner parties and outings are my favorite thing. I plan my life around them. It’s sad, really, but it’s also rather ingrained, so the best I can do is go with it, and try to make better choices where I can.  And now I know that I eat when I’m stressed, when I’m miserable, and then I drink when it’s free and I say to myself I deserve it. Then I almost-kind-sorta-maybe throw myself at my boss. BUT THAT IS A STORY FOR ANOTHER DAY (maybe never, since I don’t actually remember this, the shame).

I’ve been going to Weight Watchers, this time around (since I am the honorary secretary of the Weight Watchers Recidivist Club), since February 2008. I weigh more than when I started.

…

I WEIGH MORE THAN WHEN I STARTED. Srsly.

Though, oddly, I have better eating habits, and I am more fit, since when I moved, I had been sitting on my *ss at home in Atlanta for a number of months. But still. This is the ultimate fat kid’s diet depression. But I keep going, because I am determined. I also know if I don’t go, I’ll bloat into the stratosphere, so I’ll take what I can get.

I forced myself back on the program as soon as I could, but today was the first day — two weeks into the regime — that I was brave enough to get on the scale. It wasn’t too bad. But it wasn’t great, either. I did go back to my preferred meeting, though, held in the basement of a Holiday Inn, lead by an energetic behavioral psychologist named Beth. I’ll most definitely be blogging on the topic of weight loss and Weight Watchers because, well, it’s a cult in some ways, or at least a (admittedly healthy) form of group think. But amazingly, group think helps shed the pounds, and I know it works.

Just tell that to my year-long yo-yo plateau. But more on that later. Regardless, I’m “back” (again) and consider this your introduction to my blather on weight. I am, after all, a fat girl at heart XD