Secrets of a Former Fat Girl (14 page)

But I did have the guts to leave the campus cocoon for professional life. And I did actually
hear
that little voice that piped up on my first day. Just the fact that I heard it, that I recognized that I had aimed too low, was something of a breakthrough. Before I'd begun my Former Fat Girl journey, that little voice was buried under so many years of “I can't” that it was impossible to make out.

 

At the time I
entered the working world, I still hadn't made any attempt to reform my eating habits. And why should I? I was big-boned, remember? My new size 8 body was the end of the line: I could go no lower, or so I thought.

Working at the restaurant magazine, I was surrounded by people who loved food, who
lived
food. The place was run by a big, bumbling fool who had a habit of laying sloppy kisses on the cheeks of the female employees every chance he got, and treated all of us “girls” in a patronizing manner that made me want to puke. The environment was so demoralizing that even those of us with the best work ethic looked for ways to slack off.

There were two good things about working at that place: the free food perks and the friends I made. Three of us formed an indelible bond in the face of our common enemy: Kim, my editor; Gabriele, the PR director; and me. We were the oppressed; the big, bad, beer-bellied boss was our oppressor. We became almost inseparable in and out of the office.

Gabriele was a fabulous cook, the closest thing I knew to a gourmet. We often ended up at her house for a meal—some elaborate feast better than anything I'd ever had at a restaurant. She was probably the first person I knew who owned a Cuisinart or at least actually used one, and she had an impressively vast culinary repertoire. She made her piecrusts from scratch (unheard of in my mom's kitchen), dabbled in exotica like tofu (
très
obscure in those days), and kept her kitchen well stocked with everything from heavy cream to saffron.

One of our standard social activities was a regular Friday night viewing of
Dallas
at Gaby's house. Gabriele would always make a feast—maybe her signature roast chicken stuffed with herbed cream cheese, cooked in a clay pot over basmati rice (my mouth is watering at the memory of it), with a fabulous tossed salad and homemade double-crust apple pie for dessert. (Notice the detail with which I describe a meal I had more than twenty years ago.)

Gaby and Kim weren't lugging around any of the Fat Girl baggage I was dealing with. Gaby was tall, maybe five feet eight and gorgeous, with olive skin, almond-shaped hazel eyes, and a wide smile. Her parents were from Germany; she was born in Canada, and her look and sense of style were European exotic to little Middle America me. She was certainly more fashion-forward than anyone I had known. And without getting too down and dirty about it, she had an enviable body—boobs just big enough (not too big) and hips just wide enough (not too wide). A real
womanly
body.

Kim was no comparison in the glamour department. She had fair skin and curly light brown hair prone to wildness. Where Gaby was voluptuous, Kim was skinny, and although I didn't think it was quite possible, she was flatter than me on top. Kim and I were more like sisters; Gaby was our captivating, sophisticated, seductive second cousin come to visit from some far-off place.

Weight wasn't much of an issue for either of them. Of course, every woman frets about a few extra pounds at least once in her life. But for Kim and Gaby, it wasn't a constant source of consternation, conflict, and internal conversation as it was for me. They basically ate what they wanted, and every once in a while, when they started to feel soft and mushy, they cracked down a bit. Neither one was into exercise really. With my almost daily running routine,
I
was the active one in the group.

It was during one of those soft and mushy moments, I guess, that Gabriele talked Kim and me into going on the Beverly Hills Diet with her. The Beverly Hills Diet had debuted to great fanfare in the early 80s, topping the
New York Times
best-seller list for a while. For the first ten days of the diet, all you eat is fruit—different kinds of fruit on different days, but all fruit. According to Judy Mazel, the Hollywood actress who devised the plan, certain fruits have special properties. Papaya softens body fat; pineapple magically burns it off; watermelon flushes it out of your body. Huh. Who knew?

While the concept sounds complicated—not to mention utterly ridiculous—the actual plan was pretty simple. Day 1: Eat at least two pineapples, then two bananas as your last meal. Day 2: Papaya, with mango as your last meal. Some days you eat only grapes; other days, prunes; other days, watermelon. On Day 11 you get to have a half pound of bread, two tablespoons of butter, and three ears of corn, which I guess would be a treat after a week and a half of grazing in the produce section. There were no numbers to crunch, no calorie counting, no food diaries…and no choices. Call it enforced portion control with a dash of food group elimination, the basic tenets of many diets. Hey, it could have been worse. At least I got a good dose of fiber and some vitamins in the process.

If you've ever overdone it on grapes—the little things can be as addictive as popcorn—you know what happens. First the cramps, then the gas, and then the race to the bathroom. Imagine day after day of grapes and other fruit equally as challenging to the gastrointestinal system. When I wasn't sitting at my desk in pain, struggling to hold in the odiferous effects of the day's menu, I was in the bathroom. We all were. It was
nasty
.

For the record: I am not endorsing this diet or any diet that is basically akin to OD'ing on laxatives. I was so weak that I felt kind of drunk all the time. I couldn't think straight, and I barely had enough energy to make it through the workday. The only running I had the strength to do was to the bathroom. But I did lose weight, a lot of weight—maybe 10 pounds in the week I managed to keep up this insane regimen. (Alas, I never made it to bread, butter, and corn day.) And I couldn't believe what I saw in the mirror.

The big-boned girl I thought I was wasn't big boned at all. I had muscles. They were really there. I could see them—a little ripple in my biceps, a little definition in my thighs. For the first time since I was, I don't know, three, I could put my hand around my wrist and touch index finger to thumb. I got a glimpse of my true shape, the shape that had been hidden under layers of fat all these years.

Looking at my newly slimmer self in the mirror, I realized I wasn't finished. I had more weight to lose and more to learn about my body and myself. That vision was both a revelation and a challenge. Now I could see the finish line. I knew what winning looked like. I had to keep going.

 

I gained every bit
of the weight back once I started eating from the rest of the food groups again, but I was no longer content with my size 8 life. Because of that diet, as crazy and unpleasant as it might have been, everything I believed about my body—my entire self-image, really—was suddenly in question. If I wasn't big boned as I'd always thought, then maybe I wasn't destined to be always the friend, never the girlfriend. Maybe I
did
have just as much of a shot at working at a major magazine or a big-time newspaper as anyone else. Maybe I
did
have a joke worth telling, an opinion worth sharing. Maybe I
could
be something other than a Fat Girl after all.

That whacked-out Beverly Hills Diet not only showed me where the finish line was when I thought the race was over, but it made me reexamine the way I had seen myself for most of my life. I began to question the way I defined myself, the assumptions I had made about who I was and what I was capable of. I began to recognize the Fat Girl programming that had duped me into thinking I wasn't worthy, wasn't strong enough, wasn't smart enough, wasn't whatever. I began to see that the walls surrounding my comfort zone weren't made of stone at all; they were mere clouds and air.
They
weren't holding me back;
I
was holding me back.

I knew what it would take to break through: a major diet makeover. Exercise could get me only so far; I had to do something to stem my appetite. No more food free-for-alls at Gaby's house; no more mid-morning bagel runs; no more anything-goes dinners out.

I hated the thought of giving up my first love, food, even if it was standing between me and the life I wanted. The thought of going back there—to dieting, to denial, to fighting against my appetite—was downright depressing. I had reached such a positive place. My self-esteem was continuing to build little by little, and thanks to Kim and Gaby, my social life was on the upswing, too. My job was a dead end and my love life was nonexistent, but, then, you can't have it all—at least not all at once, right?

It took a full six months after that prescient experience with the Beverly Hills Diet before I decided to join Weight Watchers. I was willing to risk everything that was going right in my life for a grab at the brass ring. That's how powerful my vision was. I had gotten a glimpse of my future as a Former Fat Girl, and I wanted that life to be mine for good.

Picture Yourself as a Former Fat Girl

If you drill down to what's really so hard about losing weight, it's believing that you
can.
That's harder than passing up a platter of chocolate chip cookies warm from the oven, harder than settling into a comfy movie theater chair without the requisite tub of popcorn, harder than wrenching yourself out of bed on a winter morning to go for a workout. You're so used to thinking of yourself as a Fat Girl that it's hard to think it's possible to be anything but. And that's true whether you've had a weight issue all your life, put on pounds gradually over the years, or had a baby or two and never managed to get your prepregnancy body back. It's like those extra pounds seep into your consciousness, warping your sense of self. Being a Fat Girl—with all the thoughts and behaviors that go along with it—becomes status quo.

To begin to reverse that way of thinking, you have to find a way to feed yourself “I can” messages as often as possible. That's one of the reasons I advocate starting with exercise—to get you believing in yourself as a strong and powerful woman who can go after what you want and get it, not a prisoner of the couch, a victim of your appetite.

But that is not enough. To get to your ultimate goal—Former Fat Girlhood—you need to have a clear picture of what you're working for. You need a kind of “coming attractions” trailer for the movie of your life as a Former Fat Girl. How can you commit to chasing some nebulous new life when you don't know what that life will be? That's like agreeing to marry a guy you've never met or running a race without knowing whether the finish line is at three miles or six, or twenty-six.

You also need to tear down some of the assumptions you have about yourself. If you don't know what I'm talking about, don't worry. I didn't know what my assumptions were, either, until that drastic diet opened my eyes. I accepted as fact, for instance, that I was big boned, that I couldn't control my appetite, that I didn't belong in the “cool” crowd, that I wasn't smart enough to get into a top-tier school or talented enough to go for a high-power job, and that the guys were always more interested in my friends than they were in me.

But those things are all Fat Girl fallacies. They are not fact unless you make them so—which means that you have the power to change them, erase them, rewrite them.

A preview of the new you, the Former Fat Girl you, will help you get a giant step closer—not that I recommend you do it my way. Going on some flaky diet without medical supervision is
not
one of my Former Fat Girl Fixes, but there are tricks and tips that will, at this point in your journey, give you the kick in the pants I got when I spent a week on a fruit feeding frenzy.

You need to know where your finish line is, and that's not just some number on a scale. It's the way you want to feel physically and emotionally. It's the way you want to relate to the people around you and respond to the situations you encounter. How can you give shape to your future as a Former Fat Girl? You don't have to have a crystal ball or a standing appointment with a psychic. All you need are my fixes.

The Obstacle: Envisioning a Slimmer, Trimmer You When What You See in the Mirror Is Anything But

I know how it is: Your mind has no problem imagining all kinds of potential problems, negative consequences, and future failures, but when it comes to picturing something positive, you draw a blank. That's your Fat Girl programming at work. To short-circuit it, try these tricks.

Former Fat Girl Fixes

Keep your “skinny clothes” in your sights.

I know it's tempting to banish the little black dress you outgrew to the back of the closet (if not burn it), but you know what they say, “Out of sight, out of mind.” A key piece from your “skinny” wardrobe can be a powerful visual reminder of the size you were once and could be again. If you don't have an item that would work, you have a couple of options: Cut out an inspiring picture from a magazine or catalog; download an option from a Web site; or take the ultimate risk and buy something in your goal size. You might have heard this advice before and maybe even tried it. I'm only restating it here because I found that my skinny clothes were the best check on my weight during my journey toward becoming a Former Fat Girl. I did figure out how to use the scale somewhat effectively (I'll explain how in an upcoming chapter), but being able to wear a pair of pants I hadn't been able to squeeze into in forever was more real to me than hitting some arbitrary number.