It Was Me All Along: A Memoir (15 page)

Sitting still in the driver’s seat for a moment longer, I thought back to the most touching of all weight loss stories I’d ever come across. Two years before that summer, I was in the waiting room of my doctor’s office thumbing through
O, The Oprah Magazine
(Oprah, if you’re reading—because I know you like to read—I adore you always and forever). Midway through the thick issue, I found a piece written by a woman who’d lost one-hundred-plus pounds. She credited much of her transformation to the support of Overeaters Anonymous. For the first time, I had felt connected to someone who shared her struggle with weight and the grieving associated with trying to eat less, to limit yourself. The writer was
honest; she was vulnerable line after line in a way I hadn’t heard before. The part that stood out to me, as if highlighted in neon yellow, was when she recounted a night she felt particularly weak in her resolve to not binge-eat. She called her sponsor in desperation, feeling herself slipping off the ledge of her willpower. Her sponsor paused, considered her pain, her anxiety and lust to binge, and said:

“Can you do it today? Can you make it through today without bingeing? Just today, and tomorrow we’ll reconsider?”

The writer was struck, as was I in reading it over. “Uh, yes. I mean, yeah—yes, I can get through today,” she stumbled out in concession. In that moment, she realized that this phrase would be her mantra. It would be the question she’d ask herself, day in and day out, when she felt herself falling back into old habits.
Can you do it today?
The notion of just trying to take each day as it came. The commitment to the present moment, and only the present moment, without worrying about the big and daunting picture of all the days that followed. The mustering of strength and dedication for now, if not later.

That question stayed with me after having read her article. And at that moment, sitting in my car outside the YMCA at the beginning of my own weight loss journey, it floated into my head like a banner attached to a blimp in the sky.

Can you exercise today, Andie? Not tomorrow, not the next day, not even a month from now. Today? Eat the best you can, work your plus-sized heart out … today?

And, I found, I could.

The first three days—when I sobered to the fact that my life would be devoid of a deep fryer and two-for-one doughnuts, at
least for a while, anyhow—were almost unbearable. During the day, I’d feel fine eating healthily. I bought health-focused magazines at the grocery store and pulled sample diet menus from them to try on my own each week. I mixed and matched as best I could to find the kinds of meals I liked most. I didn’t know the calories, the carbs, or the fat grams, only that the foods and portions in the meal plans were deemed healthy by whatever registered dietitian helped design them for the magazine. On an average day, breakfast was scrambled egg whites with a handful of baby spinach thrown in to wilt, one piece of whole wheat toast, and a cup of berries. Lunch was a salad with grilled chicken, feta cheese, and half a large pita pocket from the Greek restaurant up the street. Dinner was simply seasoned and grilled chicken, pork, or beef, served alongside a pile of steamed vegetables. Snacks were fresh fruit and anything labeled light, sugar-free, or fat-free. I had heard enough times about the myriad benefits of fresh fruits and vegetables to know that I needed to incorporate as many as I could.

Eating right in the daytime went well, but when the sun went down each night, I felt that deep longing for sweets. Come eight or nine p.m., my stomach felt hollow. I wanted cake. I wanted chocolate. I couldn’t watch television without looking to my lap, where I wished there could be a bowl of crunchy something, anything. I couldn’t deem the day done without having that urgent stuffed fullness. I needed to be sufficiently sugared for sleep. Anxiety, sweaty palms, my body writhing in discomfort. An addict, I cried, heartily and whole bodily, every night.

One week in, it got easier. And by easier, I mean I agonized less. Perhaps my stomach shrank, or my mind’s appetite did, whichever comes first.

Daniel was forty miles away at his dad’s house in Worcester for the summer. He had also gained a significant amount of weight during sophomore year, reaching nearly three hundred pounds. When he saw the steps I’d taken toward losing, he made the same commitment. Twice a week, we’d see each other and go out for healthy dinners, take long walks, and go to the movies, where our only shared snack would be a diet soda. I found tremendous comfort in having someone to go through the process with me. But, for him, it always seemed easier. His love of sports made exercise less of a chore. Daily, he’d find friends to play pickup games of soccer, basketball, or tennis. Combined with eating less, he lost forty pounds in three months.

I spent the rest of that summer following my own decidedly healthy path of exercising every day—taking group fitness classes, using the cardio equipment, jogging or walking with Kate—and trying to eat well. I lost just over thirty pounds in those three months of summer. I won’t say it was fun, but I will say that, like anything new, and like any challenge you embark on, it was exciting at first to see the numbers on the scale fall. I had my best friend with me. And Britney Spears was still making music that moved me.

At the end of the summer of 2005, I went back to school feeling better about my body. Mom took me shopping for new outfits. Proud of my weight loss and mindful that she couldn’t reward me with food, she showed her love with gifts. At the large outlet mall near our home, she bought me a new wardrobe to show off my smaller figure. Reuniting with old friends back on campus, I’d hear, “You look great!” or “Have you lost weight?” It was rewarding.

And though I continued my efforts to make healthier food choices, aim for smaller portions, and walk to classes a few times
a week, I dropped my rigorous workout routine so I could focus on classes and socializing. Without my own kitchen, I wasn’t preparing my meals any longer. Fruits and vegetables were scarce. Instead, I was lured by the familiar temptation of greasy late-night pizza slices, snacking to stay awake; Sunday-morning brunch plates pooled with maple syrup; and a constant influx of takeout in my dorm. Staying strong and committed seemed impossible when my environment was booby-trapped with indulgence. And to top it off, that fall, Amherst opened up a burger joint called Fatzo’s that sold cheese-smothered Tater Tots and one particularly juicy “Cowboy Burger” that involved smoky hickory barbecue sauce, onion rings, and Monterey Jack cheese. I couldn’t help but love it.

And then there was the matter of alcohol.

Even in the years long before Dad died, I swore I’d never take a sip of the stuff. Not a drop would cross my lips. I remembered all the ways it hurt Mom, scarred Anthony, poisoned Dad. I couldn’t so much as look at a bottle of liquor without seeing it as a symbol of heartache. But as I got older, my drive to teetotal softened. In the years following his death, I learned more from Mom about how broken Dad was—that there was more than just the love of the drink at work. He had been abused as a child and suffered from crippling, lifelong depression. Alcohol wasn’t the cause of his problems; it was his misguided solution.

I saw other adults in my life drink alcohol in moderation with no ill effects. At holiday parties, my uncles drank beer. Mom even sipped the occasional hard lemonade. Gradually, I stopped viewing alcohol as an evil to be avoided at all costs, and by the time I was sixteen, I, like most high schoolers, was curious to try it.

The first time I drank, Nicole and I had been invited to a house party after a Friday-night football game. Everyone would be there, I was assured. The invitation alone flattered me.

I enjoyed the feeling of a slight buzz, the mild euphoria, the way my inhibitions were cut free by Smirnoff. I liked the way laughter grew as the night went on, the way social status ceased to matter, the fact that after three beers all of us appeared thin. And mostly, while I had fun with alcohol, I felt no serious attachment to it. The part of my brain that lived in a steady state of worry and paranoia kept an eye on my boozy behavior. It reminded me of my past when it seemed I had forgotten. The one thing that left me sad, left me as guilty as I’d ever felt, was the thought of how much my actions might hurt Mom if she found out. I pictured her face, the grooves of lines made from years of worry, and I felt a secret shame.

When I entered college, I embraced drinking as an integral part of campus life. Booze bound us all socially. Nicole, Sabrina, Jenny, and I drank cocktails on Thursdays, on Fridays, on Saturdays. There was no getting around the party scene of college life. And more, there was no way I wanted to withdraw from it. The years I’d spent in Amherst were the most fun I’d ever had, and drinking, though admittedly illegal and five shades of risky, was as much a part of that as skipping classes to sleep in. I don’t regret one shot or one hangover.

One year into my stay at UMass, I fessed up to Mom. I promised her I’d be careful, that I’d be aware of all the ways I could easily fall into genetically addictive patterns. And though she might have been choking back tears at the time, she knows as well as I do that I’ve always kept that promise.

When I returned to school at a lighter weight, I discovered other challenges I hadn’t previously thought of.

On a practical level, I always lamented that being bigger meant more alcohol was required to get me tipsy. I lamented the calories. In the beginning of college, I’d drink six beers, even eight beers in a night. But once I knew that the alcohol, as excessive as it was in our social lives, would reverse any weight I’d lost if I didn’t at least attempt to lighten what I sipped, I started experimenting. The girls and I took to mixing powdered sugar-free, calorie-free Crystal Light lemonade into a Nalgene bottle’s worth of three parts cold water to one part vodka. We called it disco lemonade. I’m not sure if it was the cutesy name or the fact that we’d invented our own “healthy” cocktail that made us love it so; it certainly wasn’t the taste.

Shortly after junior year started, my weight loss stalled. Or at least it seemed as though it had. My jeans weren’t any looser; I wasn’t noticing even the subtlest of changes in the bathroom mirror. I worried that I’d let two and a half months at school pass me by when I could have been working toward losing more weight. It was clear that I still had quite a long road ahead of me. I decided that I needed help to go on, so I joined Weight Watchers on the first day of November. Sabrina joined, too, wanting to lose a modest twenty pounds. Setting foot on the generic conference room carpeting of the meeting room, I thought back to the meeting I’d gone to with Kate’s mom in high school. While it hadn’t been a livable plan for me as a teenager, I wanted it to work this time.

Sabrina and I weighed in before making our way to the back to sit with the group. I steadied myself on the scale, anticipating
failure. I feared I’d gained. And how could I not have, when I’d struggled so consistently to make the right choice in the face of temptation and nine times out of ten failed? When the woman recording my weight revealed it to me, I was shocked. I had lost ten pounds. I smiled at her, exhaling a sigh of relief, and I noticed the momentary look of confusion that flickered across her face. It took me a second before I understood her reaction. There were probably very few people that she weighed in who seemed happy to know that they weighed 228 pounds. But for me, 228 was progress. A 10-pound loss in two and a half months would have been nothing during the summer, when I’d maintained a rigorous workout regimen, but I knew full well how challenging the food and drinking scene at school had been. The fact that I’d lost 10 pounds sent a gentle ripple of pride through me. Simply the fact that I hadn’t gained was a small miracle.

This time around, I took instantly to the Weight Watchers plan. After the first meeting, my motivation and commitment had been restored. Meticulous by nature, I loved the structure, the planning, the goals. It felt comfortable. Counting points taught me the fundamentals of nutrition and portion size—essentials I’d never known: that I should inspect ingredient lists for calories, fat, protein, and fiber; that quantity matters, and quality, too. I liked being given a framework—a quota of points for the day based upon my weight and height and goal—it was up to me to spend them how I wanted. Because, though whole foods are wonderful and lovable and all manner of virtuous, sometimes I wanted to use my points on a brownie rather than anything more nutritiously sound. Many times, in fact. I liked that a cookie could fit into my plan. No food was off-limits. Yes, cake costs more in points, but I learned to
respect it more in turn. I learned to enjoy the moment when I’d chosen to spend five precious points on a lemon square, because they were special, earned, and loved in their spending.

For the few months that I followed Weight Watchers, I followed the plan on my own. Sabrina continued on her own, as well, and when either of us felt like giving up, we’d find comfort and strength in the other. Apart from two group meetings, I just felt more comfortable flying solo with my Point Tracker. Having always struggled with consistency in dieting, I began journaling what and how much I ate. This single act changed the way I viewed and valued eating, teaching me accountability and an awareness of my own hunger and fullness. I noted which times of day I felt most in need of sweets, which times were easiest and hardest. There was a pleasurable quality in reporting to the journal, to
myself
, what I’d put into my body. A Tetris-like game was born. I found ways to fit healthy foods and treats perfectly side by side in the same day. Each night, I went to bed with a deep sense of satisfaction for the confidence that came with the completion of a successful day, a week on track. It bred empowerment. It made me aware of small victories, all the times when I might have once eaten a half-dozen cookies and now was able to stop at one. These were milestones. Between that November and the following January, I lost another 20 pounds.