Secrets of a Former Fat Girl (3 page)

What would become my last best attempt to be a runner, the one that stuck, began on an almost abandoned quarter-mile dirt track. I drove there one evening at dusk in the same tights-with-gym-shorts getup I had squeezed myself into for Jazzercise. What made me do it that night, I don't really know. Maybe I wasn't getting the same feeling out of “What a Feeling” as I had those first several months of class. I do know that without the strength (mental, not so much physical) I had built in Jazzercise, I would never have taken that first step. Jazzercise had helped me open my mind just a little bit to the idea that maybe I could change, maybe I didn't have to be stuck, maybe I could shed the Fat Girl image that had defined me for so long.

I set out to run just one lap. I pounded through it, surging and then flagging without much rhythm. It felt odd, hard, but not odd enough or hard enough for me to give up. I tried another. I did a quick body check: Nothing was broken. I hadn't had a coronary; my lungs hadn't exploded. I glanced around: There were no horrified onlookers. So—what the hell—I ran a third. I made it through four laps that night. That's a mile, mind you. A
mile
. On a
track
. Where
runners
belong—not people like me.

Strange, though. Rather than feeling like a trespasser, I was a little thrilled. I did it. I, the Fat Girl, ran a mile! I was flushed with not just exertion but with the kind of sensation you get after you do something out of character and risky, like blurting out how you really feel about a crush and not caring at that moment whether he feels the same way.

The rush faded, though, overpowered by the loud complaining from my body over what I had just put it through. My feet hurt, my legs tingled. This was nothing like Jazzercise.

But still I wanted more. If Jazzercise had given me that “I can” feeling, running did even more. After all, it was more
athletic
, something only strong, slim girls did. I went back to the track two nights later and two nights after that to run in the cool cover of dark.

Don't get me wrong. It was hard. It was hard every night, physically—the pounding on my poor hips, knees, and feet (in particular the bunions I had inherited from Grandmom). It was especially hard to find the energy to do anything more than make it up the three flights to my apartment.

It was even harder mentally to get myself into my running clothes and to that track, and then to slog through lap after lap after lap. Despite the rush that running gave me, I had years of Fat Girl programming to fight against: all those feelings that told me I didn't belong, that I couldn't do it—the powerlessness, the temptation to stay in that comfortable, miserable place I had known for so long. As much as I wanted to break out and let the woman inside shine, I was afraid.

That fear bubbled up in different ways all through the day, mostly in the form of something I call my “inner whiner.” That's the little voice you have in your head that brings up every possible excuse for not exercising. “It's too hard.” “It's
sooooo
hot outside!” “You'll mess up your hair.”

I came up with all kinds of tricks to help combat that fear. For instance, I found that it was especially difficult to get my butt to the track if I went home to change first. When I did, I had to fight off the urge to curl up on the couch and watch TV instead. Why waste the energy? I needed every bit to get me through the run itself. So I started carrying my workout bag with me, going straight to the track and changing in a restroom there.

I also devised some mind games to make running more tolerable. I had this particular way of counting laps. If I was trying to run six laps total, I'd divide the number in half—three, in this case. When I finished the first lap, I'd say (in my head; I'm not that weird), “Two more to halfway.” After the next lap it was “One more to halfway.” After lap three I'd say, “Three more to the finish.” I'd repeat those phrases over and over as I ran, trying to drown out the voice of that inner whiner who was always asking, “Can we stop now,
pleeeeeeze
?”

Until then my imagination was the only thing about me that you could call active. Now I put to use the skills I honed creating elaborate daydreams about marrying the latest teen idol (Davy Jones of the Monkees was an early favorite). Some nights at the track I'd visualize myself running before a roaring crowd, slogging toward the finish line. I'd break the imaginary tape, and after looking around to make sure I wasn't being watched, I'd raise both hands in victory. Yeah, I can't believe I did something so corny, either. But it had become a matter of survival. I was ready to do whatever it took to get to the end of that run, to win.

That's how I felt after every track session: a little more like a winner. Running did something for me that Jazzercise didn't. Each lap I completed was an instant success, a task I'd checked off my to-do list. For the overachiever in me, it was like a drug. I needed more. Each lap was a goal I could tick off before moving on to the next. I worked my way up to running a mile and a half, then two, then three. The way I felt after a run—not physically but emotionally—dulled the soreness in my muscles, the aches in my bunions. Every time I inched a bit farther than before, I felt like an explorer breaking new ground. What I was doing was as impossible to me as it was for Neil Armstrong to walk on the moon or Keanu Reeves to do Shakespeare. I ran on that track exclusively for at least a year, spurred on by the strokes I got from finishing lap after lap.

In the meantime,
I was still up to my old dietary indiscretions, the ones that compelled me to polish off a supersize order of fries or an entire sleeve of Girl Scout cookies even though I knew I'd be doubled over in pain afterward. My favorite dinner at the time—my post-run reward—was a homemade ground beef soft taco piled with cheese, guacamole, and sour cream. Not exactly what you'd call light. Dessert was a pint of cookies and cream ice cream. (Okay, so I had downsized a bit from my usual half gallon.)

Unbelievably, despite my food free-for-alls, I started losing weight. My waistbands started feeling looser, my thighs not as loose. After several months I was out of my fattest-of-fat pants and into my somewhat-less-fat pants. I went down a couple of sizes, from a 16 or so to a 12,
without changing the way I was eating at all.

I was no dummy. I knew exercise could burn off some of the junk a person eats. But I had never experienced it myself. I mean, I was eating ice cream by the pint several days a week, and
still
my body was changing. Amazing!

The more weight I lost, the easier running became and the more I wanted to do it. I could see and feel the difference physically. The three flights up to my apartment didn't leave me puffing like an old-lady smoker. Even shopping for clothes began to be less painful. I could actually find pieces that fit, though I stayed far away from leotards, swimsuits, and, of course, jeans.

I loved what running was doing to my body, but at first I took the weight loss in stride. After all, I had been there before. I had lost my share of pounds at other times in my life, only to gain them back. I didn't quite trust it. Not yet.

The small flicker of hope that got me to Jazzercise in the first place continued to burn, and burn brighter, but it wasn't connected as much to the weight I was dropping. In fact, I wasn't really focused on the pounds I was losing at all. I didn't even weigh myself. All I thought about was running, how to get through the eight or ten laps I had to do that day and how many I might be able to run tomorrow. I was chasing that “I can” feeling I first got from Jazzercise and felt even stronger from running. I was exercising for the positive things it was doing for my mind and my body, not to work off the bag of chips I had at lunch.

And that, I know now, is what really made the difference this time: my single-minded focus on exercise. Exercise did two things for me: It helped me begin to break through the image I had of myself as a Fat Girl, and it fed me the encouraging, motivating, “I can” messages I needed at the beginning of this process.

I realized that because most diets emphasize what you're eating—or, more specifically, what you shouldn't be eating—they are doomed to fail. They are all about “You can't” and “You shouldn't.”

Oh, sure, I lost at least a few pounds every time I tried a new program, but the problem was that I loved food. I didn't just love to eat it. I loved everything about it—making it, shopping for it, reading about it. Telling me I couldn't eat the stuff I loved was like trying to keep a teenage girl away from her bad-apple boyfriend—down to the deception she would use to hook up with him anyway. I was trying to deny myself one of the things I enjoyed most, and it just plain didn't feel good. I was a failure because I couldn't control my appetite. I couldn't live without chocolate or pasta or burgers and fries, at least not for more than a couple of weeks. I was so frustrated by all my attempts at dieting that I really didn't believe I could ever succeed. I felt weak. I wanted to hide. I didn't know if I had the will to even try again.

What I needed, I know now, was an infusion of power, and I got it when I started exercising. Instead of saying no, no, no to my appetite, exercise was all about saying yes, saying I can, feeling the power of pushing myself further than I ever had—even if it was to the music of
Flashdance
while wearing a lumpy leotard. It fed my ego, the only part of me (except maybe my cup size) that needed any kind of enhancement. I began to crave that feeling of personal power almost as much as a Hershey's bar. Almost.

And that, dear future Former Fat Girls, is why I've made Forget Dieting secret number one. The subtext could be Start Moving because to begin your transformation you need to start feeling like a winner. You need to start chipping away at the idea that you are powerless, weak, stuck. Exercise can be the answer if you do it like a Former Fat Girl. Read on to find out how.

Move Like a Former Fat Girl

Okay, so you're starting to get it: This isn't some garden-variety diet. For one thing, how many weight loss plans start by giving you permission to forget about what you're eating (or trying not to eat)? You're probably used to those diets that from the very start expect you to cut back drastically on the foods you love and crave. I know how hard that is and how bad it feels to constantly tell yourself no, I can't, I shouldn't.

Cleaning out the vending machine every afternoon is not okay just because you walk on the treadmill every morning. But to begin to see yourself as a Former Fat Girl, you have to work on making exercise as much of a habit as your 3:00
P.M
. snack attack. Conquering the treadmill, the track, the pool, whatever, is going to help you reimagine yourself more than any old diet would, and that's the real work that has to happen if you are to become a Former Fat Girl.

Nor is this the same old advice about how to start an exercise program. What's different about my approach is that it focuses on exercise as the starting point in your quest for Former Fat Girldom because of what it does for your
mind
. It sets you up for life-changing success by helping you flip that switch in your head to the “I can” position. As you make exercise a regular habit, as much a part of your life as brushing and flossing (okay, so maybe more regular than flossing), you begin to feed your self-confidence bit by bit. You start peeling away that Fat Girl label you've lived with and start allowing that vibrant, worthy Former Fat Girl to emerge.