Such a Pretty Fat: One Narcissist's Quest to Discover if Her Life Makes Her Ass Look Big, or Why Pie Is Not the Answer (17 page)

I start on the top floor, dusting every surface and storing or disposing of anything on the floors or in garbage cans. I make the bed and sort laundry and run the Dyson over the hardwood, sucking up enough fur to create two new dogs, perhaps of the non-basement-peeing variety. Then I attack the bathrooms with enough chemicals and paper towels to make Al Gore cry. I even take down the curtains and run them through the wash.

On the first floor, I vacuum and mop some more, slay dust bunnies, and haul out Great Garbage Bag Mountain, which I wouldn’t have had to do if
someone
had disposed of the trash before we left like he promised.

Then I take the show outdoors, hauling our little push mower through the house to get to our eight-by-ten patch of grass in front. I’d planned on getting a string trimmer to hit the edging, but when I priced them at Home Depot they were $169. For $169, I will fucking bend over with hand clippers. I weed and neaten my flower beds and survey my work—fabulous!

Accomplishing everything takes the better part of the day, and when I finish I still have energy. Hey, how about that? I guess working out has given me some endurance.

Delighted with my newfound strength, I go to the basement for litter-box maintenance. Fletch was right; it reeks down here. Stockyards and leather tanneries smell better than this. An oil refinery or a tire fire would be pleasant by comparison. How can such sweet and benign little kitties excrete so much . . .
horrible
? I crack open the windows and cellar door, placing a box fan in the center of the room to move the thick, fetid air around. Blech.

Breathing through only my mouth, I scour boxes and put in fresh clay. I expect this to clear the air significantly, but the basement’s still redolent of Eau de Doody. Then I remember what Fletch said about the rug. Maisy has been using it as a toilet because she doesn’t like the backyard.
¹¹⁴
I bend to take a whiff to see if it’s the offender, and the smell hits me in the face before I even get a chance to double over. Wow. The rug isn’t stinky—it’s downright
stanky
. I’ve got to haul this out pronto.

I move the futon, coffee table, chairs, and TV stand off the rug. I’d helped Fletch set up the basement as kind of a man lair about six months ago, but so far the only residents who’ve availed themselves of it are the dogs. I guess my sparkling personality is too much of a draw on the first floor.
¹¹⁵

Drawing the deepest breath I can muster, I squat and begin to roll up the rug. Argh, it’s
sticky.
I try really hard to keep my salad down. After I get it all rolled, I begin to navigate it through the basement and to the cellar door. The rug is way heavier than it was six months ago when we brought it down here, and it’s entirely Maisy’s fault. I get to the screen door, flip up both the locks, and rear back to toss the whole lot out the door. And then a funny thing happens.

I hear a rip.

I check out the door frame to see if the rug got caught on something sharp. Nope; it made it out with no problems. Then I realize the sound came from behind me.

More specifically, it came from my back. Something in my back
ripped.

Further, I realize I can no longer stand upright.

Uh-oh.

There’s a hairline crack running the length of my ceiling over the couch. I’m aware of this because I’ve been lying on this couch for a week and a half, looking at it. I’ve replastered it a million times in my head because that’s about the only thing I can do other than watch television and fend off dog nudges.

I’ve injured my back before—once in college I had to have physical therapy and I missed weeks and weeks of work. And class. Technically I was allowed to go to class, but I wanted to be extrasure. Who knows what negative impact a boring eight thirty a.m. French 201 lab may have had on my strained sacroiliac?

This time I’m taking pain meds and muscle relaxants by the handful. At first I tried to down them with the salads and other low-cal items I’d stocked the fridge with, but I kept getting lightheaded and nauseous. I finally broke out an emergency portion of macaroni and cheese to coat my stomach so the pills wouldn’t make me sick, and I’ve been eating much heavier items ever since.

Normally I’d be delighted to have a back injury—it’s a lot like a personal snow day. I’m permitted, no,
required
to lie around and watch daytime court shows and drink cocoa, and no smart-assed husband will mock me, because I’m legitimately out of commission. However, this time is different. I honestly wanted to step it up in regards to exercise and diet. Instead, I’m prone on this couch, being prodded by wet noses, and feeling like a complete washout because I’ve gained back every pound I fought to lose in the past few months.

A major part of my ridiculously inflated self-esteem comes from having done what others said was impossible, e.g., becoming the first female executive officer at the investment relations firm where I used to work, or making a living as an author. The whole less-food / more-activity paradigm seems so easy, it’s like something I should be able to do in my sleep . . . yet it’s been a constant struggle. My failure to excel here makes me question all my past successes; was I really talented, or did I just get lucky? Is my rosy self-concept based on nothing but a fluke?

This time if I can’t lose the weight, not only am I going to be jeopardizing my health, but I feel like it will be a big career misstep. Sure, it’s OK with my “people” if I give them a lighthearted book about unsuccessful dieting. Or I could write something more serious about learning to live with my body image. But my friend already wrote a really poignant book on this topic,
¹¹⁶
and it was so good, I know I’d never do the subject the same kind of justice. The bottom line is, I said I’d lose this weight, and I want to lose it just as much as I don’t want to go back on my word. And I’ve thought about nothing else for the past week and a half.

Since we’re on speaking terms again, I want to call my mother and have her tell me what to do. I’ve always gone to her when things have gotten too tough, and this is why I’ve been stuck in a perpetual adolescence. Until we stopped speaking, I never completely resolved issues on my own before. This is the problem with our relationship and the root of why we end up fighting—I’m almost forty, and I’ve been forcing my mother to actively parent me far past the point when she should have to worry about me. And then after she’s helped me and gotten enmeshed in whatever my problems are, I get defensive when it feels like she’s overstepping her bounds. I realize now that I’ve put her in a lot of unwinnable situations, and I am sorry.

So I can’t ask her help, for both our sakes. I’ve got to figure this out on my own. Maybe that’s the whole point of this exercise? And maybe my weight isn’t only because I eat too much and don’t move enough—maybe I’m heavy because I just haven’t been ready to act like an adult? I see plenty of people my age buying fat-free cheese and jogging along the lakeshore in the morning. I wonder how many of them do these sorts of things not because they want to, but because they have to. Many? Most?

To protect my health and, by extension, my career, I need to actively start making decisions like a grown-up, but I don’t know how to be an adult.

I
do
have experience being a professional, though, and that’s a reasonable facsimile. How would a professional handle my situation? If I break things down into business terms, perhaps the answer will present itself ?

Say I owned a coffee shop—how would I handle it if my espresso maker broke? The wrong thing would be to ignore it and attempt to convince my customers they’d rather have tea, although that’s exactly what I’ve done with my body. No, if I had a broken machine, I might give it a once-over to see if there were any glaring items I could fix myself. But I’d understand that the espresso maker was a central part of my business and I’d call a professional to fix it as soon as possible.

Bingo.

I need a professional.

Correction: I need professional diet help.

But from where?

If I’ve learned anything in the past few months, it’s that I’m ultimately going to gravitate toward whatever is easiest and most convenient. While I’m deep in thought and staring at the ceiling, a Jenny Craig commercial comes on, so here we go. Cordless in hand, I dial.

Kirstie Alley answers and shrieks, “
Yay!
Where else can you lose weight
and
eat fettuccini?”

I shriek, too, hanging up the phone.

Five tries later, I finally get through her whole recorded greeting without exploding into laughter. I make an appointment with a local center for later this morning.

As I slowly drag my stiff, sore body up the stairs to get ready, I refrain from my usual inner dialogue, which generally sounds like,
Yay, me, for trying! Let’s have a cookie!
I’ve let myself get away with far too much stupid, self-destructive behavior over the years because I gave myself mad props for effort, not success. The endeavor doesn’t count in this situation. There’s no more partial credit; I have to win the game.

I undress for the shower and glance at myself in the bathroom mirror. There’s much work to be done here. Right before he left for Denver, Fletch said, “Do, or do not. There is no try.” I thought it the most profound statement he’d ever uttered . . . even after I found out Yoda said it in
The Empire Strikes Back
.

Today I choose
do.

TO: fletch@work

FROM: [email protected]

SUBJECT: Am. Not. Kidding.

Hey, Fletch,

A couple of favors—one, can you please pick up a bag of dog food on your way home from work? I’d get it, but it’s too heavy for me to manage.

Two, please, please, please stop sending me links to the watch you want. Buy it, don’t buy it; either way is just fine. But I swear if you mention this damn watch once more, you will have to bend over to tell what time it is.

Love you,

Jen

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Baby Steps

"Welcome to Jenny Craig! Is this your first time here?” My sarcasm gene kicks into overdrive and I bite back a dozen different snappy retorts, such as
Do I
look
like I’ve been a longtime client?
Alienating the staff with a smart-ass remark seems like the wrong move, so I return the perky receptionist’s pleasant greeting sans snark. She tells me someone will be right with me and to please make myself comfortable in the lobby.

Located in a storefront not far from my house, the Jenny Craig lobby is quite clean and sunny, and it’s decorated with big pictures of Jenny Craig’s menu items. The food pictured seems appetizing, but there’s a quite a dichotomy between what a food stylist can do in a professional photo shoot and what a freezer-burnt box of diet food looks like after it’s been nuked. This is one of those makes-you-buy-the-food plans. I don’t see photos of powdered soup or oatmeal, which is a relief.

Kirstie Alley looms (less) large behind the counter in a Plexiglas frame holding an old-fashioned phone. Secretly I’m kind of disappointed that Kirstie Alley called Jenny. A couple of years ago she had the best sitcom on cable, called
Fat Actress
. She played the role of herself, and the show was about her unsuccessful bids to lose weight following the advice of a deranged diet guru who had her eating cigarettes and ordering tapeworms off the Internet. I guess I’m glad she found a way in real life to slim down, but I wish she’d have waited one more season to get all sensible.

I sit in my chair, studying life-sized Kirstie’s highly animated face. The more I stare at her picture, the more it looks like her eyes are following me. Yikes. I wonder if the staff here ever gets creeped out by Kirstie hovering in the background all the time. Before I get a chance to ask, the receptionist leads me back to an office to meet with a counselor.

A trim brunette in her midthirties leaps out of her chair to greet me before I take the seat across from her desk. The receptionist leapt when I came in, too. And walking down the hall, I saw another counselor leap up from her desk when her client entered. Awful lot of leaping going on here. I’m sure that’s not going to be annoying
at all
.

“Welcome, Jen! Glad to have you! I’m Maggie! ”
¹¹⁷

Even though the jury’s still out, I tell her I’m happy to meet her.

Maggie beams at me and leans across her desk. “Jen, what brings you in?”

Old Jen would quip
I’m here because I beat anorexia!
but New Jen is desperately trying to behave like an adult. “I’m interested in losing weight, and Kirstie Alley says you can help.”
¹¹⁸
I don’t mention I’m here because I’m trying to lose weight for a book. I consider my project to be on a need-to-know basis. And they? Don’t need to know.

Maggie gets right into the pitch, telling me how the program works. I’ll start off following a weekly planned menu consisting of breakfast, lunch, dinner, and two snacks. Having damaged my metabolism time and again by not eating at regular intervals, I acknowledge that this makes sense. Maggie says because I’ll be eating all the time, there’s no chance I’ll feel hungry. But if I am, I can choose from plenty of “free” foods—mostly vegetables—which I can consume anytime.

Once a week I’ll come in to meet with a counselor
¹¹⁹
and weigh in. They offer twenty-four-hour phone support, an idea that cracks me up. I imagine this phone center being a cross between a suicide-prevention hotline and a 911 dispatch, doing triage when there’s an accidental inhalation of meatballs. Can’t you picture it?

Jenny Craig; what’s your situation?

I’ve had a bad day and I am going to eat this whole bag of Oreos.

Nooooooooooo! You have too much to live for! Put the cookies down!

As Maggie talks about their Web site, where clients can access message boards, chat rooms, journals, and menu planners, I sort of zone out, imaging all sorts of food-based emergencies and giggling to myself. But she gets my attention again when she sums up the Jenny Craig experience—they tell me what to eat and I lose weight.

I’m not in love with the idea of sticking to a menu of boxed food every day, but I’ve been spectacularly unsuccessful planning meals on my own. And I realize they didn’t become a multimillion-dollar business by not fulfilling their promises. Despite my aversion to frozen meatloaf, this is the best option for me right now. So when Maggie asks me if I have any questions, I say, “Yes—how do I get started?”

I review the contract before I sign it, making sure there’s no what-happens-in-Jenny-Craig-Fight-Club-stays-in-Jenny-Craig -Fight-Club language. I opt for the monthly payment plan, with an initial down payment of $174. I’ll be billed $75 for the next three months, before the cost of food. Meals should run me between $11 and $15 per day, not including fresh fruits, vegetables, and dairy products, which I’m to provide myself.

I don’t mention that being fat is cheaper.

Doesn’t mean that I don’t think it.

Maggie brings me to get weighed in a private enclave in the back. I step on the scale and there are no surprises. Or miracles. She records the number and then takes my measurements. Finally, she snaps a Polaroid of me standing by a pole that reads I CAN DO IT and clips it into my file.

After I pay for everything, Maggie collects my purchases from the cooler. She returns with three big grocery bags, and before I go, I schedule an appointment for next week. I leave laden with food and spiral-bound pamphlets.

More important, I leave with hope.

My first official Jenny meal consists of a salad, an orange, and a turkey burger. I stopped at the fancy organic supermarket on the way home to pick up the fruit and dairy items, figuring if I’m allotted such a limited amount of food, I’ll be damned if what I get isn’t the very best quality. For example, a couple of times this week, I’m supposed to eat olives. Given the choice, I’d rather indulge in the plump, delicious ones found on Whole Foods’ fresh olive bar for $8.99 a pound than in a few pale, shriveled ones from a can costing ninety-nine cents. I bet this is why all the gourmands on
Top Chef
are thin—they don’t eat quantity; they eat quality.

I have my salad with Jenny dressing—ranch, but not homemade or chock-full of mayo and buttermilk—and open my turkey-burger package. Including the bun, my “lunch” is the size of a tin of tuna. This isn’t lunch—this is an amuse-bouche.
¹²⁰
I heat it up and top it with a packet of Jenny-approved mustard sauce. There’s nothing special or dietetic about the mustard, so next time I’ll probably substitute one of the gourmet brown mustards Fletch is so adamant we stock. Lean and light, the turkey burger is fairly tasty, but I have only three bites in which to determine this. I gobble down my orange and toss back two bottles of water to quell the hunger I still feel.

I take my pain meds and retreat to the couch. Snack time can’t come fast enough today.

I’m still ravenous after my snack of vegetable sticks and ounce of low-fat cheese. And I formally want to apologize to low-fat cheese—the Babybel round I just ate was delicious, and I wish I was allowed to have fifteen more.

By five p.m., the sofas are starting to look tasty. Being leather, they’re part of the beef family, right? A crown roast of love seat doesn’t sound terrible right now, especially if it’s all browned nicely and served with little paper booties on its square legs. I’m famished and want dinner
right this second
. Normally I don’t eat this early, as I’m often awake for another seven hours. I want to hold out for a while, but I can’t take these hunger pangs anymore. And Fletch will be pissed if he comes home and finds I’ve flame-broiled the ottoman and dunked it in barbecue sauce. Reluctantly, I open the freezer and remove tonight’s repast.

Aha! So
this
is the fettuccini of which Kirstie Alley speaks. I boil my fresh side of baby carrots while I microwave the tiny black plastic tub containing my dinner. Tonight I also get a teaspoon of margarine and two tablespoons of the most expensive Parmigiano Reggiano available in Whole Foods’ cheese cooler. No Kraft in a shaker for me, thanks.
¹²¹
Again, the portions are ridiculously small, but at least with the accoutrement of freshly cracked black pepper and good cheese, it should be palatable.

The microwave dings and I pull out my dinner. The plastic over the tub was covered in frost when I put it in, and I couldn’t tell the portion size. Now that it’s cooked, I see that my dinner is equal to the amount of meat, pasta, and sauce normally stuck to the side of the pan when I craft my own Alfredo out of fresh cheese, butter, and heavy cream.

I take my feast into the other room to watch a TiVoed episode of
King of the Hill
. I press PLAY and catch the end of a commercial for upscale floor coverings, idly wondering whether bamboo is tasty. If it weren’t, panda bears wouldn’t be fat, right? I devour my frozen meal, and I finish as the opening credits stop rolling. Nice. Way to savor, self. For dessert I wolf down my wee chocolate Bundt cake and glass of organic skim milk.

It’s five fifteen and I’m still famished. This does not bode well.

“Are you hungry? There’s a pizza for you in the kitchen.”

“Great! I’m starving. I only had a sandwich in the airport, and that was hours ago,” Fletch says.

He’s home from Denver, just in time for me to be completely ambulatory again. I went to the gym this morning and spent an unpleasant half hour on the treadmill. I swear every muscle in my body atrophied in the past two weeks. However, movement must have been what I needed because, after I got home, I felt something in my back pop and the pain’s been gone since then.

I hear him banging around in the kitchen. “Where is it?”

“In the fridge.”

“Oh, I thought it’d be sitting out. You didn’t just order it?”

Truth? I made it until 8:47 last night, until my stomach began to growl so loudly, I couldn’t hear the TV. I’d been snacking on free foods for an hour and chugging water to no avail. So at 8:48, I picked up the phone and dialed Philly’s Best.

I got a plain cheese, I had only one piece, and I blotted the oil and tossed the crust to the dogs. I didn’t expect to start Jenny on the spot, so there was no transition period where I went from having whatever I wanted to eat
¹²²
to being restricted to seventeen hundred calories a day. Maggie told me that when she started Jenny, she was eating two or three frozen meals at a time, so it sounds like I’m not the only person who didn’t ease into the diet seamlessly.

I haven’t been able to stop obsessing over what I’m allowed to eat, so I consider having just one piece a victory. If it sounds like I’m giving myself yet another A for effort, I’m not. My punishment was going to the gym this morning, even though I didn’t feel up to it.

Baby steps.

Baby bell.

Babybel.

Is it time for cheese yet?

I’ve been on Jenny a solid week, and I can account for about four minutes when I wasn’t dreaming about food. I’ve been to Whole Foods at least five times because buying groceries makes me so damn happy. I enjoy examining all the oranges to get the biggest ones, and I delight doing a side-by-side comparison of calorie counts on the low-fat yogurts. I’m limited in what I’m allowed to eat but am confident that my careful shopping means my choices are the freshest, juiciest, and most flavorful.

In terms of taste, the Jenny meals range anywhere from blandly inoffensive to crave worthy. There’s a pot-sticker entr ée made with tofu and chicken that made me lick my plate (much to the dogs’ dismay). And the iced lemon cake is something I’d buy even if I weren’t dieting. I’m not sure if this is because these products are truly tasty, or if at seventeen hundred calories a day, everything’s a palate pleaser. I’ve disliked only one item—a tuna salad redolent of cat food mixed with pickle relish and dirty feet. After I had the first bite, I had to plug my nose and down it like a Jäger shot.

I haven’t eaten this light in years, so I just know I’m going to chart a huge loss on the scale this week.

At least I’d better.

Happy Weigh-in Day! Today I get tangible proof of just how hard I’ve worked this week. I was antsy the whole drive over here, and now as I pull up to the storefront, I’m full of nervous energy. I park and leap out of my car. You know what? That should be their slogan—
Jenny Craig. We Will Make You Leap.

I wonder how much I’m down. Six pounds, easily. After a few days of so many fruits and vegetables, I probably peed out that much. I would not be surprised if I’ve lost more like eight. And I’d be over the moon if I hit double digits! I (almost) leap into the lobby to check in with the receptionist.

I want my weigh-ins to be as consistent as possible, so today I’m wearing the same outfit I wore last week: a Lacoste shirt—pink this time—khaki shorts, and a pair of Crocs; jewelry on, sunglasses off. (Essentially this is my summer uniform, so it’s not like getting dressed today required a lot of extra planning.)

Maggie meets me up at the front desk. Before we sit down to chat, we go back to the scale. I step on, and the digital display climbs and finally settles. And because I am
brave
, I watch the entire time.

“You lost 2.2 pounds! Nicely done!” Maggie congratulates me.

Excuse me?

“Are you joking?” I am incredulous. Why? Why so little? How come I can be good all week—fucking saintly, really—and lose only two pounds, but anytime I have one freaking dessert, boom! Five pounds, no problem. It’s not fair.

Except for one slice of pizza, I’ve followed this diet to the letter. I even turned down an opportunity to go for gelato, damn it. That alone should count for three solid pounds.

“What am I doing wrong?” I ask Maggie once we’re back in her office. Since I was here last, Maggie replaced her desk chair with one of those big, plastic exercise balls just like Dwight Schrute did on that episode of
The Office
.
¹²³
Listen; work your glutes on your own time, all right?