Reality Bites

So after beating myself up all day about gaining weight, I was in a pretty shitty mood last night. I made supper, which cheered me up a little, and I sat down to eat. My girlfriend was excited about the Greek wraps (with homemade hummus, made with only garbanzo beans and the juice from the can instead of olive oil, plus some lemon juice and garlic and tons of spices) and saganaki (baked, not fried, with some fresh baked pita chips). I was excited, too, because I've been CRAVING saganaki for weeks. I remarked that I was happy I had waited until she bought some cheese so I could make it, instead of caving and ordering the fried and breaded saganaki from our favorite Greek restaurant.

That's when I realized that, although I feel like I've totally let myself go for the past month, the reality is that I am still doing LEAGUES better than I would have been without Weight Watchers. Without having to track everything, I wouldn't have thought twice about picking up saganaki, plus some spanikopita, plus a whole order of baklava for dessert. I would have had three pieces of pie on Christmas instead of splitting a piece with my girlfriend. I would have eaten a whole bag of Hershey's Miniatures instead of picking out six and giving the rest away. I would have gone out to eat and ordered two appetizers, an entree, and dessert, all while drinking a regular soda and maybe topping it off with a Mudslide.

So yeah, it feels like I've fucked up. It seems like I've given up and gained all of my weight back.

But it's not so bad. I'm not so bad. I'm bad, but not as bad as I could be.

Which is pretty good.

Backtracking A.K.A. HOLIDAY BINGE FEST 2013

I am growing steadily fatter.

At 209 pounds, I was pretty fat. But since that was after losing 95 pounds, 209 did not seem very fat compared with being 304 pounds.

Now, though, I'm back to 215 pounds and I can see how easy it would be to let go and slide back into my old habits and end up 300 pounds again. Or more.

I've been tracking everything on my Weight Watchers app, but it doesn't do much good to track when you go over your Point allotment by 84 Points, as I did last week. Or 34 Points like this week. In fact, I've gone over my Points EVERY WEEK since before Thanksgiving. It's gotten so easy.

Now I'm back to the weight I was at in October. Three months of tracking, of passing shit up because, "No, thanks, I'm on Weight Watchers," three months of weigh ins and diet soda...three months and I'm back to where I was before Halloween. Fat. Fatter. Getting fatter by the minute.

I need to put on the brakes but it's hard. REALLY FUCKING HARD. This feels like starting over again.

Maybe I should actually start over again? Pretend like I'm 215 pounds and just now starting Weight Watchers. They have a new Simple Start plan that looks promising, and New Year's Day is less than 36 hours away. But if I say I'm starting on 1/1, I know there's a lot of damage I can do in a day.

So I'll keep tracking, even though the holidays have made me feel completely out of control. I feel like a food monster and I can't stop eating. So I'll eat, I'll track, and I'll hope that 2014 is really a new start.

Fuck Christmas, And Fuck Duck Dynasty

On Weight Watchers, you're allowed 49 weekly Points to use at your discretion so you can supplement your daily Points allowance. This week, I not only blew through those 49 Points before the week was half over--I also went over those Points by 84 Points.

EIGHTY FOUR POINTS.

84.

Fuck.

I get 33 Points per day. (33x7)+49+84= 364. So I've had 364 Points this week.

That's the same as 91 Cadbury Cream Eggs. Or 5.7 gallons of marinara sauce. Or over 7 and a half pounds of grated cheddar.

Gross.

I blame Christmas. I mean, okay, I truthfully blame myself and my weakness and my emotional overeating and my utter lack of willpower. But I do blame Christmas too. Why does it have to be so delicious? Why does everything have to look so tempting and be so easy to grab? And why do I have to put up with my family, mostly my father, while still struggling to push aside all of the hurt feelings and shitty self esteem they left me with after high school?

This Duck Dynasty business has left me feeling really sad because my dad, who claims to love me and who seems to also really love my girlfriend of eight years, is so vigorously opposed to A&E firing the dude. I've written here and there about what a dick my dad is, so my dad supporting a bigot and failing to consider my feelings is definitely not shocking. But it is sad. It hurts when I see friends on Facebook posting pictures rallying against A&E's awesome decision to fire Phil, and it hurts even more to hear my dad saying shit like, "This is great because the pendulum will start to swing the other way now. The right people are going to start taking back the country, and Obama will go back to the ghetto where he belongs." My dad's total ignorance of government and morality aside, it just feels so wrong to have a father essentially telling his daughter, "Hey, I'm so glad that we're going to continue to deny you equal rights, and hopefully we'll be able to take away your rights completely! Oh yeah, and you're definitely going to hell! Sorry-not-sorry!"

My dad isn't even religious. I've read more of the bible than him. He went to Catholic school so he pretty much just hates God now, and he's never ever expressed any concern about my soul. So why does he care if my girlfriend and I get married? Seriously, my parents like her more than they like me. Why would he want us kept apart? And why does he care so much if some semi-scripted 'reality' tv star lost his job after making totally asinine and cruel and ignorant and intolerant statements to fucking GQ? Really? Why?

 

But talking to him is pointless. I can't even begin the debate because as soon as he starts in, I already feel defeated and close to tears. I start thinking about how many times I thought about killing myself. How many times I came close. He doesn't know about any of it. I think about how truly surprised I was to find I had made it out of high school without slitting my wrists. I think about sitting in my bathroom with the cold blade of my favorite scissors pressed against my vein, debating with myself if my parents would be more disappointed in me for being a lesbian or for committing suicide. I think about the fear and shame I felt before I came out, and the fear I still feel sometimes just holding my girlfriend's hand in the 'wrong' environments. I think about the confusion I felt when I first realized that I liked girls and the terror I felt knowing it was 'wrong' to feel that way.

I think about these things and I can't have a rational conversation with him because it's not rational at all. People are making remarks, right or wrong, that are making young people want to kill themselves rather than live in a world that hates them. Why is that okay? Why wouldn't any rational person want to stop those words from being broadcast to young people who are still trying to understand their sexuality?

So on top of the normal stressful family Christmas, I also got to shield myself all day from Duck Dynasty conversations. Instead, I steered myself to the dessert table to ate until all I could think about was how full my stomach was. I tracked everything I ate, but I didn't even try to moderate myself. I was in a FUCKITALL mood and just didn't care. Now, of course, I'm still stressed and I'm feeling even more anxious about having Christmas dinner tomorrow with my dad and my great uncle who is even more of a bigot than my dad. But on top of all that, I'm also just sick with regret at how much I ate, and disappointment in myself.

Still, even though I want to say Fuck Christmas, I don't really mean it. I love Christmas, I love my dad (way deep down where it's hard to see sometimes), and I'm proud of myself for how far I've come. As long as I get over this pity party and make it through the next 24 hours, I can regroup, lose the Christmas fat, and put all of this behind me.

Fatty Fatty Two By Four

I'm having a fat day.

Make that a fat week.

You know how some girls have bad hair days? Well, my hair is frizzy and I hate it 90% of the time, so every day is basically a bad hair day. And until the past few months, I was always aware of my fat so EVERY day was a fat day too.

Things started changing, ever so slowly. I went from constantly thinking about my size to finally, after so many years of morbid obesity, allowing myself to concentrate on my life instead of my fat. I have fat days, but not single fucking day is a fat day. Not all of my thoughts revolve around being fat. I've been able to go to antique malls and actually shop, instead of spending my time in there carefully squeezing between shelves of glassware and praying that I don't knock over a $500 vase with my gut. I went to the mall and strolled into Victoria's Secret without flushing with the embarrassment of knowing every salesperson was wondering why someone my size was in their tiny store. Last week, I wore a pair of underwear that kept rolling down and I could feel my stomach hanging out when I sat down, but that annoying and uncomfortable day made me realize that I used to feel like that EVERY day. So things have been pretty awesome.

Now, unfortunately, I'm having a fat day and with good reason. I'm getting fatter. Plus, I'm in a rough spot. I'm so close to my next goal of being under 200 pounds, and I'm also right on top of Christmas and New Year's, two gluttonous holidays. Maybe not for everyone, but my sweet tooth really makes Christmas intolerable while trying to lose weight.

Can't...stop...eating...

Everyone around me knows I'm on Weight Watchers and that I've lost close to 100 pounds since last August, so people for the most part have been great about not tempting me with treats. My coworkers and family also know that I am utterly powerless around sweets, so they've even made an effort to have fruit and veggies around, and I offer to bring healthy sides to pitch-ins and family dinners. Still, there's really no avoiding sweets. One of my employees brought a bag of candy--mini Snickers, mini Twix, Hershey Kisses, Rolos, etc. I started off with one piece, then another, and before I knew it...the whole fucking bag was gone by noon today. Less than four hours and I inhaled 12 Points worth of candy.

Then I came home and my mom dropped by. She brought me some peanut butter balls (which most people call Buckeyes) and I ate two of them, followed by a fresh chocolate chip cookie. I meant to leave one for my girlfriend but...nope. I ate them all. Eight more Points down.

This week, I'm really ashamed to admit that I've gone over my weekly Points by THIRTY. Seriously. 3-0. I had Olive Garden one day, a pumpkin roll another day, more cookies and candy than I usually eat in a month. It's been delicious but terrible.

My consolation is that I am at least tracking, and tracking honestly. When I step on the scale next, I'll know exactly where each added pound came from. Then I can turn it around, hopefully.

I need to start working on my New Years Resolutions, but right now I'm just trying to make it to New Year's without fucking up all the progress I made in 2013.

So yeah, I'm having a fat day. A fat week. I've gained three pounds since my Wednesday weigh-in, and I'm still plowing through food like a ravenous goat. But at least it's a fat day now, and not a fat life. I've made some progress, even if it doesn't feel like much.

Back On Track

After several weeks of exceeding my Weight Watchers Points (like, by 50 Points! That's like just eating an entire pie, with toppings!) I finally managed to stay mostly within my allotment for the week. Okay, to be honest, I counted two hours of walking yesterday just so I wouldn't go over, even though my 'walking' was really taking an extremely slow shuffling tour of a Masonic temple with some elderly people, one of whom was wearing a prosthetic leg, so I probably shouldn't have counted this as exercise. But anyway, I stayed close to my Points and it paid off.

Down 3.2 pounds this week! That brings me to 208.8 pounds, down 95.2 from 304 pounds. Slowly but surely, right? I'm getting pretty close to losing 100 pounds, which is pretty awesome for me. Also, while I was at weigh-in, I saw someone who I haven't seen in a year or so and she was amazed at how much I've lost. It's so incredible to have people tell me how great I look! That's something you just don't hear much when you're over 300 pounds.

So even though I'm sitting here with a half-eaten plate of Christmas cookies on my desk, I still feel like I'm back on track. I'm trimming back, counting the Points of everything I eat, and trying to stick to my daily Weight Watchers goals. It's not easy with so much holiday cheer being passed around in the form of calorie-laden treats, but I'm getting much better at saying NO. "No, thanks! That looks great but I'm on Weight Watchers." It was embarrassing last year. Really, at close to 300 pounds (I was making some progress by Christmas last year) I felt like people were laughing at me when I said I was on a diet. I could almost hear them thinking "Sure, this bitch is dieting! I bet she steals cookies when our backs are turned and eats them in the bathroom." But now that I can see so much progress, I feel a little proud to tell people I'm sticking with Weight Watchers and passing on the treats.

I still eat what I want, but my Planned Indulgences list is working wonders for me. I still plan to splurge on some eggnog, one of those Hershey Kiss cookies, a Christmas Snickers when I get my stocking, and the full meal on Christmas Day. But knowing that I'm going to eat that delicious shit soon makes it SO much easier to say "No, thanks!" to the sugar cookies, chocolate covered pretzels, and candied nuts I see every day now.

I'm still hoping to lose a few more pounds before the end of the year, mostly because my work gives us gift cards if we work out enough or lose enough weight to earn one. I'm close but not quite there, and I could really use a $50 Target shopping spree!

As long as Christmas doesn't derail my Weight Watchers train, I should be down a few pounds by New Year's!

Dying Without Dignity

My grandma might be dying.

She's in the ICU with carbon monoxide poisoning. She's been virtually unresponsive for several days. The doctors are talking tracheotomy or breathing tube, life support, and saying she will never be well again. I'm not sure if she's going to make it.

One of the things that makes me sick is that, if she does end up not making it, one of her last memories will be of EIGHT nurses crowded around her, rolling their eyes, struggling to lift her to make her more comfortable, enduring their disgust and exasperation, while she cries out for them to stop because she's scared and in pain and having EIGHT nurses hovering over her is stressful and humiliating.

I've written about my grandmother and her weight struggles before. My grandma weighed around 460 pounds the last time she was in the hospital. This time, they said she's gained at least 50 pounds of water weight in the past few months, so I'm positive she is over 500 pounds now.

Which is huge. Truly. But, when you think about it, 300 pounds is really pretty far along on the way to 500. I can't judge her for weighing 500 pounds, when I was over 300 and growing steadily. I can see how easy it would be to give in and add a few pounds, year by year, until you finally realize you're 500 pounds. So, like I said, I'm definitely not judging her.

But I CAN judge the hospital staff for making her feel so fucking miserable about it. She's barely conscious right now but when she does wake up, it's because these disgusted nurses are shoving her around like she's a cow carcass. When she woke up long enough to complain about her discomfort in the position she was in, they brought in a CRANE. It was this lift machine that they use for bariatric patients where they strap you in to this harness and hook you into this crane to wench you up above the bed and settle you back in. Picture the thing they used in Free Willy to get the whale to the beach. That's what they tried to use on my grandma.

I've had my own really uncomfortable and shame-inducing experiences with hospital staff. So has my mom. The indignity of those tiny gowns, the grunts and groans of staff members heaving you from one bed to another, the shame knowing that you won't fit into the machines they need to shove you into, the humiliation of hearing "We can't get a good reading because there's too much fat in the way."

It was terrible for me. I still have nightmares about it. It makes me physically ill that my mom went through it. But now that my grandmother might take her last breath at any minute, it's a real, visceral pain I feel thinking of the shame and humiliation Meme has felt before she'll soon slip away.

My grandfather is devastated. He has spent the last decades of his life caring for my grandmother. Leading her to the bathroom and wiping her when she's done, showering her and brushing her hair because her arms are so heavy she can't keep them up long, lifting her stomach to pat her down with baby powder to avoid getting those fat-girl yeast infections. He's devoted 24 hours a day to her care, and now he's blaming himself for not being able to protect her from this. From dying. From indignity.

It's so hard to know that my grandmother is dying. It's much harder to know that she's dying without dignity. All I can do is work hard now to avoid the same fate myself, but what can I do for her? I feel so powerless, and so sad.

Feeling Like a Failure

It's the holidays.

I have to keep reminding myself of that. Well, actually, other people keep reminding me of that. Especially since my weigh in today. I gained 2.4 pounds since last week. Now I'm back up to 212 pounds. That's a big difference from the 304 pounds I started at, but also a far cry from where I wanted to be by now.

Seriously, though, Weight Watchers is making me start to hate the holidays. As much as I love getting into the Christmas spirit, I find it hard to separate the awesomeness of the season from the awesome treats that are around every corner. Gingerbread cookies, eggnog milkshakes, peppermint mochas, red and green Rice Krispy treats, Christmas tree-shaped Snickers, festive M&Ms, white chocolate Oreos, cupcakes with sprinkles...not to mention the beautiful buffets of cheeseballs, crackers, nachos, finger sandwiches, creamy dips, warm casseroles...it's enough to make me go fucking crazy.

Being a food addict (which, lets face it, I totally am) around the holidays is TOUGH, man. I mean, really tough. And it's so easy to indulge. You know, like, it's Christmas. It's once a year. Might as well have that white chocolate shake and finish it off with some cinnamon sugar cookies, right?

And I am really bad at succumbing to peer pressure. I've been so strong all year, but now I have people offering me treats and candy with the unintentionally evil, "Oh, you've done so well, you deserve this!" Or, "It's Christmas--time to reward yourself!"

It's obviously not doing good things for me.

On top of all the food, the weather here SUCKS so going outside for anything is a nightmare. I have resigned myself to the fact that I am just not good at pushing myself to get on the treadmill. So instead, I've been hibernating. My cardiac rehab therapy sessions are over, so instead of spending an hour at the hospital working out three times a week, I instead go home and start snacking until I decide on supper.

Plus, I've really fallen out of the habit of tracking my daily "Healthy Checks" on the Weight Watchers app. That whole eight glasses of water/three servings of dairy/five servings of fruit an veggies/two servings of healthy oils has been LONG GONE for me. Instead of eating an apple in the afternoon, I have a cookie. Instead of snacking on cherry tomatoes, I eat Chex Mix.

So today, I'm recommitting. I have a glass of water at my desk (for the first time in a couple months, really). I have two servings of veggies with my lunch. And I'm actually tracking it all. I've just come too far to ruin it all now, so I'm going back to the basics.

I felt terrible last Christmas, but I somehow made it through and kept losing weight, despite the food traps along the way.

Hopefully next week I'll be back under 210 pounds. That would be a nice Christmas present to myself. Much better than another glass of eggnog (okay, maybe not MUCH better, but definitely preferable in the long run!).

Gobble, Gobble

No matter how much weight I lose, I am still a fat girl at heart.

I think I always will be.

31 years of overeating can't be reversed by one year of Weight Watchers. Sure, I undid a lot of damage. I shed almost 100 pounds. I've learned portion control and built healthy eating habits.

But my brain is the brain of a fat girl. Nothing reinforces that more than food-centered events like Thanksgiving.

This year, like last year, I spent the few weeks leading up to Thanksgiving slowly panicking about food. What I would eat, how much I would eat, how much I would gain from eating. I pre-tracked my food in the Weight Watchers app and kept going back to balance out my Points. "Okay, maybe I can change the serving of mashed potatoes to a half serving so I can increase my dinner roll from a half to a full...and maybe I can only have a quarter of a slice of pumpkin pie (haha, yeah right, a quarter of a slice) so I can have a teaspoon of real butter instead of a spray butter..."

I had to eat twice again this year, once at my parents' and once at my girlfriend's family's. I must have gone into the WW app 25 times to change what I planned to eat. Luckily, the pre-tracking kind of worked for me. I knew what I could and couldn't have, and I didn't end up freaking out at the end of the day after accidentally going over my Points. I'm also aware now of just how much my family influences me to overeat, and I swallowed a couple Xanax to help cope with all of the food and emotional landmines my parents put in front of me. I came armed with a fruit salad I whipped up, made entirely of fresh fruit (pomegranate, pineapple, cranberries, apple, lime juice) topped with stevia and some pumpkin pie spice. Zero Points, so I had something to snack on whenever the cream puffs and cheese ball started calling my name. I felt really prepared.

I did face a somewhat unexpected hurdle, however: some CRAZY intense guilt over eating so much. Even though I tracked and knew exactly what I was eating, and I'd planned it all so meticulously, I still just felt incredibly gross and guilty for eating as much as I did. I was stuffed. Really stuffed. My family thinks it's funny that a vegetarian can get so full at a meat-centric feast, but I completely gorged myself. I was careful to be realistic about measuring my food and eyeballing what I couldn't measure, but even eating the small portions didn't make me feel better. After my meal, I felt the same sort of shame that I used to feel as a child after touching myself...like, dirty and embarrassed and ashamed and worried that my palms would grow hair. Or, well, in this case worried that I would gain 10 pounds overnight (which does totally happen to me, as scientifically impossible as that may seem).

Really, it was a terrible, sickening, and stomach-churning guilt. Maybe some of the churning was from the four deviled eggs I ate, or the mound of green bean casserole, but most of it was from a very uncomfortable inner monologue that went something like, "Gross. Why are you eating all of this? Ugh, why is it so so delicious? Seriously though, what are you doing? You're going to derail and defeat yourself. You've been making progress and here you go, throwing it all away from some toasted marshmallows baked on top of sweet potatoes...mmm sweet potatoes...stop it! Stop eating! Oh but it's so good..." I started to feel a little crazy and obsessive by the end of the day. And as I predicted, I still gained about five pounds this morning. And, naturally, that weight gain justified my shame and guilt, so now I feel even worse about eating so much.

That didn't stop me from bringing home some leftovers, though, or from polishing off the pecan tassies before I even went to bed last night (and subsequently using up the very last of my weekly Points allowance only ONE DAY into my Weight Watchers week...meaning I won't get more weekly Points until next Wednesday...). This food shaming is a new development for me, and I hate it. I hate it almost as much as I hate being hungry all the time.

But I'm still truckin' along. I'm too close to being under 200 pounds to even think about quitting. I may still be a fat girl inside but, on the outside, that fat girl is melting away, slowly but surely.

Keep On Keepin' On

I am now officially smaller than I have been in my entire adult life.

I weighed in at my Weight Watchers At Work meeting today and was down 5 pounds for the week...which brings me down to 209.2 pounds. UNDER 210 POUNDS!

Total lost? 94.8 pounds.

That's, like...unimaginable. I weighed 304 pounds last August. Now, I'm literally smaller than I was in high school. I'm sitting here in size 17 skinny jeans, knee high boots, and a size 14 vest. WHAT?!

I'm still having trouble feeling like I'm that much smaller, though. I mean, I feel amazing, but I think that's like 75% having a heart valve that actually works and 25% being smaller.

But it doesn't matter. I AM losing weight, and everyone around me is commenting on it, and it's awesome.

When I entered my new weight into my Weight Watchers app, it let me know that I actually hit the last goal I set. I've been resetting my goal by 10 or 15 pounds at a time because, seriously, having a goal of losing 100+ pounds at the beginning would have just overwhelmed me and I would have quit this shit a year ago. So my latest goal was 210 pounds, which was a big deal for me because I can't remember ever being under 210 pounds since middle school I think.

Forced to reset my goal, I went with around 10 pounds less than my current weight. I SET MY GOAL AT 199 POUNDS. That's just...I mean, you can't understand if you haven't been there, but that's just fucking mindblowing. Not only am I actually aiming for less than 200 pounds...but it's attainable! Like, within 10 pounds! I couldn't help the tears forming in my eyes. After spending basically a lifetime weighing more than 200 pounds (which is such a shameful, stigmatized thing for a woman), I am now within sight of 199 pounds.

Fucking incredible. 

Lesbian Pants

I had a few nice moments today.

I was on a fun work trip to reward our top performers and saw quite a few colleagues from other departments--many of them haven't seen me in months, so I was delighted (and a little embarrassed) to find myself complimented throughout the day. Everyone was amazed at how healthy I look, both from the weight loss and from the heart surgery. Instead of hanging out at the snack table guiltily devouring cookies and pumpkin pie cheesecake, I talked to people about hiking, camping, bicycling, and basically being a normal adult. It was pretty awesome!

I also was really happy to be able to get on and off of the bus without feeling like I was squeezing down the aisles and hitting people's elbows with my stomach and ass. What a difference.

Plus, when I went on this same trip last year, I could barely walk around. I was so fatigued and winded from the heart and breathing problems that even walking from the bus to my table inside was difficult. This year, I couldn't wait to do more. We played paintball last year and, although it was totally totally fun and I really really love shooting at people, I ended up having an asthma attack merely walking out to the starting line. I spent the entire game last year wheezing and desperately hiding behind a wall while my face mask fogged up with my heavy breathing. I had to sit out the second game, and barely survived the third. This year...totally opposite! I was active, I ran behind targets, and I (along with my assistant manager) ended up winning against three guys! I'm a really good shot, and being able to scamper around the game site this year gave me much better vantage points from which to totally demolish the guys! I did get hit in the face (thank goodness for masks) but it was still awesome.

But one of the greatest things was my pants. I've had this pair of camouflage pants for years and years. I call them my lesbian pants. I wore them in college when I was going through my militant phase, and they always make me feel cool. They're baggy camo cargo pants that hung low on my hips, and they're so worn that the bottom few inches have torn away. They're splattered with paint and starting to get little holes, but I love them and used to wear them all the time. When I finally gained enough weight that I couldn't wear them, I kept them in my closet hoping that one day I could put them on again. Last year, I had only been on Weight Watchers for three months when I went paintballing but I decided to try on the pants...and they fit! They were tight, but I could wear them and felt like a badass again.

I wanted to wear them again this year because, well, I don't exactly have many paintball clothes nowadays and what's better for paintballing than camouflage? So I put them on this morning and they were TOO BIG! They hung down on my hips like they used to, and maybe even a little more. I wore them anyway with a tank top, long sleeved shirt, fleece vest, and hoodie (it was cold and I wanted lots of layers in case I got hit). I ended up having to keep one hand on my waistband the entire time I was paintballing because my pants kept slipping off! Like, my pants are literally FALLING OFF OF ME. That is so amazing. Pants that a year ago I was celebrating fitting into are now too big!

I'm sure I can find some way to repurpose the pants, but I don't think I can wear them again--at least not without a belt! What an awesome feeling.

Abs of Jelly

It's so awesome to be able to dress my age again. I mean, I'm only 31. I felt like a gross old lady every time I went to work wearing yoga pants (knowing very well that I was NOT going to practice any yoga) and Crocs and cardigans. I spent almost two years in tent dresses and flip flops all summer, then "dress" sweats and baggy sweaters all winter.

This is my first real Fall since so long ago. I can wear real jeans again, and cute, form-fitting sweaters, with fitted jackets and knee-high riding boots. It's amazing.

But as much as I'm loving the ability to wear jeans, I am still facing the problem I've had for years: my Gonzo-nose stomach. Even though I'm smaller now, I'm still virtually the same shape. I have the same lumps and flab, and my stomach is still big and soft. It hangs down (the ultra-embarrassing, often unspoken of, dreaded pannus ::shudder::). It bulges out. And, hardest to conceal, it pooches out right above my bellybutton. If I wear jeans that come to my bellybutton or below, it doesn't matter if they fit me or even if they're too big: my stomach roll sticks out over my pants.

My only solution is to wear pants that come above my bellybutton. Like, mom jeans that come up high and act as a girdle, or maternity-type pants that unfold to form a flat surface up my torso. I do have some Spanx but, let's face it, I'm not putting that much effort into beautifying myself for work. And I have those slimming camisoles that keep everything smooth, but they roll up sometimes and they're just not very comfortable pushing down on my healing heart surgery scars.

While I continue to fight my own battle of the bulge using my wardrobe as a weapon, I'm also fighting on another front: from the inside. I saw some people posting challenges on Facebook and decided to try one. Then...I decided to try another. Now I'm doing two different month long ab challenges, and...I'm secretly loving it!

The first one is the 30 Day Plank Challenge:

The 30 Day Plank Challenge will send your core strength through the roof!
Day 1 - 20 seconds
Day 2 - 20 seconds
Day 3 - 30 seconds
Day 4 - 30 seconds
Day 5 - 40 seconds
Day 6 - REST
Day 7 - 45 seconds
Day 8 - 45 seconds
Day 9 - 60 seconds
Day 10 - 60 seconds
Day 11 - 60 seconds
Day 12 - 90 seconds
Day 13 - REST
Day 14 - 90 seconds
Day 15 - 90 seconds
Day 16 - 120 seconds
Day 17 - 120 seconds
Day 18 - 150 seconds
Day 19 - REST
Day 20 - 150 seconds
Day 21 - 150 seconds
Day 22 - 180 seconds
Day 23 - 180 seconds
Day 24 - 210 seconds
Day 25 - 210 seconds
Day 26 - REST
Day 27 - 240 seconds
Day 28 - 240 seconds
Day 29 - 270 seconds
Day 30 - PLANK FOR AS LONG AS POSSIBLE!!

It was incredibly difficult at first, since I haven't really ever planked before. I mean, I was shaking and gasping and I didn't think I was going to make it. (To be clear, this is not that cheesy Instagram/Twitter planking thing, where I go balance myself, like, on the railing at Niagara Falls while my girlfriend takes a photo and hopes I don't fall off and die.) Now, on day 7, it's still hard. And every few days it's going to get harder. But my abs feel great, and I feel like I'm actually accomplishing something each day!

The second one is the 24 Day Abs-So-Tightly Right Challenge. This one involves crunches, which aren't so bad, along with leg raises, which was apparently completely impossible for me to do. I tried. I swear I did. But I just can't lift both legs at once. They're pretty big legs, but I still feel like I should be able to lift them. When I try, though, my back starts to arch and then my tailbone grinds into the ground (which is probably not good for my temporarily dormant pilonidal cyst) and I just can't get them to raise off the ground no matter how hard I strain. Instead, I'm making up for it by doing single leg raises, one leg at a time, and I've added side leg lifts because that's what my mom always did when I was little and it just seems like something that should be included in a workout. This challenge also asks you to plank, but I figure I have that covered in the first challenge.

I already feel like I can feel a bit of definition when I put my hands on my hips. And when I roll over on my side, I feel like a little less belly settles down in front of me. I gained weight during my last two weigh-ins, but I do feel stronger and my abs are seriously sore. Something must be working. Maybe by the end of the month, I'll be able to wear pants that don't come up to my armpits.

Little Miss Know-It-All

Let me make this clear: I am NOT done losing weight. I have a LONG way to go before I am a healthy weight. I'm still obese according to the BMI charts (and, really, according to any charts). I'm not at the end of my journey.

Okay?

Yet recently, I've found myself thinking more and more about what other people are eating. Judging them. One of my best friends announced that she's going to see a doctor about bariatric surgery this week, and my grandmother is going at the end of the month (that's more understandable). I have made my feelings about surgery pretty clear, so of course I told my friend to try eating right, I pointed out what she's doing wrong, I urged her to join Weight Watchers before going under the knife. I kept nagging her about having unnecessary surgery instead of doing things the 'right' way.

And even worse, I have actually considered giving virtual strangers advice about losing weight.

That makes me feel so shitty.

91 pounds ago, I would have died if someone, even someone close to me, started talking to me about weight loss. I would have been so pissed. Like, who are they to judge me? But now I feel like a weight loss expert, as dumb as that sounds, and I have to fight the urge to pass my experience on to others.

There's a new girl at work who looks like I did a year ago. Probably right around 300 pounds, pretty and smart and mostly well-dressed. But I see her coming in wearing Crocs and pajama pants (which is totally what I wore before I started losing weight--Crocs, which I justified by the fact that they were actually "cute" for Crocs, because my feet hurt from hauling around 300+ pounds, and pajama pants because they stretch soooo much that I never had to think about what size I was.). And when I see that, I want to stop her and point out my knee-high wedge boots (yes, my calves are small enough for the first time EVER than I can wear wide knee-high boots) and my skinny jeans (finally small enough again to wear real blue jeans) and my cute sweater and tell her, "Girl, throw out those damn Crocs, come with me to Weight Watchers, and this time next year you'll have knee-high boots too."

Don't worry. I'm not a total psycho. I would never ever ever actually say that. But like I said, the urge is there.

I heard that early this year, Jennifer Hudson ran into Adele backstage at the Grammy's. J-Hud congratulated the lovely and amazingly talented Adele on her Grammy wins, and then said, "I used to be heavy just like you and gosh, Weight Watchers saved my life! I can hook you up."

OH MY GOD. I don't know how Adele resisted the impulse to clock that bitch upside her head. How dare Jennifer take an incredible moment in Adele's life and jerk her back to reality by talking about her weight? I tried to imagine something like that happening, like getting a promotion at work and having someone say, "Way to go! Now, maybe you should lose some weight and you can get another promotion!" I would just...I would die. I would pass out from rage. So rude and thoughtless and arrogant and...just so many things. Ugh.

But.....well...after losing 91 pounds, I can sort of...almost...see Jennifer's point. She knows what it's like. She knows how it feels to be in front of a crowd, thinking of nothing but how many eyes are on your stomach. She knows what it means to be happy but constantly conscious of your body. I mean, maybe Adele is really confident and maybe she really is happy with herself like she says in interviews, and maybe she really is 165 pounds like she claims (lolololol!!! seriously?!) and maybe all of the fat jokes and snide remarks really, truly don't bother her. Unlikely, but maybe.

The point isn't how Adele took the comments, though. The point is that Jennifer Hudson was so insanely blind to how her comments would be perceived. I mean, even if I think about saying stuff like that, I never would. I know how hurtful those kinds of seemingly helpful comments can be.

Random story: when I was young, like I think my freshman year of high school, 15 years old, I got an envelope in the mail one day. I was so excited--I never got mail, and it wasn't my birthday, and the postmark said California! I tore into it and my stomach dropped. It was an article cut from a newspaper talking about how some woman had lost a lot of weight by dieting and exercising. There was something written on the clipping, but I honestly seem to have blocked it out. I can't remember what it said. Something like, "There's always hope" or similar. I was so embarrassed, and my mom was standing there demanding to see what it was. I handed it to her and burst into tears. I scoured the article, the envelope, the handwriting, everything for some sign of who could have sent it. I didn't know anyone from California. I still have no idea who could have sent that to me. I always wondered if it was my dad maybe, sent to someone else to send to me from Cali. I don't know. All I know is that 15 years later, I can still feel that nauseating shame that hit me when I saw the article. So much embarrassment and hurt and anger. What a cruel thing to send to a child. It obviously didn't do any good anyway.

So I'll just keep watching the girl at work while she chows down on leftover Halloween candy and I'll silently judge her, hoping all the while that my weight loss eventually inspires her to give it a shot. Because even though I would never try to convince someone to lose weight, I do know what it's like to be her size and I know how incredible I feel now, and I really want to share that with someone.

91 Pounds Down!

This is a 91 pound fish. That is a BIG FISH, yo.

I am down 91 pounds as of this week.

Let's just let that sink in.

91 pounds. I really can't believe it. I feel like I've had so many setbacks, like so many weeks I gained instead of lost, but here I am...91 pounds lost. Well, not lost. I didn't 'lose' them, I worked my ass off, tracking every bite and now pushing myself harder and harder at cardiac rehab. So 91 pounds fucking eliminated! Yeah!

At weigh-in on Wednesday, some of my coworkers were complaining about how they felt like they kept gaining just as much as they lost. One girl was saying, "I go down .6 one week, but then up .2 the next week. Then down .4 and then back up .1." I wanted to shake her and say, like, "Do the math, dummy! You may be up and down, but down .6, up .2, down .4, and up .1 is still a total of .7 down! That's progress!" But I didn't say anything. I still feel really awkward acknowledging my weight loss. I probably should have spoken up, though, because I have TOTALLY been there. The weight chart on my Weight Watchers app looks like a saw. It's a jagged line, up and down in tiny increments, but the overall slope is downward.

I've mentioned on here the weeks where I've gained 10 FREAKIN POUNDS in one week. And back at the beginning of this year when I hit that stupid fucking plateau and didn't lose a single pound for two months.

I mean, yeah, I've lost 91 pounds. But that's been since last August. That's definitely less than the 2 pounds per week that people expect. I sometimes do feel like I've gained as much as I've lost. Mathematically that's obviously not the case, but I've had enough tiny gains that I know now not to freak out. Little by little, up and down, I've been making progress. And I didn't let those 10 pound gains stop me (seriously, 10 pounds...that's nuts). And here I am. 91 pounds down. Slowly but surely.

Mirror Mirror

I have a strange relationship with the reflection in the mirror. Sometimes it's full-on loathing, sometimes it's a love/hate type of thing, and sometimes I don't recognize the girl at all. Today I think I recognize her but I'm not sure I like what I see.

Even though I've lost 91 pounds now and at the lightest of my entire adult life, I do NOT feel sexy. I've been chasing that feeling I had in college, even though I don't want that life anymore. I felt awesome about myself. Looking back, it's clear that I was suffering from serious self esteem issues and a gripping alcohol and drug problem...but at least when I looked in the mirror, I felt totally fucking hot. Right now, I do NOT feel hot. It's like even though I'm much smaller than I was a year ago, my body still looks the exact same. Still lumpy and saggy, my stomach still hanging down and my thighs still rippling. Smaller, but the same.

When I was very young, I used to stare at myself in the mirror for hours and hours, in love with my reflection. I had a dainty brass and glass dressing table with a little padded chair, and I'd sit there and stare at myself, admiring my eyelashes and my perfect lips and my icy gray-blue eyes. I would kiss my reflection with my eyes open, leaving Bonnie Bell lipstick prints on the glass.

As I grew older, I started shying away from the mirror. I saw my pudgy stomach, my braces, my glasses, my ill-advised fe-mullet. And I stopped feeling cute and more like a monster. Things only got worse the bigger I got, until in high school I could hardly go clothes shopping because I hated seeing myself in the dressing room mirror.

Then in college, something changed. I gained some confidence, I came out as a lesbian (and then decided I liked guys a little too), I rocked my nose ring and dyed my hair crazy colors. I felt good about myself. I had friends, I had fun, I didn't notice my size so much when I was fall-down drunk. I could go to frat parties charged up with drugs and vodka and not feel like people were judging me by my fat rolls.

But now I'm sober, and I see everything. I see the fat ripples above my knees, and I see the saggy skin around my ass (who knew that could even happen?!). I see my heart surgery scars and my double chin. Nothing about my reflection is pretty.

I can still find some moments of prettiness. If my hair is just right, and my mascara is on perfectly, I can see myself as I did when I was a child. Pretty lips, pretty eyes, smooth skin. But then my vision zooms out and my body comes into focus and I turn away.

I wonder if I'll still feel the same once I've lost all the weight I feel like losing. Somehow I doubt it. Decades of being disgusted by your own body won't be whisked away by losing weight. Like I said, I may be smaller but I'm still me. More's the pity.

Work, Bitch

Apparently my cardiac rehab is working--I not only feel stronger and healthier, I also lost 3.4 pounds at weigh-in this week. Nice!

I'm now down to 215 pounds even, down 89 pounds from my starting weight of 304 last August. 89 pounds...that's pretty crazy. That's more than my 9 year old nephew. That's more than my old Rottweiler. According to the list, I'm one pound away from having lost a NEWBORN CALF. Whoa.

As much as I hate going to rehab three times a week, I have to admit it's kind of nice. It's strange to have basically a regular gym schedule. And they don't just turn on the machines and let me go--I have to be hooked up to the heart monitors, they come and take my oxygen and heart rate and blood pressure while I'm working out, and every session they try to increase my time, my incline, my resistance, etc. After my heart surgery I was scheduled for 18 sessions, so I think I still have around 4 weeks to go.

Yesterday, though, was TOUGH. I kept bitching about the stationary bike (I'm not used to working the fronts of my legs, so it makes me tired really fast). Well, after they were nice and tried to switch things up for me, I wanted to go back to the stationary bike so badly! They had me on something called an Arc Trainer. I guess they're all the rage but I've never even seen one (obviously I don't exactly frequent a gym). It's basically like a nightmare mashup of a stair climber and an elliptical machine. It's fucking horrible.

The nurse had me start the Arc Trainer and I seemed to get the hang of it. Thinking I would be fine, she set it for 20 minutes and said that I didn't have to do the full 20 but just see what I could get through. Then she went to go make her rounds to the other rehabbers. After about 60 seconds, I was sweating and panting and my butt and hips were screaming in pain. After maybe three minutes, I thought I was going to pass out. I slowed down long enough to turn my playlist to "Work Bitch" (I love Britney, especially when working out now, and ESPECIALLY this song) and I powered through. I got to five minutes and started looking around for the nurse, trying to make eye contact. After about seven minutes, my chest was burning like it hasn't burned since before my surgery. I didn't want to stop and admit defeat so I kept going, but the machine started beeping some kind of heart rate alarm. I kept going, gasping for air, glaring straight ahead, determined and frustrated and possibly dying. Finally the nurse rushed over and told me my heart rate was way too high (duh) and had me stop. That was 11 minutes of pure hell. Seriously, it's like a torture device with fancy foot pads. So they put me on a range limiter for another 10 minutes as a cool-down and then I got to go home. In the car, my lungs and chest were still on fire and I was coughing up phlegm just like before my surgery when I was in a constant state of cardiac asthma.

Anyway, I survived and I told them I am determined to try it again on Monday. Just maybe for five minutes instead. My legs and ass are sore, and I have hip muscles that I've never felt before. Ouch. What am I going to do after my rehab is over? I don't have anyone to push me like that, and I don't know if I can push myself like that. Working out sucks but...well, if I keep seeing results at weigh-in, maybe it will be worth it after all.

Milk of Magnesia

So the past couple of weeks, I've gotten into what seems like a bad habit. On Tuesday nights before my Weight Watchers weigh-in, I've taken a dose of Milk of Magnesia. I don't know...it sort of feels like cheating.

I had never tried Milk of Magnesia before this year, but I had a, erhm, stomach problem earlier this year and it actually ended up helping. Then I stocked up on it in case I had the same problem again, and when I felt bloated a couple weeks ago before weigh-in I decided to take some. I hate feeling bloated before weigh-in. And the thought of having a falsely high weigh-in is devastating to me. I'm one of those people stripping down in the Weight Watchers line, even taking off my tiny bracelet and dainty necklace, my work lanyard, extra rubber bands, everything. We joke about the "pre-weigh-in-bathroom-rush" where for the hour preceding the weekly weigh-in, there's a constant cycle of people from my department at work trying to eliminate those last few ounces. We all go to the bathroom at least once, and no one drinks water or eats any snacks all morning. But this Milk of Magnesia is taking it to a whole other level. Now I feel like if I don't get 'cleaned out' before weigh-in I'm going to weigh like 3 pounds more and then I'll be really sad.

I don't know. It's gross. It's weird. It's not even really helping much. But it's making me feel better. That's gotta count for something, right?

The Lovely Bones

Let me tell you, it is SO WEIRD to see my collarbone. I walked past the mirror this morning and stopped in my tracks for a double-take. The rising sun slanting through the blinds in the living room cast shadows in the hollows, and I was stunned to realize they actually were hollows.

I have a real collarbone. One that I can show off. Not just the idea of a clavicle...an actual bone that I can run my fingers along and choose necklaces to lay against.

See, I've been fat forever. My entire life. I remember being chubby in kindergarten and I just kept growing up and out. Then I stopped growing up and kept growing out. Layer after layer of fat softened my body and buried my bones.

When you weigh more than 300 pounds, it's easy to forget you have bones at all. I started to feel like a candle stub that was dipped again and again in melted wax, each dip leaving another layer of soft wax, rounding me out and filling me up. When I was desperate, which was pretty much all of the time before I finally took control and began losing weight, I would imagine myself taking a knife and carving all the fat off my body. In all the times I envisioned this, I never once saw my blade hitting bone. An organ sometimes, yes, but I figured that would be a small price to pay to get rid of the fat. Never bone, though. I felt like my fat was packed into my lumpy suit of skin without bones or anything else besides fat and maybe blood.

I'm fascinated by x-rays of myself--it's so strange to see my skeleton. It seems like a different person almost. It's hard to believe that it's there, packed beneath all of that fat. It feels impossible that I'm made up of such small, fragile things. My bones seemed as mysterious to me as the bottom of the ocean.

But now I can SEE my bones. I can see the bone jutting out at my wrist, and my knuckles moving as I type. I can see the light on my cheekbones and the slight depression beneath them. My jaw is an actual jaw and not just the slope from my face to my chest.

Like I said, it's weird. But good. Definitely good. I'm still 217 pounds so there are still lots of layers to fat to melt away, but I can see that happening. I'm going strong. And this way is definitely preferable to carving my body out of fat--it may take longer, but there will be significantly less blood lost in the process.

Tastes Like Shame

My dad has never been proud of me.

That's just a fact. I was always one of those overachieving, desperate-for-approval kids, and that spilled over into my adult life. I like to think that I hit pretty much all of the standard checkpoints that proud parents want to see their kid achieve. I did everything right.

Here's a recap of my charmed existence:
I never once got detention.
I never failed a class.
I was in the "gifted and talented" class all through school.
I was always in the 99 percentile for those annual standardized tests.
I got great scores on my SATs and ACTs.
I was a Girl Scout for 13 years.
I was active in sports throughout school, and I did a decent job.
I graduated high school with Honors, Distinction, and my name was in the commencement package more than anyone else in my class: as a member of the German Honor Society, National Honor Society, National Forensics League, the Journalistic Honor Society, the Honors class, and as the designer of the damn thing.
I got a full-ride scholarship to two good colleges.
I got into an elite private university, where I double majored.
I've never wrecked my car (knock on wood).
I've never been arrested (knock again).
I didn't end up pregnant, in rehab, behind bars, etc.
I've held down decent jobs since I was 16.
I worked my way up from the bottom of my company, and I'm now a department manager overseeing two teams of professionals.
I'm well-paid and consistently recognized at work for my achievements.
I'm in a healthy, committed relationship of nearly eight years.
I own a nice house and a nice vehicle and I go on nice vacations on a regular basis.

Basically, I've lived my life to be a good kid. I'm not bragging. On the contrary, I wish I would have had more fun when I was younger and would have focused less on being perfect. But I never got into trouble. I worked hard. I make good money. As far as my parents know, I'm a healthy and wholesome person (they don't need to know about my college exploits, and as bad as I was in college, it never affected my school work, my grades, or besmirched my pristine reputation with something like a criminal record).

Most parents would be proud.

Not my dad.

As someone so desperate for approval, it was always so soul-crushing to know that my dad was never, ever proud of me. Sure, he was happy that I graduated. Happy that I'm working. I guess it could be worse. But I've never felt him look at me with anything akin to pride.

Until Friday.


We were at a memorial for my aunt's boyfriend who died suddenly of a stroke last week. On Friday, the entire family gathered at my aunt's house for a ceremony (including the release of dozens of tie-dye balloons, some bright Chinese lanterns, and a rousing version of "Rambling Man"...a totally fitting tribute for the dude who died). I was in the kitchen, hovering over my healthy bean dip and trying to ignore the cupcakes, cookies, pumpkin roll, and pie sitting next to me. I heard my dad calling me into the front room so I wiped my face and shuffled in there.

He motioned for my grandfather and great-uncle to look at me. I stood there and my dad stood next to me, and he waved his arms at me and said, "Doesn't she look great?!"

I felt faint. At first, I thought maybe it was a cruel joke. It certainly wouldn't be the first time. But no. He truly wanted to show me off to his own father. I smiled and self-deprecated ("Oh, yeah, haha, I still have a ways to go...").

Well...it was pretty surreal, but he looked proud. For the first time ever, I felt like he was happy I was his daughter.

I quickly made my way outside to collect myself and I felt a little sick. I mean, yes, my dad is a total asshole (or see here or here...). I shouldn't have been surprised. But it made me really sad that it took losing weight to finally win his approval. I feel like if I ever gain this weight back, his pride will again turn to disgust. Maybe that's for the best--I don't need someone around who discounts everything else I've done with my life and who only cares about what I look like. This pride feels an awful lot like shame.

But still...it's nice to feel like I've made my father proud. Finally.

Lighter But Not Smaller?

I've been trying to research this on the great wide web, but I'm falling short. There just isn't info out there that relates to what I'm going through.

See, I'm technically lighter right now than I've been my entire adult life. I weigh less than I did in high school and in college, and I'm losing weight week by week with Weight Watchers.

But I'm not SMALLER than I was in high school or college. At least, I don't think I am. I remember wearing a size 16 during the summer between high school and college comfortably, and now I can squeeze into size 16 jeans but they're definitely not as comfy as my size 18s. Like, I'm not complaining. The last jeans I bought were size 26 and I immediately tore out the tag, cut it into tiny pieces, wrapped it in toilet paper, and flushed it. I didn't want anyone else to see my size, and I got sick seeing it myself.

Right now, though, I don't feel my smallest. I've read that a lot of it is psychological and that it will take some time before my mental image catches up to my actual reflection in the mirror, but that's bullshit. I mean, yeah, I have a pretty warped idea of what I look like. We've established that months ago. But I am seriously bigger than I used to be, even though I weigh less. It's not in my head.

I have this really cool belt that I only kept around in case I could use it for a craft project--I bought it when I was 18, wore it for a year or so, and then grew out of it. It's been in my craft supplies for the past decade or so. I found it a few days ago and tried it on--it barely fit around the smallest part of my waist, which is way higher than I would have ever worn a pair of pants when I was 18. It was several inches from closing around my hips, where I would have actually worn it. So what gives? How did the belt fit when I weighed more than I do now, and it's not even close to fitting now that I'm lighter?

Is it just age? I'm so much fucking older now...are my organs sagging?! At age 31, are my intestines getting fat while I'm losing weight everywhere else? Did I just lose all of my boob weight, and now the weight has redistributed to my stomach? Yeah, that's a lovely image. Just what I want. Work my ass off to lose weight, only to find myself with no tits and no ass and a big, dumpy stomach hanging out in front. Or do old people just look bigger at the same weight? Is it possible that I've lost so much bone density that I will have to lose a lot more weight to be the same size? Like, I'm thirty-freakin-one. I shouldn't have osteoporosis, right? And I was a cheesetarian for a decade...I think I devoured more calcium than anyone else in the world. If anything, I should have calcium formations on my bones.

Ahh. This is just another of those obnoxious weight loss things that I don't fucking understand. I'm still not quitting. I'm still losing weight. I'll keep going until I'm happy with my weight and my size. But really...what the hell? It doesn't make sense, and I hate when stuff doesn't make sense. Maybe I should have gotten a biology major instead of a worthless Women's Studies degree...

Another Hungry Day

At this point, I've lost a little more than 85 pounds on Weight Watchers. I'm actually smaller right now than I was all through college. In fact, I can only remember weighing this amount or less two times since middle school: once was the summer between high school and college when I went on Atkins pretty religiously for a couple months and got down to 211 pounds for a day (before shooting back up to 215...but still. And then I started eating like a human again and gained it all back.). The second time was the summer after college when I was super poor and had to choose between food and vodka and I chose vodka for a month or so...I starved myself down to 216 pounds. Again, that was only for about a week before my grandparents took pity on me and started buying me food.

The rest of the time since middle school, my weight has swung wildly from 225 pounds up to my highest (recorded) weight of 304 pounds. Now my scale has been fluctuating 213 pounds and 219 pounds. Not bad.

Buuuut...I am STILL OBSESSED WITH FOOD.

I wish things had changed. I wish I could live like a normal person and eat when I'm hungry, socialize without thinking about food the entire time, plan my day without thinking first about what I'll eat that day. But that's not me. That's not my life. Instead, I think about food when I wake up in the morning. Hell, sometimes I dream about food. Yeah. Some weekends when I have nothing going on and can sleep in as late as I want to, I get up ONLY because I want to eat.

There are all those little tricks people tell you about, like doing something else for 15 minutes and then eating only if you still really want the food after 15 minutes. Or having a little nibble of whatever you're craving and then stopping because your body doesn't care how much it gets, only that it gets something. Well...that's bullshit. When I try to do something else and reevaluate if I want the food in 15 minutes, I just spend a full 15 minutes thinking entirely about food. And if I just have a nibble, then it's even worse and I can't think about anything else in the world until all of the food is gone. Nibbles do not work for me. I am too obsessed with eating and with being full.

Weight Watchers has been amazing in helping me lose weight, and it kind of works with my food obsession. I can track and pre-track and plan my meals well in advance and, you know, it takes a certain kind of person to weigh and measure every morsel of food that you consume. But it also means that I can never just 'let go' and eat without thinking about it. That's a good thing, but it's also incredibly frustrating.

Like today, for instance. I am HUNGRY. Or that's the message my brain is getting. I know I'm not actually, literally hungry. I have food in my stomach. I am eating roasted new potatoes and onions and zucchini with vegetable broth and barbecue and shaved parmesan and it's spicy and warm and delicious, but I still want more. More of anything. I want to cram food into my mouth until I feel sick.

You know that scene in Matilda? Where the Trunchbull makes that kid Bruce eat the whole chocolate cake and he's all sweating and everything thinks he's going to pass out and die? Yeah, I could totally eat that cake. Not a question. There is no doubt in my mind that I could take a fork, settle myself in front of it, and just devour the entire freaking thing. Totally. And I'd love it. And I would ask for milk to wash it down.

Of course, a single slice of cake is something like 14 Points Plus on Weight Watchers. I get 34 Points per day and I am stingy as hell with them, so there's no way Cook's chocolate cake is coming anywhere near my lips. But I could do it. And it would be fucking awesome.

So when does this food obsession go away? Does it ever? Will I ever be able to see an office email about cupcakes without spending the rest of the day eyeing the cupcakes, weighing the pros and cons of eating a cupcake, wondering how good the cupcake is, getting panicky that too many people are eating cupcakes before I decide whether or not I want one? Or is this my life now? Where every food commercial makes me start to drool, and just driving past KFC gives me thoroughly un-vegetarian-like cravings?

When my best friend died two years ago, I thought the pain would never go away. I thought that every day would be a gray haze and I would never be okay again. Slowly, somehow, the pain receded. Instead of thinking about him every minute, I thought about him maybe every 15 minutes. And then maybe every hour. And then a couple times a day. Now, I love him and miss him and think about him at random wonderful and heartbreaking times, but it's not constant. I think of him when his favorite song comes on, or when I read a CNN article that would have gotten his attention. The point is, it got better. It took awhile, but it did definitely get better.

My food cravings though? Not better. It's been more than a year since I started Weight Watchers, and I'm thinking about food just as much as every. WHEN WILL IT END?!

For now...fuck it all, I'm getting that cupcake they emailed about. There are only three left and it's driving me fucking crazy. At least it's a mini cupcake.

Anal Volcano

We have eruption!

My pilonidal cyst finally burst. Thank goodness. I was just on the verge of going to the emergency room--the pain was moving beyond what I could handle. My thoughts were cloudy, my breathing was shallow, I couldn't stop trembling, and the pain was just overwhelming.

When I mentioned that I have only sought medical treatment twice for my cysts, that was true...but I've come really, really close just about every time. It seems like just when the pressure and pain reaches its absolute worst and I feel like I can't possibly live another moment longer, just when I begin to doubt myself and think that maybe I do need to go to the hospital after all, just when I'm making a list in my head of what items I need to grab before asking someone to take me to the hospital, that's when the cyst finally bursts. Like once when I had waited a week in complete agony until I broke down and called my mother--she came over waited while I took a quick shower since I hadn't really moved all week...while I was in the shower, I heard a splat and felt relief and saw that the cyst had ruptured with such force that it covered the shower wall behind me. My mom heard me gasp and came to the door, but then started gagging at the smell. I sent her home. No hospital needed.

So I was at my breaking point again this time, leaning forward on the couch and looking around the room to decide what I needed to shove into my purse before I asked my girlfriend to drive me to the ER, when I suddenly felt relief, my head cleared, and I felt warm, sticky, wet grossness spreading across the back of my pants.

I gasped, jumped up from the couch, and fled the room. My girlfriend instantly knew what was happening and I could hear her cheering as I slammed the bathroom door behind me. I turned on the water and jumped in the shower fully dressed, knowing that the cyst fluids were already seeping through every layer of my outfit. The smell was overpowering, even before I undressed. It smelled like blood, pus, infection...super super gross. And once I started peeling off layers and more pus gushed out, the smell grew. As bad as it smelled, though, I knew that it was the putrid smell of relief.

As usual, I pushed and squeezed (gently) until I couldn't get any more out. After washing everything, I was left with an inflamed but essentially empty pus pocket and the raw, broken skin from which the fluid had burst. And as usual, I sprayed it with Bactine, taped on a bandage, and returned to my girlfriend where I promptly fell asleep to make up for the past several sleepless nights.

As I said, this is the same cycle that happens every time. It gets more and more painful until I don't think I can live through one more second, and then it explodes and grosses me out and it's fine. It will continue to seep a yellow liquid and some blood for a few days, and if I'm not careful it may swell up again, but now that the skin is broken it will burst more easily for the next month or so. Thank goodness. I was so close to going to the hospital, and that's the main thing I wanted to avoid. Oh, that and not getting the septic bacteria into my blood stream. That's important.

This is just one of those other awful 'fat girl things' that I suspect more people experience than admitted. This is also something I really hope just 'goes away' as I lose more weight. I've only known one small person with a pilonidal cyst. Maybe I'll just magically stop having them? I don't know. All I know is that I'm so thankful I'm not in pain right now, and I'm so grossed out by this oozing sore on my butt crack. At least I survived this one again, and it again gave me perspective: my heart surgery incision pain is basically nonexistent now, especially in comparison!

My Pilonidal Cyst Story

Gather round, children, and prepare to be amazed and revolted by this captivating tale of...a cyst. A really big cyst. A really big, gross, humiliating, excruciating, recurring cyst.

When I had heart surgery in August, I expected to be in a lot more pain than I was. However, after approximately a decade of dealing with one of the most painful and embarrassing medical problems imaginable, the surgery pain seemed to pale in comparison. No matter how much my incision hurt, or how much my cut muscles ached, I could remind myself that the pain of my cyst during a flare-up was so significantly worse that my surgery didn't seem so bad after all.

My pilonidal cyst is something I try to keep a secret from as many people as possible. It's just so awful. I already bared all, though, while oversharing about my topical yeast infections, so I might as well throw this out there. I'm having a flare-up right now, so it's all I can think about.

There is not much information available about  my kind of pilonidal cyst because everyone's cyst experience is different. I suspect that people with issues similar to mine just don't talk about it. So I'm going to talk about it. Prepare to be grossed out. I was going to post a picture of mine but it's still too embarrassing--just try a Google image search instead, and look for the most disturbing and painful unpopped pilonidal abscess possible.

At the beginning of my college summer vacation when I was 21, I started feeling like I had bruised my tailbone. I was drinking all the time while also taking Paxil for my Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (following a massive fire I was in and in which I lost all my belongings). I was blacking out multiple times every week, so I assumed it was entirely possible that I had fallen down drunk. My tailbone kept getting worse and worse, though, and after a week or so I could barely sit down. That's when I felt the lump rising. It was at the top of my butt crack, slightly to the right, and I could feel a squishy bump about the size of a walnut half under the skin. It was incredibly tender and hot to the touch. I tried looking it up online but didn't know how to describe it, so I didn't get any useful results.

After a week or so of increasing pain, it came to a head one night while I stayed up shaking and sweating. I think I was probably going into a state of shock or something. No amount of alcohol could dull the pain, and there was no position in which I was even remotely comfortable. I couldn't sit, I couldn't lie down, I couldn't even stand. I remember crawling to the bathroom that night because I couldn't get up, and I passed out from the pain. I woke up on the floor in a pool of sweat with the cyst bigger and redder and hotter than ever. The school clinic was closed for the summer and I didn't want to pay to go to the hospital, so I didn't know what to do. I was so scared. As it grew, I wondered if it was cancer. Or some kind of boil? Or like a chip from my tailbone broke off, lodged itself in my muscles, and caused an infection?

After I woke up on the bathroom floor, I tried exploring it more. It hurt too much to poke at it, but it really felt like it was a small balloon filling up with something, and that if I could just break through the skin it would come out. I gathered the equipment I could think of: a razor blade and a thumb tack (I couldn't find a needle). First I tried the razor blade. It was hard to see but I just numbed it with ice and tried slashing across the top with the razor. I hoped the infection was close enough to the surface that it would burst and I would be fine. Unfortunately, the infection was deeper than I thought and the razor only succeeded in hurting me. I tried the thumb tack next, but the pain was too bad for me to apply much pressure. I could get the point in, but it didn't go far enough in to help.

I stayed up all night, trembling and fighting to stay conscious. The next morning after fainting in the bathroom happened to be my first day as a summer intern at the library. I made it to the library with my roommate/best friend (the one I've mentioned who died so tragically and ripped my world apart) but I was literally standing up while driving there--I couldn't put my butt on the seat of my truck, so I held myself up with the steering wheel and drove as carefully as I could. Seriously, though, driving while standing is not a good thing. We made it there but just barely.

When we got to the library I hobbled in, still unable to walk or sit and wearing a skirt because pants would touch the cyst. We began the first day tour, during which I was still shaking and sweating and thinking of nothing but the mind-numbingly intense, throbbing, unrelenting pain. About fifteen minutes into the orientation, the pain just suddenly stopped. I could take a deep breath finally. I stopped shaking. My head cleared. I felt blissful relief.

Then I started smelling this terrible smell. It was like a container of week-old turkey salad (the kind with dark turkey chunks and mayonnaise) that was just pulled open. Just a strong, meaty, gross smell. I couldn't figure out what the stink was, but I was so relieved by the  overwhelming absence of pain that I didn't really care.

My best friend then grabbed my arm and he whispered for me to go to the bathroom. Thinking maybe I had food in my teeth or had started my period, I excused myself and went to the restroom. As soon as I got in the stall, I pulled down my jean skirt and felt hot liquid on my legs. I touched my butt with my fingertips and was horrified to feel them slipping in thick slime. I lunged out of the stall with my skirt down and locked the deadbolt on the main door (the bathroom was empty besides me). The smell was even worse with my skirt down, and I began frantically wiping myself with paper towels. There was pus and blood everywhere. It looked like someone had been murdered. Or like I sat on a blender full of animals and turned on the blades. Just totally disgusting. And it wouldn't stop coming. As I gingerly pushed around the lump, more and more pus and blood oozed out. It was this foul brown gurgling stuff, and no amount of paper towels was going to work.

I cleaned myself up as much as I could and fled the library, praying that no one would see me. I made it back to the apartment where I could see everything better in a mirror, and just kept pushing to get more and more nasty brown goo out of me. The sticky red blood mingled with the hot white pus to make a thick marbled brown substance, and the week of festering had made it smell like rot and death.

I was not in any significant pain from the moment it had burst in the library, so I could easily press my fingers around the edge to make the liquid pulse out. It took hours it seemed before I had coaxed all of the infection out, and the skin felt loose over the now-empty cavity. I did end up going back to work the next day and told everyone I had just thrown up, but I suspect they knew something was more awful had happened. I told my best friend that it was an injury from my tailbone and he was kind enough to pretend to believe me.

I dove into researching it more and finally found the most likely culprit: a pilonidal cyst. That means 'nest of hair' (I KNOW! So gross!) and I have read many comments claiming that the pain of a pilonidal cyst flare-up is worse than the pain of natural, undrugged childbirth. I believe it. The pain is intolerable, and the shame is unbearable. There's lots of great information out there about what it is (one of my favorites is the Pilonidal Support Alliance), but no one is really truly certain what causes it or how to fix it.

There are certain factors that are common amongst sufferers: they are mostly male, mostly overweight, and mostly very hairy. Poor hygiene, sitting too long, and not shaving can also affect your chances of having a flare-up. So, yeah, not exactly something I want to share: hey, everyone, I have a totally gross cyst that comes from being fat, lazy, dirty, hairy, and not a lady. So yes, this is another one of those gross fat girl things. Not all fat girls get them, but I don't think I would have it if I wasn't fat. I think my ass fat makes my butt crack deeper, which causes more hair and stuff to get caught in there, and apparently led to my current situation.

Now, some people have pilonidal sinuses, which cause them to weep out pus and blood, but they don't get the abscesses or cysts because the infection isn't trapped. Some of those people have to wear diapers because so much nasty stuff leaks out of their butt crack. I am here to tell you that I would MUCH rather have that than have my cyst. Instead of having a sinus, or a tiny hole that allows it to drain, I instead just collect the infected fluids in a cavity between my ass cheeks. This cavity gets bigger every time I have a cyst because the infection tunnels into my tissue, and because I don't have a sinus to drain it, I have to wait until the skin is stretched so incredibly tight because of the sheer quantity of pus and blood that the skin bursts open and sprays infection all over the place.

After that first eruption (my best friend and I called it my 'anal volcano'), I ended up getting a flare-up around once a year. It was usually a week of total torture--unable to move, unable to even wear jeans because of the pain, unable to go to work or drive or sleep. I kept it a secret from everyone I could. Sometimes it ruptures in the most awful places, like a gas station bathroom or on vacation. It's terribly inconvenient and ridiculously painful, but the surgery to correct it is also really painful, really awful (they sometimes sew a 'marsupial pouch' which sounds so so so gag-me-gross), and totally not guaranteed to work. Some people have had the surgery over and over and the cysts just keep coming back.

I have had probably 10-12 cysts since then, and I have taken care of most of them myself. I've spent a decade honing my care. I learned that antibiotics won't help, and nothing really kills the pain except getting it to pop. Sometimes if I take enough hot baths with Epsom salt the cyst will weaken and burst. Sometimes if I alternate a really hot heating pad with an ice pack, the abrupt change in temperature will cause it to rupture. Sometimes I make a compress of crushed garlic that is said to thin the skin and help the infection. The bad part is that, even with these remedies, it still won't burst until it's ready. I have to honestly feel like I'm dying for around 48 hours (that's after a week of intense but not near-fatal pain) before anything can make it explode. And sometimes they just never do burst--luckily, I have only been forced to seek medical attention for two of them.

Once the emergency care clinic doctors sliced me open with a scalpel but didn't go deep enough--some blood oozed out, but the cyst did not burst. I was in more pain from the scalpel cut, but after another day or so of the infection brewing, the cyst was stretched so tight that the weakened skin from the incision split open and it burst. Whew. The most recent time was also the most horrible. This cyst had been going on for almost two weeks, and it was huge and purple. I had gotten desperate and had tried cutting it with razors, scissors, needles, tacks, and even a syringe. Nothing helped. It was around the size of an egg, and I couldn't do ANYTHING. No walking, so sitting, no lying down. I had to miss work for a couple days and I was out of options. So I went to the emergency care and the doctor there was clearly horrified and disgusted. He could barely speak, but told me that it was beyond what he could care for, and told me to go straight to the hospital ER. He even called ahead to help me get in. When I got there (I rode in the back seat, laying down on my stomach and crying...there was no way I could sit) they gave me a pain killer but it definitely did not help. The ER nurse made me lie down and she just cut it right open. I felt the liquid gush between my legs and all over my back, but she didn't stop. Instead of allowing me that moment of relief, she told me that she had to scrape out the pockets of infection or it would just come right back. She stuck something in the gaping hole and I couldn't stop screaming. She scraped and the way the small pockets burst, it made me imagine them as the pulp inside an orange--those fat little envelopes full and ready to pop. But she just kept going. And going. I like to think I have a pretty high tolerance for pain after dealing with this for so many years, but she pushed me to new limits. I didn't think it would ever stop.

Finally, she finished scraping and started cleaning me out. That was horrible but not quite as soul-shatteringly painful. Then she packed the hole full of gauze and told me to have it removed in two weeks. When I got home, I couldn't even look at it. The single time I glanced at it in the mirror, I saw the bruised and angry purple flesh bulging around a curly gauze tail that was pink with blood. I felt more like a pig than ever. When I went to the doctor to take it out, I had to hold onto the exam table while he pulled it out--it must have been three feet of bloody gauze, and the feeling of it being pulled out of my body made my skin crawl.

Since that last ER experience, I have tried desperately to avoid letting my cyst get that bad. If I get any skin that feels like a scab I can potentially peel off, I do, because I feel like it makes the rest of the skin thinner and therefore easier to burst. I clean there regularly, I avoid sitting for long periods on my tailbone, I never wear thongs, and any time I start to feel tender around my tailbone I immediately start spraying Bactine and applying hot and cold presses.

Around a year ago, I had called into work and while explaining to my boss why I couldn't come in, I lost control and started sobbing hysterically into the phone. The pain and embarrassment were just too much together. I'm glad it happened, though, because she was able to introduce me to something that one of her former colleagues had used for the same issue: ichthammol ointment. It smells like tar and stains everything and makes an enormous mess, but it helps thin the skin and, instead of bursting, the cyst just kind of starts leaking out after a couple days. I've only used this treatment twice, but each time it worked like a charm. Since it didn't burst, I don't think all of the infection got out either time, but it got rid of my pain so I can't complain. I can't believe more people don't know about this. I wish I had found out about it years ago--it would have saved me some serious pain. I mean, pain so bad that I can't help but think about killing myself. Hopefully someone searching for a way to help their pilonidal cyst will stumble across this page and try the ichthammol ointment. It's been a true miracle for me, and I haven't even had a cyst flare-up for almost a year. The ichthammol is super cheap and I just smear it on and then cover it with a small cut up square of washcloth held in place with medical tape.

But...now it's back. And now the ointment isn't working. And now I'm terrified. Since my recent heart surgery, all of my doctors have stressed over and over how important it is to keep myself from getting any kinds of infection. Anything, even something as small as a cut in my gums, can potentially lead to bacteria getting into my bloodstream and forming on my brand new heart valve. So I'm really really scared. It's 5am but the pain is so bad I can't sleep. I'm sitting on a heating pad with ichthammol ointment smeared on my butt, but it's not helping. I had to leave work early for the past two days. I almost passed out when I drove over a pot hole on the way home. I went to an art gallery opening tonight but we had to leave because I was so afraid someone would brush against my butt and I'd faint or scream. I keep accidentally bursting into tears, and it hurts to do anything. Since the abscess is basically between my butt cheeks, every time I move my butt cheeks squeeze around it and it feels like torture.

I had hoped that losing weight would also let me lose this cyst. Since it's what I consider a fat girl problem, I thought maybe, just maybe, it would disappear. Enough hard work and I wouldn't have to deal with it again.

So I'm doubly sad that I'm still facing this awful thing. And I'm so scared. I don't want the infection to reach my heart. I'm hoping it will burst on its own. Otherwise...I might be back in the hospital tomorrow. I'm not one for prayers, but I'll be praying for a miracle right now.

Update: It burst! Woohoo! Ichthammol success again!