Growing More in My Fatty-ness
Alcohol March 10th, 2010A wrecking ball smashed me tonight. It slapped me smack across my fat gut!
Have you ever watched a huge metal ball on the end of a enormously tall construction crane (you know, the kind that our new Daniel Craig James Bond leaped upon in the opening of Quantum of Solace) swing its way into the side of a building? Watch: . An even better expression of how I felt can be seen in the U-Tube video: . Yep, that’s me getting off the great reckoning scale! [If it's any consolation, rumor is that the wrecking ball-into-car video was staged].
A chilling spring rain storm slowed traffic and I was an ominous thirteen minutes late to my weekly “learn-to-be-not-so-God-awful-fat” meeting this evening. Despite parking at the far corner (see blog) of the parking lot, as far as possible from the meeting room door, I had grown more fat.
I am so discouraged. I am depressed. Not depressed as in losing a loved one, like the loss of my wife ten years ago, or depressed as in finding out I’m a hopeless diabetic, but depressed as in working hard and not losing. That’s confusing, isn’t it? If you work hard, you should gain from that hard work. But gaining is not the object of this hard work. I am trying to work hard and LOSE, lose weight, lose body mass, lose FAT. I want to be less and lesser and more less FAT!
The official weigh-in scale was my great reckoner tonight – I had gained six-tenths of a pound. The wrecking ball hit! My hands shook as I meekly accepted my weight-loss (Ha!) record book from the Official Weigher Lady, the Official Reckoner of Mass, the Reckoner of Hard Work, the Reckoner of Learning, the Reckoner of Depression. I struggled to get my shoes on; I forced myself to “Sit down!” and stay at the meeting. I wanted to run (sic – What? Me run?) out of the building. I wanted to go home, curl up in bed and cry.
I didn’t. I sat down, one of three men in the mass of women, I the most massive of all. I opened my weight-loss record book and stared at the figures. I did the calculations again, twice, in my head – maybe the Lady Reckoner had made a mistake. Nope! Not even our famed Master Smudge’s (check out our quirky professor at ) Statistics Course could smooth the weight gain figures. I was the fat dope!
For two weeks in a row I have gained more fat-ness. Ugh! Oh God, but I feel so ugh-ly sometimes. Ugh!!
“The world is like a wrecking ball to us fatties.” That’s what my Weight-Loss Leader Lady told us tonight (paraphrased). I was smacked square in the gut by it – right smack dab in the middle of my expansive huge wide bulging gut.
God? What is the lesson in all this?
I worked hard this week to lose weight. The week before I had hog-trough binged a number of times; the reckoner scale showed me what I had known and expected – a gain of four-tenths of a pound. But this week, I had been careful! Nearly every meal had been on track. Each meal was planned and, for the most part, I, too, was on plan. No pig outs like the prior week. At the local grocery store, I said “No!” to the fresh-baked aroma-filling-the-air cake donuts. This week as I cooked, I measured proportions. Why, last night, I said “No!” to eating a second helping – I emptied the pan of food onto my dish, looked at it, picked up my fork to chow down, then dropped my fork into the sink, walked to the kitchen garbage can and – shame on me! – dumped my dish of second-helping food out.
I was proud of myself. I wasn’t hungry; I wanted to eat that second helping because I didn’t want to “waste food.” That was a sin in our home growing up! My folks lived through the Great U.S. Depression and regularly had no food in their home.
I threw that good food away. No, I did NOT castigate myself that I was starving some poor Ethiopian child because I threw it away – how ridiculous and stupid to think that tripe rubbish!
I had won a victory last night by tossing that second helping away! I had said, “No thank you, Mr. SMJ. I am not hungry; I do not need to eat that left-over food remaining in the pan. And, it is NOT going into “Tupperware” and onto the shelf in my fridge, aching to be snacked on during the mid-night movie. No!
I told myself “NO!” to eating! How awesome!
As a result, I was anticipating at least one kilogram of weight loss tonight!
Smash! The wrecking ball of the world showed up in my mail! On the way home from my “We-Wanna-Learn-to-be-Less-and-Less-Fat” meeting (“W L-cubed F” meeting), I stopped at the mailbox and got my mail. There was a letter from my bank – they congratulated me for being in deeper debt! They had raised my credit card limit, plus they were giving me double points for debt purchases for the next 2 months! My, what a deal! What generosity! What thoughtfulness!
But the wrecking ball was the final line at the bottom of that letter: “P.S. Be sure to take advantage of your added buying power to dine out between this and that date. With double points, you’ll reach the rewards you want even faster!”
OMG! Don’t they know fat people? How incredibly insensitive! Where are the politically insensitive Fat-Police? 999. Arrest them! Fat people go out to dine? At a restaurant? That’s how we fat ones are to gain our rewards? OMG!
That’s why I pack my own lunch to work – I can’t trust myself in the company cafeteria.
I’m sorry, but I have not adequately learned how to do that yet. I am not able to say “No” to the red-and-white checkered basket of fresh-baked Mom’s-kitchen bread with its tubs of garlic butter. No, I am not ready for the restaurant yet. A time will come, though, a time of reckoning for the restaurant and our cafeteria.
So, here I am. I’m on Week 10 of my weight-loss learning program. Fatter than before, I am. But I am more willing than ever and eagerly wanting to learn a better eating lifestyle.
Yes, I got more fat! And you know what? I’ll be dam*ed if I console myself by gorging on food! No solace food! I just won’t! I refuse to demolition myself on food.
At home and in lieu of kicking the cat, I sought some sage (oops! No food puns, please!) wise advice. My long-time Bud and I chatted. I calmed down. I took the bad with all the good that was happening: my clothes were looser, I was feeling better – more energetic, my desire to exercise was increasing, I actually had lost more than ten pounds thus far, and my confidence in my ability “to do this” was growing (with inverse proportion to my gradual weight loss). I did not crave a double-pepperoni extra-large pizza with a six of Labatt Blue. All in all, things on the weight-loss side were indeed improving.
“So, SMJ, what’s the bottom line?” my Bud asked me. ”What’s for supper, Big Guy?”
Supper was a lettuce salad light on the non-fat salad dressing, spritzed with lemon juice and heavily doused with Mexican salsa, a small bone-less pork chop steamed in onions & peppers plus one-half cup of Van Camps Pork & Beans, the latter added for odiferous effect.
Even though I grew fatter the past fortnight, I am learning to eat better “South of Moose Jaw”
smj
Recent Comments