Run, Fat Girl, RUN!

It’s been a rough summer…We started with this awesome vacation to see the family on the West Coast. And vacation, is vacation. There’s no calorie counting and no cares. We hiked, I went to a friend’s step class, we walked a lot but we were there to relax and not care! Drama hit afterward and I was just so exhausted from dealing with it all, working out wasn’t a high priority.

Three years ago before we even got engaged I was pushing maximum density. Between being a food lover, being in love with a chef, and my cocktail enthusiast side, even working out wasn’t really balancing out my intake. A family member joined Weight Watchers and although I’d originally scoffed, she was kicking some major ass, so I fell on that bandwagon. I got back into my workouts. I do love working out. It makes me feel so much better! I got some personal counseling and I made myself lose the weight.

By the time Eben proposed, I was 10lbs down. They say nothing kicks you into gear like an impending wedding. They were so right. I had a gorgeous blonde bombshell of a friend who was also a personal trainer. With Weight Watchers, a strict routine, and the help of Alicia, by the end of it I’d lost 20lbs and fit into a size 4 for the first time since high school. And I didn’t loathe my body much anymore. Success!

For the past two years I’d managed to maintain that figure within about a 5lb range. Ladies, who are we kidding? We can gain 5lbs in a day if the mood is right. Women’s bodies are bitches, just like we end up being because we are trapped into them! I went to spin class a few times a week, hit yoga and body sculpting classes, the elliptical and stair master. I didn’t indulge too hard core and I kept tabs on it all.

In March after a crazy stretch of time where I was working so much that food became a far off dream between naps, and I was lucky if I could grab a granola bar, let alone a fulfilling meal, I’d actually squeezed into the skinny jeans for a week or so but I didn’t feel the need to be skinny really, just healthy.

I come from a long line of petite women who can stay petite but can also balloon up into something of a lumpy pear with compulsive eating habits and alcoholic tendencies. I’ve straddled both the skinny and chunky for most of my life. When I’m active my body shows it, and when I’m inactive, it really shows it.

Before the big vacation this June I cancelled my gym membership because between the puppy, work and everything else, we didn’t need the added expense, and I didn’t have enough time to make it worthwhile. I had a Wii Fit, Wii Active and a decent elliptical at our crummy apartment complex gym to keep me going. I also discovered the dog liked to jog, so I should indulge with him.

I guess six months of “Whatever, I don’t care, I’ll have a gym membership this fall to make up for it,” bit me in my ever expanding ass, after all. When they say it’s easier to put it on than it is to take it off, they aren’t joking! I shouldn’t have justified it when the pants started to get tight. I shouldn’t have spent so much time sucking it in. I should have gotten my ass out of the chair…shoulda, coulda, woulda!

So I made the mistake of getting on the evil square known as the scale, and it may as well have just read “Fat Bitch.” The number amount pretty much said that perfectly! And then the water works started! I, all of the sudden, wished there was some strange way of my being pregnant and the damn baby was making me chunky, but all of the alcohol units wouldn’t have made that possible, so then I stood there getting on and off of the damn scale, sucking it in and willing it to drop down two measly numbers just so I could endure more justifications.

I forced my husband into caring even though he did the obligatory, “You’re beautiful no matter what,” song and dance complete with a “Who cares babe?” and “We’ll do whatever you want to make you feel better about it,” chorus and encore performance. I text my new Bestie feverishly, and she confessed the evil scale had done the same to her! I’d paused thinking there may be some kind of terrible conspiracy and my pants weren’t 6’s and 8’s but really 0’s and 2’s, rebelling against the confines of their size-ist makers, but was shocked back into the reality that I’m just chunky when she told me she’d caved and joined Weight Watchers. We vowed to kick ass together.

Peeling myself out of bed to go to work, where the pretty ones would parade around me all day, I managed to look decent and get my fat ass going. I blamed the dog about my weight and he just whined and snuffed at me as if to say, “Bullshit!” When I got to work my gorgeous and athletic co-worker arrived in a kind of funky mood. I knew she LOVED to talk fitness, so I instantly attacked!

Trying desperately to not just blurt out, “Please inject me with whatever it is you take that makes you perfect and makes you like to run and race and everything in between,” I let her use me as a sponge. I forced my Bestie into the conversation and before you knew it, some strange hope had brewed in me, that maybe one day soon I wouldn’t just be another fat girl that the rail-skinny perfect ones make fun of.

I thought my athletic goddess of a co-worker had pretty much finished her pep talk with me about how we’d train together and help each other out when she emerged with a daring idea: “Let’s work up to the Turkey Trott on Thanksgiving in Clearwater! It’s a 10k!” She felt me wince and responded, “They have a 5k too!”

I pictured running that morning with her and my Bestie, and later to come home to an amazing bath amidst the smells of the feast my husband would be preparing, and how after two months of behaving I’d just pig out on my favorite day and I blurted out, “YES! Let’s do it!” Uh oh, there was no turning back now. I’d put it into the universe. It’d set it in motion. Before I knew it, the Bestie was more excited than I and we’d even recruited another co-worker…this was happening!

I told my husband and he was just like, “That’s great, babe!” I was expecting more of a response. I’d imagined more of a, “Wow babe, you are going to kick that race’s ass! You will be able to go so fast and impress everyone! We should buy you a cute outfit. Of course I’ll cook you a feast and be waiting to massage your feet when you get home,” kind of response but, I’d take what I could get.

This is a big deal! The diet’s on! I’m not a big diet girl most of the time but I do know how to scale things back. I do believe that all women should just be perfect, pretty and comfortable while eating buckets of KFC and out-drinking men in Beer and Liquor contests, without even gaining an ounce, but that is SO not the world we live in. I hate how the weight thing will always haunt me. It will follow me around forever like the sound of my mother sighing when the size 4 jeans she just bought me didn’t quite zip, or when I chose to wear fashionable sweat pants instead of quote, unquote “slacks,” for which I might add are inadequately titled because they NEVER provide any “slack!”

I’ve started on a good note so far. I do enjoy eating healthy but who doesn’t love ice cream, cookies and wine? Especially all in the same day! I do have a fat girl mentality for sure, I just hate when she shows up physically, making a muffin top appear out of my pants that used to be “roomy.” My sister once accused me of being bulimic because I lost weight and toned my body, so I replied “No, I like food too much.” She curtly replied, “Which is why you would be bulimic!” How stupid of me!

I wish I could be bulimic, or anorexic, or just smoke a bunch of cigarettes and crack and become one of those cold women who make it all look so easy but can’t even deal with how many calories are in a Tic Tac! No, if I’m wishing, I wish I were like my goddess coworker who runs 10 miles for a warm up and can bike out of the state and back with only 8 ounces of water! Yes, I’m idolizing her, but why not? We all know and sigh at one of these women every time they burst through the door with perfect sunlight providing them a runway! I’m lucky if I don’t fall on a daily basis!

Sometimes I like being curvy. I own it. Also, I’m married so there’s really no one left to impress, but one of the groomsmen told me I shouldn’t be another fat wife and I totally agree. Even though I desperately want to eat an entire container of cheese balls while watching hours of chick flicks, I know I should go for a run and eat celery instead. At least when I weigh less and I’m still curvy, I can be proud.

Of course once I started figuring out how to enroll in the Turkey Trott, all I could envision was a montage from that movie “Run, Fatboy, Run,” and of me hitting the “Runner’s Wall,” or just tripping less than a mile in and ruining the entire effort. But, regardless, I’m going to do it. I’m not much of a runner or a jogger but this is a commitment to an accomplishment I so desperately want to achieve. I have EVERYTHING to lose. The tummy, the ass, the thighs, and the ambivalence that’s literally been weighing me down!

So this fat chick is going to run! I’m going to run like the wind on Thanksgiving! But if you think about it, it’s really just so I can stuff my face afterwards…so if that’s not motivation enough, what is!? I guess you’ll hear about it all afterwards, and if I could even stomach all the food I’m already fantasizing about. Run, fat girl, run!