The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance: A Memoir (12 page)

Dr. Levin leaned over me to look at the developed picture, and I felt him place his hand gently onto my shoulder. “Don’t worry,” he said. “It will get so much better.”

Pooping Out a Fourth Grader

I celebrated my twenty-second birthday the same week I started my diet. Tina made a cake and invited a bunch of people over to celebrate. I don’t know why she made it, seeing as I obviously couldn’t partake. But she did. Not to sound like a Kathy cartoon, but the cake looked
so good
. It was chocolate and said “Elna” on it in white bubble letters.

It has my name on it
—
it clearly belongs to me,
I thought as I stared at it.
NO.
I walked away. I tried to socialize, but no matter where I was in the room, I kept looking back at that cake, drool forming in the corner of my mouth. It was like we were having a showdown. And for the first time since starting the diet, it hit me.
How realistic is this? Can a person really change?

I’d already lost seven pounds in one week, but most of it was water weight. I started to think about the goal: eighty pounds—it was so far away.
I am a person who eats cake,
I rationalized.
That’s just who I am. I like cake
. But then I remembered the catalyst for going on a diet, the Wookey mirror and the possibility of becoming the girl I’d seen in it.

You’re strong,
I felt a force within me say
. You can do this
. And so, on my birthday, I ate celery and blew out a candle held between my fingers. At the time I had no idea how important this decision was. But now I realize it was my saving grace. Afterward, when someone offered me a mini-candy bar or a donut hole I’d think,
I didn’t even eat my own birthday cake. Why would I break my diet now?

When you’re trying to change, every good decision you make adds up, and saying no gets easier because each day you have more evidence that you can. After three weeks of dieting, I went back to Philadelphia for a checkup. I’d already lost sixteen pounds. Before going on this diet I’d never lost more than two or three. It got me thinking:
How long does it take to lose weight?
On my way out of the doctor’s office, I took a look at the numbers on the Polaroids to get a better idea:
Fifty pounds, forty-three weeks,
I read.
Seventy pounds, fifty-eight weeks.
I looked at hundreds of faces. All the numbers were roughly the same. It took most people a year or more. But there was this one woman, a pear-shaped, mousy brunette in a purple tank top and she’d lost
forty pounds
in
eight weeks.

Is that even possible?
I compared her stats to all of the other Polaroids.
No, this woman is by far the fastest.
The next closest contender was a man who had lost
thirty pounds
in
seventeen weeks
. That’s when it hit me:
If a person is physically capable of losing forty pounds in eight weeks, who’s to say that I’m not physically capable of doing the same exact thing?

I went back to the forty-pound, eight-week woman and stared at her “After” picture. The same mousy pear-shaped woman, this time a few sizes smaller, innocently looked up at me. Sure she looked nice, sure she’d done something admirable, but she was about to be
destroyed
.

“You’re going down,” I said.

And just like that, I found my mission. I was going to beat the record. I was going to lose forty pounds in less than eight weeks and forever hold the title: Fastest Weight Loss Ever. Which meant in the next three and a half weeks I had to lose twenty-four pounds. Game on.

It wasn’t easy. I’d already limited my caloric intake to one thousand calories a day. Now I was going to go against the doctor’s recommendations and cut it down to seven hundred. In order to do this I’d take out three spoonfuls from my yogurt container and dump them down the drain before having the other six ounces. I’d also throw away a quarter of my protein bar, and cut out all carbohydrates. In addition to this regimen, I did extra credit.
Be sure to drink lots of water.
As soon as I woke up, I drank sixteen glasses just to get it over with. It was disgusting. I’d spit it up even as I gulped it down. But anytime I wanted to stop, I’d imagine the smug face of the purple-tank-top lady. Just knowing I could beat her reenergized me.

Exercise for at least thirty minutes a day.
I exercised for an hour and a half. In February, Manhattan was practically shut down because of a huge snowstorm, but I didn’t want to skip my morning jog. I’d made a chart, and if I skipped I couldn’t put up a sticker. So I went jogging anyway. When I got back to my apartment I was shaking so badly that Tina was worried I had hypothermia. She made me sit in a hot bath until I stopped shivering.

Sitting there, soaking in the water, I looked at myself. It was hard to tell, but I was pretty sure I looked smaller than I’d ever looked. The next morning I took the train to Philadelphia for my weigh-in. It’d been seven and a half weeks since I’d started.

And guess what?
I beat the record. I lost forty pounds and six ounces in seven and a half weeks.
Which meant, according to the diagram, that I was now officially overweight.
I’m not obese anymore. I’m overweight!
I don’t think anyone’s been happier to be overweight in the history of the world.

On my way out of the doctor’s office, I stopped in front of the Polaroid of the purple-tank-top lady to declare my victory.
I beat you . . . sucka!
Then I pumped my arms in the air and did a karate kick.
LOSER!
I pointed at her.
WINNER!
I pointed at myself. “I beat you, I beat you
. . . ,
” I chanted. “Forty pounds, eight weeks,” I reread, “I beat you . . . I beat you
—
” I stopped midsentence.
Oh, no,
I reread her numbers . . .
Forty pounds . . . that’s all she needed to lose. I have to lose eighty pounds . . . I’m only halfway there.

My legs gave out on me and I slumped down into one of the lobby chairs.
I can’t do everything I’ve done all over again,
I thought.
I’m tired, I’m hungry, I’m sick of jogging, sick of baby carrots, and sick of drinking sixteen glasses of water and burping it back up.

Bing
, the door chimed. I looked up. It was one of the nurses coming back from her lunch break. “You finished?”

No, I’m not finished, I’ ll never be finished
. “Yeah,” I managed.

“Are you alright?”

“I’m
fine
.”

“How much did you lose?”

“Forty-one pounds.”

“Wow. That’s incredible.”

And it’s funny, because it was incredible for like two seconds, until I realized what it meant.
Can a person really change?
This echoed in my mind.
Yes,
I thought.
Yes, they can.
But it was too hard for me to finish.

On the train ride home, I made a pathetic attempt to rev myself up.
You can do this
, I said.
Eighty pounds, you go girl.
It was pointless. I couldn’t even lift my arms. I needed to raise my blood sugar before I could raise my spirit.

And also, I knew—now that the purple-tank-top lady was out of the way, I had to face my toughest competitor:
me.
And when you’re competing against yourself, it’s so much harder—because you know exactly who you’re up against. I thought about the logistics of quitting halfway. If I’d never tried to lose weight, I could’ve lived in blissful ignorance, blaming my condition on bad genes and big bones. But now I recognized: There is a way, only I was incapable of it. I’m not strong enough; I don’t have that kind of willpower. I’m a failure.

The train wheels clanked as we crossed the bridge between New Jersey and Manhattan. I looked out at the city skyline and noticed something I’d never seen before: a billboard, a giant one, at least fifty stories high.

“Impossible is Nothing,” it said. “Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they’ve been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It’s an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It’s a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.”

It was a sporting goods ad and, while I knew this sign was created by people who probably employed Ecuador’s children to make a profit, I didn’t care. I practically stood up in my seat and threw my arms in the air like Rocky. It was a sign—literally.

“Impossible is Nothing,” I said. “Impossible is Nothing.”

You can do this,
a voice spoke to me. I felt a warm feeling in the center of my chest.
Just keep doing everything your doctor tells you to word for word and let time pass. Change is a combination of effort and time. Keep going.

It’s hard to describe what it feels like when God speaks to you. It’s peaceful; every little bad thought and feeling is instantly washed away and your mind feels clear. There’s a scripture in the Bible that puts it better than I ever could. Basically it says that there was a strong wind that broke the rocks into pieces, but God wasn’t in the wind, and after the wind an earthquake, but God wasn’t in the earthquake, and after the earthquake a fire, but God wasn’t in the fire, and after the fire a still, small voice, and God was in the still, small voice.

Thank you, God, thank you,
I prayed.
We can do this. I know we can.

It took me three and a half months to lose the rest of the weight. But I did it. In five and a half months I lost eighty pounds, which is the equivalent of pooping out a fourth grader. It wasn’t until Dr. Levin took my “After” Polaroid that I realized I had finished. I shook the Polaroid, murky gray, ghost version, solid—and suddenly there it was, evidence:
Impossible is Nothing.

Kissing, Take Five: Shannon

The same week that I lost forty-one pounds and beat the Fastest Weight Loss Ever record, I was invited to a Saint Patrick’s Day party at a bar on Houston Street. I’d been so focused on dieting, I hadn’t been out in two months.
Will people notice that I’m getting skinny?
I wondered.

At first it was like any other night: The bar was overcrowded, I pined after several different men, none of whom noticed me, and a drunk girl threw up on my shoe. I was in the process of cleaning it up when I suddenly felt very pathetic, like when you’re in the middle of talking to yourself and you realize you’re talking to yourself.

I looked out at the room, city streetlights glowed through the checkered windows, lighting rows and rows of heads, people. There were drinks being passed around and in one corner there was dancing. It looked fun—if glazed-over eyes, puking, and general zombie behavior can be labeled fun. But still, I wasn’t a part of it—I was moving in the opposite direction of everyone there, and in spite of how easy it was to do, I couldn’t get myself to turn around.
What am I doing here? I’m sober—it’s Saint Patrick’s Day—everyone else is wasted
.

And it’s not that I mind when people drink, but when it gets to the wee hours and everyone but me is trashed I start to feel like Will Smith in
I Am Legend,
only without the dog.

Just go home.
I pushed my way through the crowd toward the exit. “Harry Potter here I come,” I said as I swung the door open. And that is when it happened: Stepping onto the street, I practically collided with a tall, brown-haired man. We both stopped.
He’s so beautiful!
I felt a jolt in my chest.

He looked at me. I waited for him to brush by, or make an annoyed face, or yell. Instead, he held my gaze and did something no man had ever done:
He nodded his head
.

I nodded back. And then, assuming this was the extent of our exchange, I continued outside.
But wait
, I felt something—a hand on my wrist—and then,
oh, my
, I was being spun around.

“You can’t leave now,” the gorgeous man said. “I just got here.”

“Okay!” I shouted.

It was an easy sell. The beautiful man gripped my wrist, swung the door open, and pulled me back inside.

“I’m Shannon.”

“I’m Elna.”

“Let’s dance,” he yelled above the noise.

I smiled nervously and followed him to the dance floor. The song “Macarena” was playing, which I hate, but I know the dance (they teach it every year at the Mormon Halloween thing).

“You remember this?” he shouted.

“Sure,” I answered.

“Teach me.” He took a step back and waited for me to begin.

“Okay.” I put my arms out straight, flipped them over, and then crossed them tentatively. Several people were struggling to remember the moves; when they saw me, they immediately copied.

I moved my hands behind my head, I placed them on my hips, I shook my butt, I jumped, I turned, I started from the top again—everyone followed.

“You’re leading,” Shannon yelled.

“I
KNOW
,” I said in awe. We were back to the part where you turn and shake your hips. This time, when I turned, I caught him looking at my butt. Not just looking, okay, he was making a face no man had ever made—it was as though he wanted something from me.