I’ve struggled with my weight since I was a lonely eight-year-old. Before then, I was loved hard and well cared for by my Dad, stay-at-home Mom, brothers and a warm, extended family.
Then my world collapsed: My parents divorced. We moved to a smaller, uglier house. Mom went back to school while holding two and three jobs, leaving her exhausted and extremely bitter. My older brothers were teenagers, so they roamed, spent time with their girlfriends – escaped.
I was left alone a lot. I spent countless hours stuck in the house, safe but bored. I read voraciously. With two teenaged boys in the house, it was hard for Mom to keep much food in the house. But we almost always had white bread and tea. At eight, I could work the toaster and make tea, so I made toast and sweet hot tea with milk. I ate slice after slice of toast with margarine, and drank cup after cup of soothing, warm, milky tea, reading the same books over and over again.
Looking back now, I see that I was frightened, bitter, and angry. The tea and toast made me feel loved and cared for again, even if I was having to do the caring myself. This ritual was one of the few things I could do to make myself feel better. I was fairly active, for a housebound kid – I danced a lot, for example, fantasizing about my myriad multiple-personality relationships with glamorous, strong, intelligent, charming, funny people who adored me. Then I’d take a break with a tea and toast readathon.
As I grew older, I was able to get out and go to friends’ houses more. I quit eating so much toast. I played tennis and kickball, swam, walked to school. I slimmed down to the point where I was carrying maybe 20 extra pounds. But I didn’t think I’d slimmed down at all. In my mind, I was a fat girl, had always been a fat girl, would always be a fat girl. Everything in the culture seemed to bear this out.
And everything that was ever wrong with me, all my problems and unhappiness, was because of the fat. Fat thighs, fat bottom, fat face, fat arms. Not because I was depressed, angry, caustic in my interactions, especially with boys. I’d built a large fortress around myself, all right, but that fortress wasn’t made of fat – it was made of anger. Maybe I got the idea from Mother that if she hadn’t been fat, she wouldn’t be divorced - and transferred it to myself.
In high school, my best friend and I began a program of self-reclamation. She had read Kenneth Cooper's book, and decided that the answer to all our problems – or at least the ones within our control - was aerobic exercise. So we bought jump ropes (hers had to be longer than mine, since she’s taller), and went to my house for lunch every day and pursued the plan.
I made a cassette of 12-15 minutes’ worth of songs that had a beat that would produce Mr. Cooper’s magic number of jumps per minute. Because I’m a Beatles freak, the tape started with Back in the USSR, then went to I Saw Her Standing There, then Elton John’s Crocodile Rock. “Flew in from Miami Beach, BOAC…” I can still hear that music with the thwack, thwack, thwack right in time, can feel the hard plastic handles in my hands.
In case you didn’t know, 12 minutes is an eternity when you’re jumping at that rate. Try hopping up and down while swinging your arms for a solid 3 minutes if you don’t believe me. I dare you!
Another part of the program was measuring inches lost, and we did lose inches. We toned right up as our 16-year-old bodies built up stamina that I’d kill for, today, but back then seemed pitifully inadequate. We didn’t lose as much weight as we wanted. We were still fat, because we weren’t 110-120 like we thought we should be, so we’d obviously failed.
When I look at pictures taken of us at that time, I see that we weren’t really all that fat. But we thought we were huge. I’d love to be that weight again; I think I was 140 or so. From the improved vantage point thirty more years have given me, I know that 140 looks damned good on me when I’m fit and toned, as I was then. But I had no idea.
I didn’t date; had neither the confidence nor the belief that it was possible. I was hostile to boys, in a pre-emptive sort of way. No sense setting myself up for heartbreak, right? I wouldn’t be acceptable anyway because I was fat, plus even if it did work out for awhile, the guy would eventually leave you (probably because you were fat).
I had a couple of sexual encounters that I found both exciting and confusing. It was exciting for an attractive young man to pay me any sort of sexual attention, since I thought my fat self was automatically disqualified from those games. It was physically exciting and pleasurable, more so because forbidden. But I felt guilty about it, too, because I knew it was just sex – not love, not a relationship – which was what I so desperately wanted. Maybe if I could deny myself the immediate gratification of sex, I’d be rewarded with a relationship. Just like if I could deny myself the immediate gratification of my hunger, I’d lose weight.
Mom read a popular diet book of the era, and we went on the liquid protein diet the summer before I left for college. Mom did OK on it, but I did great – lost 40 pounds in six weeks. It was the easiest diet I’ve ever been on. We drank water and small amounts of this incredibly nasty liquid made from rawhides. My friend used to call it sucking hides. After a couple of days, you went into ketosis (yes, like Atkins talks about) and stopped being hungry altogether. It was easy to stick to, because there was absolutely no grey area. I was either eating nothing, or I was cheating. The not being hungry part really helped, and motivation stayed high because I was losing so quickly.
It worked like a charm. I was down to 122 before my stepmother tempted me off the diet with a favorite food: oily, salty roasted almonds. The diet made her nervous; it sounded unhealthy. She and Dad told me I looked perfect, anyway. They bought me a bunch of off-to-college clothes in sizes I was proud of. I went off to college with a new, slim body and my best diet buddy as a roommate.
Luckily, the food in the dorm was unremarkable, and we couldn’t afford eating out often. Neither of us had a car, so we walked a lot. It was a big campus; I’m sure that helped keep the weight off, despite going off the diet without a “retraining” plan of moderate, sensible eating.
Unfortunately, I was still carrying around all the same anger and baggage from my garden-variety childhood divorce trauma. And my old habit of eating for comfort was waiting to spring into action when I needed it.
That summer, I went home and worked as a cocktail waitress to amass some spending money. I enjoyed that time; I looked good, felt good. It was 1978, after free love but before AIDS. I drank amaretto sours at work, but they didn’t really put on the pounds, since I was going to the beach during the days, and spending my evenings on my feet carrying trays full of drinks.
I didn’t need much comfort until the next school term started. I fought with my Dad over getting an apartment instead of living in the dorm. He thought I’d be sexually active if I lived in an apartment, apparently not realizing that battle had been lost. Because he was paying the tab, he eventually won. My friend had paired up with another roommate by then, so I ended up alone again, holed up in a study lounge instead of a regular room, with three strangers.
At the end of my first miserable week, a shady, criminal-type bartender guy I had been seeing over the summer called to find out how school was going. I confessed I was miserable; Sharon was occupied with her new roommate, I was lonely, I hated my classes. He offered to come get me and my stuff, and take me back to my hometown to live with him.
The very thought of doing something so outside my script, and my parents’ and friends’ scripts, was exhilarating. It would take me out of the current misery. I knew it was a bad idea, but at least it was daring, taking action, creating a different reality. I was still pissed at Dad for fighting me on the apartment thing, not trusting me to live my own life, and landing me in the study lounge with a bunch of strangers. Contemplating his reaction to the news that I would be moving in with an undereducated Hispanic guy was the final deciding factor.
He’d neglected to mention that he was living with his mother at the time. When I was dating him, he shared an apartment with some friends. His mother wasn’t too happy to see this Guera showing up with her matching suitcases, but she let me move in on a temporary basis.
During that fall and winter, I learned to make homemade tortillas, caldo, even tamales at Christmas under the tutelage of various abuelitas and tias. I also learned that although it was good to take charge of one’s life and pursue happiness, I really did need to select my boyfriends with more care. I learned a lot about the Hispanic culture and the class system in my little hometown. I learned that I could earn a living without help from my family. I also discovered that my middle-class, educated family was a blessing, not something to discard in a moment of immature pique.
And I began to see the damage to my self-esteem my parents’ divorce had caused. I was willing to go way too far to keep a man’s interest. It wasn’t pretty. I still cringe to remember the time when he asked me if I was willing to have sex with some friends of his while he watched. Though he didn’t say so, I’m sure he planned to charge them for the privilege. I should have seen it coming, of course; I should have never put myself in that position, or spent more than 10 minutes with a guy who’d come up with that scheme.
But if I’d never gone through that, I’d never know where my limits are, or that I have the ability to enforce those limits. Looking back on it now, I’m proud that I could say no, did say no, meant no, made the no stick. And got the hell out of there.
I grew out of that relationship, finally, and got back to school in my own apartment in my college town, with family support reestablished. I was still fairly slim and attractive, dated some, but never as much as I wanted. I felt obligated to have sex to keep a guy’s romantic interest. It didn’t occur to me that I had more to offer than sex, and that without any other shared experience, once that prize was won, the game was over.
I guess I thought that because Dad left Mom for the younger, more attractive woman, sex was all that mattered to men. But as time went on, I became more experienced and self-assured. I began to feel my personal power more, and require more from my relationships. I began to show people more of myself, which in turn attracted boys to me who were more in line with my own background and value system.
My epiphany came when a boy I was seeing dumped me, but I was OK with it. I was disappointed, but secure enough in myself to truly know that I was fully worthy of this relationship and more, and that because I had let him all the way in to my heart and mind, there really wasn’t anything else for me to offer.
My relationship with food was evolving, too. I discovered that, even as a poor college student, I could eat differently than we did when I was growing up. I could buy butter instead of margarine, make my own whole wheat bread, keep a big bowl of fruit around, that I actually enjoyed spinach if it didn’t come in a box or a can.
I was working at the university and going to school, commuting 16 miles a day on my bike. I was in great shape. I felt good about myself. At this juncture, my personal power peak, I got involved with the man who became my husband. Our 20th anniversary is next June.
He is a very talented, intelligent, sensitive, creative person. We were drawn to each other immediately, fiercely. It was great to be able to love someone as hard and deeply as I could, and have that intensity returned full force. It was physically and emotionally uncomfortable being apart from him; I knew he loved and accepted me as I was.
I slowly, steadily gained weight after I began seeing him. Now, I think that was because I felt that, to keep him, I had to take care of him, and I stopped taking care of myself. I fell right back into that familiar eat-for-comfort pattern. It wasn’t tea and toast anymore, but it was just as damaging.
By the time we married, I was at 170 pounds, again thinking I was the fattest slob ever born. I’d lose 10 pounds here or there on some fad diet – Cambridge, Atkins, Weight Watchers – and then feel better, go off the diet, and the weight would creep back on, because I hadn’t changed the underlying dynamic. My weight spiraled upward in that too-familiar pattern of lose X, quit the diet, gain X + Y.
When I got near to 200 pounds, I panicked. Everyone has The Number That Must Not Be Named (TNTMNBN), a weight over which they’re completely disgusted with themselves; 200 pounds is mine. At 5’ 3” and a half, 200 represents to me a completely unacceptable weight. It’s one of those thresholds of fatness where your fat-denial tricks stop working for you. You know the tricks I mean, I’m sure you have your own arsenal of them. Miracle pants - the ones that, because of their cut, fit you in a smaller-than-usual size. Wearing black on bottom, or all over. Spandex undergarments. New haircolor or hairstyle, makeup, clothes. It’s territory when denial gets stripped away in the department store’s 3-way mirror.
Chastened, I went back to Weight Watchers, where I weighed in at 200.2. I was so mad! I was past TNTMNBN! I disgusted myself!
The shock of my unacceptable all-time-high weight was good motivation. I stuck diligently with the program, lost my 1-2 pounds per week until I was down 30, to 170. I was feeling sassy, happy, pleased with myself – sexy. So of course I got pregnant.
I had wanted a baby for so long, I wasn’t sorry. I’ve always known how to eat healthy, but I needed Weight Watchers to develop the habit of eating healthy. I gained relatively little while I was pregnant, though I stopped going to meetings after awhile, as they didn’t seem to pertain to me, with everybody else reporting losses.
I was finally able to take excellent care of myself. As the deserving vessel of the treasured babe, I pampered myself, fed myself healthy stuff, simply glowed. My diet buddy and I were walking, then running, at the track at lunchtime. I even ran two 10K races, feeling like a goddess.
After my son was born, though, all that self-care went right out the window. He cried seemingly nonstop. For someone used to feeling super-competent in her work life, motherhood was a shock. I felt inadequate, inexperienced, overwhelmed. And exhausted! I was unwilling to give up my career, but feeling incredibly guilty for every moment spent away. I made it up to my son by dedicating every nonworking, waking moment to his service. The 30 hard-lost pounds crept steadily back on.
Having a child has helped my husband and me grow in ways we hadn’t managed before. It helped me turn the corner and stop caring for my husband – I was caring for the baby, instead. And my husband has risen to the challenge, and can take care of himself quite well. But I’m still stuck in my servant mindset, feeling guilty for any moment to myself, but increasingly desperate to have them. My son is 5 now, and is separating from me emotionally and physically in a very healthy, age-appropriate way, despite my efforts to cling. So it’s time to care for myself again.
I know that Weight Watchers works; it’s worked for me in the past, even though I’ve never gone “all the way.” I’ve been on the program for three years now, with month or two break here and there, always flirting with “The Number That Must Not Be Named.” When I lose focus and think I’m just going to give up, my weight creeps back up toward that number, and I’m motivated enough to start again. And again. And again.
I’ve heard some great advice from Weight Watchers leaders, read some advice on the Weight Watchers chat site that really help. All that time in all those meetings hasn’t gone to waste!
Connie, my at-work leader, says, “Just keep coming. Whatever you do, don’t give up. Decide that this is the time you’re going to see it through, no matter how long it takes.”
That comment has kept me going to Weight Watchers steadily for three years, even when I’ve cheated, even when I feel like giving up. I have hovered around TNTMNBN, but without some continuous effort, I’m convinced I would be 50 pounds heavier by now.
On the Weight Watchers chat site, a woman who’d been at goal for years wrote that she thought of her ability to do right by herself as a sadly underused muscle that needed development. Each time she chose to follow program or exercise, or relax when she was stressed, she was exercising that poor little muscle. And that every time she did the right thing, no matter how small, the muscle got bigger, and it got a little easier to do the right thing next time.
So I’m taking care of myself every time I have a skinny cow instead of a bowl of Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla. Every time I have diet cocoa or black coffee instead of a Starbucks venti chai latte.
Sue, a substitute leader, was going over the program with us. I was half-listening as usual, since I think I know everything, and because I’ve joined so many times, I really do have most of the basics down. Sue said casually, “When you’re figuring the points for food, round up – because, after all, our goal is to lose weight.”
Our goal is to lose weight. That astounded me! I mean, right, of course, I knew that. But it hit me that the goal is NOT:
- To eat everything I’ve got coming to me (dammit) and moan and pout when there’s no more.
- To explore the outer limits of what’s acceptable on the program; never mind what’s recommended, or what’s common sense.
- To show up each week secretly hoping for a loss, even though I’ve been cheating all week, then feeling cheated myself when I didn’t lose.
- To somehow game the system and stay fat despite feeling like I’m following the program.
This time, I’m determined not to quit. This time, I’m going to stick with it until I reach my goal. I’m taking care of myself every time I step through that door to attend a meeting, every time I enter the gym at work, every time I go for a bike ride, or a walk in the park.
I’m still hovering way too close to TNTMNBN. But I’m not gaining, either. So BY GOD (as my Grandma used to say with gritted teeth), I’m not going to quit until I’m at my goal and can stay there.
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