The Curvy Nerd

This is a strange week for me. You may have noticed that it’s been two weeks since I posted a weigh-in update. Last week, I didn’t go to Weight Watchers. This week I did. And I gained.

This is going to sound monumentally stupid, but I just couldn’t bring myself to write a weekly weigh-in post that quantifies the gain. But I want to talk about my week, and my gain. (so I can talk about it, but not make it official? LOL)

Hindsight is 20/20. On Friday afternoon, before my weigh in, I thought to myself “I should post about how, regardless of what happens on the scale this week, I feel really good.” I wish I’d written that post! It would be really nice to have as evidence that I felt really good going into my weigh-in — even though I was pretty sure I would show a gain. Things that were great last week:

• I went to Slimmons twice! (Saturday/Tuesday)
• My clothes fit really nicely, especially my jeans. No muffin top!
• I was blind-sided with a business lunch on Thursday, and made good choices at the restaurant (half turkey sandwich, pear & Gorgonzola salad, potato cheese soup [of which I ate less than half])

So, let’s bring on the self-delusion! Now, I’m not saying neither of these things might be legitimate reasons for weight gain, but mostly they keep me snuggly and warm at night!  1) muscle gain (classic denial LOL) and 2) the impending start of my Super Fun Lady Time of the Month (ie: Extreme Water Retention)

But also… 3) ate some high in sodium foods (damn you pizza!) and 4) ate more dairy than I usually do (no more Thai iced for you!) and 5) only half-assed my tracking

Screw beating myself up, though. I’m not. Do you know how I “celebrated” my gain this week? I went to Slimmons where — OMG! — I made it through the entire cardio section without stopping! Ok, I took a break or two for water, but I got through the whole thing without getting a cramp or feeling like I was going to vomit. I still can’t do push-ups, though XD

Then on Sunday, I went running, after which I used my Runner’s Circle GroupOn to get myself some fancy running shoes! New running shoes = win. Having such ginormous feet you  have to buy men’s shoes = LOL FAIL. Fun fact: my right foot is an ENTIRE SHOE SIZE larger than my left. Egads.

In the past, I might have used a gain as an excuse to gorge myself and spend three days straight marathoning Law & Order: SVU (to be fair, I still do the latter all the time!), but this time around, I stuck to what I was going to do anyway — Slimmons + running. A week with a gain always sucks, but I felt great before and I feel great after. Onward to next week. And down with water retention

You two on the left? GTFO of my WW meeting

So I’ve not really been blogging about my weight issues because, well, there wasn’t much to *say*. I’ve been attending my Weight Watchers meetings as usual, but in addition to putting ON 20-ish pounds (as detailed in posts last fall), since then I’ve either not lost a single pound, or dropped a few and then just put them on a few weeks later. WTF. Then, about two months ago, rushed for time as work got busy, I went to my WW at Work meeting, and merely weighed in and didn’t stay for the meeting. Ok, I’ll be honest, I also couldn’t bear the emotional ups and downs of sitting in a meeting, surrounded by FUCKING THIN PEOPLE on a week where I was the same old fatty as always.

Well, you know what? Since I stopped staying for meetings, I’ve dropped about eight pounds. Seriously. Eight pounds that I struggled to get off all fall and winter, have been falling off. I am a firm believer that the program works better if you stay for meetings… but not my meetings.

Here’s the thing: my company is really, really, ridiculously good looking. The average employee is 23, female, a size 2/4 and unnaturally perky and pretty. And those who aren’t the prettiest dress and act like they are. I can describe pretty accurately my fellow “normals” who work in the building, because when I see anyone over a size 12, I rejoice, silently, OMG MY PEOPLE!!!! There aren’t very many, hence the few are memorable. So you’d think that my Weight Watchers at Work meeting would be made up primarily of these individuals. Um, no. It’s 4-5 women who, like me, have struggled with their weight either all theirs lives or consistently since high school/college. They struggle, have ups and downs, and are fighting the good, long fight. The rest, 10-15 per session, though their faces constantly change, are super pretty, super skinny girls who have put on 5-10 pounds of pudge recently. Weight Watchers teaches them that OMG beer/cocktails have calories! and how many points/calories are in chicken wings/salad dressing/whatever, they do the program for 3-6 months, wherein they lose all their weight (nevermind that I can lose 5 pounds in a week, if I really try), and become Lifetime members! But we never see them again, of course, because THEY WERE FUCKING THIN TO BEGIN WITH, AND NOW THEY’RE JUST THINNER.

Now, like a good little Weight Watcher, I will acknowledge that everyone’s weight struggles are personal, and that one should not place a higher value on one person’s struggle over another’s. Weight Watchers is just as much about learning to eat healthier as it is about losing a ton of weight. Yes, yes, yes… but FUCKING HELL, I CANNOT RELATE TO SKINNY BITCHES. It is embarrassing sitting in a meeting wherein girls who wear a size 6-8 eat yogurt and talk about their “struggles,” when you are over 200 pounds, have been overweight since you were 8, have serious food issues, and JUST CAN’T SEEM TO LOSE ANY DAMN WEIGHT. I think my leader is secretly ashamed of me — I weigh MORE than when I started her session. Yeah.

I can’t be the only one in this boat. We’re all supposed to be nice and supportive, but let’s be honest: some people have it WAY harder than others. Someone who weighs 100 lbs more than me has it harder than I do, and I should STFU and stop complaining. Well, equally I think I can be a bit miffed and discouraged by pretty, thin girls clogging my meeting and making me feel like a big, fat, ugly failure. I miss my old meeting, which was full of “normal people,” with life-long weight struggles, and long journeys. But my work meeting is just so damn convenient. For now, I’m going to continue just weighing in and skipping my meeting. Yes, this makes me a bad Weight Watcher, but I’m losing weight, and isn’t that the point?

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.

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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.

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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