Hoppy Weedster

So Easter and 4:20 fell on the same day this year.

Awesome?

NO.

I was so excited when I first saw that 4/20 (April 20th, or the official pothead holiday for the uninitiated) fell on a weekend. I always, ALWAYS take the day off work because, well, I can't really get my shit done when I'm assembling a gravity bong at my desk. So I was thrilled that I was going to avoid using PTO this year.

It wasn't until a week or so ago that I realized it was ALSO Easter. Fuck! My family is down with smoking (I actually buy from my aunt…awkward but I know she won't rip me off ha) but my girlfriend's family is very conservative. We convinced them to have Easter on the 19th so we wouldn't have to cut into our high times, so that was good.

But Sunday morning, after we had a great Wake N Bake and then opened up the Easter baskets we made for each other, the true implications of Weedster started to sink in. Namely: I would be stoned around MASS quantities of food ALL DAY.

If I wasn't on Weight Watchers, this would have been an awesome day.

On Weight Watchers, it became 24 hours of torture.

I mean, I was high and hungry at midnight. And then at 4:20am. And then when we woke up smoking at like 9am. And then again over and over all freakin day.

I was responsible for desserts at my parents' Easter gathering, so I made "Dirty Turtles" to share, which is just melted Hershey bars poured into my turtle molds with a bunch of very finely ground pot (almost a powder, thanks to my electric coffee grinder used solely for weed edibles) and topped with ground walnuts to distract from any pot crunchies. My family loved them, but I may have loved them a little TOO much because I definitely ate 5 of them. Whoops.

Then I got my Easter basket from my mom. Yes, I am 32 and get two Easter baskets still. It's awesome.

But even though my mom tried to be supportive by adding apples and oranges to my basket, I dug those out and went straight for the Snickers, Cadbury Cream Eggs, jelly beans, and all the other sugar packed in there.

THEN I gorged myself at dinner. I mean, like, I think I sprained my wrist with the weight of the mac-n-cheese casserole serving I gave myself. Plus candied yams, green bean casserole (with tons of extra cheese), yeast rolls, mashed potatoes, corn, broccoli cheese casserole, banana pudding, chocolate eclair cake, salted caramel chocolate pie…it was seriously a smorgasbord orgasbord. It was bad. I tried to count the points but I know I missed some stuff, and I still went over my points by at least 20 this week.

The silver lining is this: when I left my parents' house, my girlfriend and I drove out to a state park and had a completely amazing 4 mile hike. It was super strenuous--like, we climbed UP a waterfall, we had to climb ladders, we lost count after climbing more than 200 stairs…it was so hard but totally worth it. Plus, we got to get high down in the bottoms of canyons and crevices, so that rocked.

As ashamed as I was about eating so much for Easter (even worse than usual, thanks to having major munchies ALL DAY), I was really proud of myself for hiking afterward. I know I still gained weight, but at least I got a head start in working it off. I even earned 14 Activity Points to make up for some of the Points I went over.

It was a pretty good Weedster after all.

A this Easter vs. me last Easter. (Note: My lumpier-than-usual stomach is due in part of my ultra-hip fanny pack…totally worth it.) And I had already lost quite a bit of weight before last Easter. I’d hate to see myself Easter 2012…

My Grandfather Hates Fat People

We buried my grandfather today. He was 87.

I love that man so much.

To me, he is the quintessential 1950s black-and-white tv blue collar family man. He could be a character in so many mid-20th century shows. The gruff but caring, hard-working, decent and kind and disciplined and stubborn and loving man with strong moral fiber and a dogged work ethic. Clean shaven with a crisp white t-shirt and shined shoes, a pocket knife always handy, two fingers missing from the knuckle after a run-in with an automatic saw several decades ago.

Papaw had a great love of Westerns, Johnny Cash, and traveling, and possessed a wealth of colorful stories involving guarding German prisoners of war following WWII. He married the love of his life, worked hard, and provided an idyllic childhood to my father and aunt and uncle.

At the funeral today they gave him a really touching military burial, complete with the guns and Taps and the flag folding and everything else that made me weep. I was also so proud, and incredibly impressed by the number of loved ones who came from all across the country to mourn his death and celebrate his life. The minister mentioned the size of the crowd and noted that even the staff at the hospital had fallen in love with him.

As surly and gruff as he could be, people genuinely and deeply cared about him. I know I loved him so, so much. Even old neighbors who lived on his street half a century ago came to express their love for him.

So many people liked him. He liked all of them back.

But Papaw did NOT like fat people.

He hated fat people and didn't mind saying so. Sure, some of us were privileged to have him like us enough to somewhat overlook our size, but for the most part he held fat people in serious contempt. He had a look that he'd give fat people, a look of disgust and accusation. He didn't like to sit next to fat people. When he ended up in the hospital last month, he would point out the fattest nurses and say, loudly enough for them all to hear, "There's lots of big nurses. I don't know why they're so big. Nurses shouldn't be so fat. Some are alright but they shouldn't take care of other people if they can't take care of themselves…"

The unfortunate problem is the the vast majority of my family is overweight. Like, basically everyone. So I don't know about them, but I'm always acutely conscious of my size around my grandfather. His disgust with fat people rivals my dad's, and that's pretty potent stuff.

Still, I feel grateful that he did get to see me making progress. He was impressed with how much weight I've lost, and winning his approval felt almost as triumphant as winning my father's. 

I'm not religious and I don't know what I believe, but I do know that it's comforting to think that he's up in heaven right now, reunited with my grandmother and my uncle and great aunts and everyone else.

And if heaven does exist, and Papaw is up there watching, I truly hope I continue to make him proud by becoming a less fat person.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Up & Down Like A Yoyo

I've been really frustrated with my weight for the past few weeks. No, I've been really frustrated with myself.

Ever since my birthday a little over a month ago, my weight has been fluctuating up and down like crazy. Sure, there are other factors at play: I drank a lot because it was my birthday, I was horribly constipated for the first time ever and though I was going to die, I pretty much stopped drinking water, I had my anniversary dinner and ate until I thought I was going to pass out, I tried to be a good boss by bringing sugar-laced green vodka and Puckers mixed with Sprite and served in sugar-encrusted shot glasses for St. Patrick's Day, I entered a Peep diorama contest (and won! yay!) which also meant the demise and consumption of untold number of Peeps, my girlfriend has been stocking up on Cadbury Creme Eggs like a squirrel storing nuts for the winter and won't tell me "no" when I ask for one...etc etc etc. So, yeah, I guess there may be some factors going on this month. BUT I still stuck to the Plan...

So why, on last Wednesday's weigh in, did I gain 1.4 pounds? I'm back up to 250.2 pounds, for a total loss of 53.8 from my 304 starting weight. Not bad, but not exactly on track. If I were losing 2 pounds per week, 10 pounds per month, I'd be down 75 pounds right now. I'm not even close! Gaining weight last week really pissed me off.

I told myself, "Well, that's okay, I ate a lot at my anniversary dinner and I haven't been drinking water and blah blah blah" but THEN I looked at my Weight Watchers weight tracker and grasped something that had escaped me in the past few weeks of bouncing back and forth over the 250 pound mark. I realize that in the one month since my birthday, I have GAINED a pound.

That doesn't sound terrible, given the list of excuses above. But I stayed on Plan! I recorded every bite! I counted the Points and carefully measured and weighed every thing I put in my mouth! So how could I have gained?

Something my mom said the other week stuck with me. She was talking about how my grandmother was meeting with a doctor about bariatric surgery, and my mom was depressed because no doctor would consider her for the same surgery given her medical history. I started talking about Weight Watchers and my mom said she would never be able to stick to it because she'd cheat. If she wanted to eat something, she'd pretend like she forgot to write it down, or something similar.

That's when I started to think that maybe I'm doing the same thing. Even though I stay within my Points for the week, I have definitely gone back through and lowered Points on other days when I am running out of Points. Like, if I want a Cadbury Creme Egg, I'll go to yesterday's tracker and say "well, I tore the crust off of that bread so it was really more like 3/4 slice, and part of the ranch dressing dripped onto my plate so that's closer to 1 1/2 tablespoons..." So I cheat. I really tried not to, and I told myself I wasn't, but I cheat. Just like I cheat at Monopoly without intending to.

Once I admitted I was doing it, I tried to be more honest about my measurements. I think that's the TRUE reason I've been having trouble losing this month. I need to stop cheating the system, and be honest with myself. I mean...I'm only cheating myself, and that's no fun. Especially when I'm not even winning.

Daddy

I can blame my weight on a lot of things. I know most of the fault is my own. No one held a gun to my head and made me gorge myself on cheese and chocolate for 30 years.

Still, like a lot of heavy people, I believe that a great deal of my weight issues have been tied to my parents. Between the bad genes, setting bad examples, rewarding us with food, forcing me to clear my plate but rarely making me eat vegetables...it's no wonder I was chubby by the time I was in kindergarten. 

My mom is the one who cooked dinner every night loaded with carbs and butter. She's the one who gave us Poptarts for breakfast and Lunchables, Capri Suns, fruit snacks, Cheetos, and Little Debbies in our lunches. She's the one who is overweight and who everyone says I look just like. She's the one who eats stacks of chocolate chip cookies for breakfast every single morning (not kidding) and then wonders why she can't control her diabetes.

But my dad is responsible for more emotional baggage than my mother could ever dream of inflicting.

I called this blog "My Weird Luck" for a number of reasons. I do have weird luck--not necessarily bad all the time, just strange. My life has taken many unexpected turns over the years. I've come through raging fires where I should have burned in my bed, and heart issues that no one expected me to survive. I've lost those closest to me in tragic and mysterious ways. I've been faced with bizarre obstacles and managed to get through one way or another. I would attribute much of it to weird luck. Maybe the stars were aligned strangely the day I was born.

But mostly, the name of this blog is an homage to Sylvia Plath, one of many poets whom I adore and admire. The line comes from her well-known poem, Daddy.

(Go ahead and read it. I'll wait.) That poem sums up a lot of my feelings for my father. He's in my life and still with my mother, but sometimes (okay, most of the time) I think we'd be better off without him. I KNOW my mom would be. 

I think he does love me. I just think his cruelty far outweighs his capacity to love.

Take this as an example: My parents have been married for 31 years. One of my earlier memories is of my dad telling me (around 5 years old) and my sister (2 or 3 years old) that my mother was like a vacuum cleaner because she would eat anything in the house. What kind of man makes comments like that to his children about their mother? That's when I started to learn how highly my father prized physical beauty and despised weakness. Fat, to him, is one of the most disgusting forms of weakness. To elaborate on the scene I just mentioned: this was when my mother was around 26 years old and weighed maybe 140 pounds. He constantly commented on her weight, and she was a third of the size she is now. Now, he doesn't even touch her. He won't divorce her, but chooses instead to keep her with him under his constant judgement. He doesn't even bother to hide his disgust of her.

When my parents were dating, my dad apparently used to sing Meatloaf's "Two Out of Three Ain't Bad" to my mother. He told her every day that it was how he felt. "I want you, I need you, but there ain't no way I'm ever going to love you." I cry every time I hear that song on the radio, because it makes me think about just how shitty it would be to live with that kind of emotional abuse for 31 years. My poor mom. No wonder she loves chocolate so much.

My dad's judgement definitely doesn't end at my mom.

When I was younger, he was more direct in his scorn and derision. He would comment on my weight, on the food I was eating, on how I was dressed. He was cruel. He was violent. He scared the shit out of me. But mostly, he was just kind of a dick. Of course, I never stopped starving for his attention and approval, and I foolishly thought that if I tried hard enough, he'd eventually magically become a good guy. That obviously never happened. Like, true story: when I was 10 or so I was looking for a Father's Day present. He's a terrible person to shop for because he just buys himself anything he sees that he wants (and he still makes my mom beg for enough money to fill up the car with gas, or to pay for her doctor's bills--as sick as she is, he limits how many doctors she's allowed to see and he cancels appointments if they're going to be expensive). Anyway, I couldn't find anything for him so I bought him a t-shirt for Father's Day that said "World's Greatest Dad." I really though that I couldn't go wrong with a gift like that. HA! Not only did he make a point to tell me that it was a dumb present, but he actually returned it and used the money to buy himself a big can of cashews. Not even joking. Ugh, that's a bad memory. So his cruel comments don't stop at my mom, and they don't stop at even my weight. He can make me feel like shit about pretty much anything in the world.

Now that I've learned to assert myself, he makes more passive aggressive remarks about strangers. "Look at that fat pig over there!" or "God, I can't believe that woman is going to eat that whole meal--I'm getting sick just looking at her!" (Oh, yeah, he's fucking racist too. That's a lovely combination, right?) I've stopped even trying to keep my mouth shut--when he's being nasty and rude, I tell him so. But that doesn't stop him, and it never will.

As disgusting as his thoughts and actions are, it's his attitude about weight that's had the most impact on me personally. Everything else I can deal with in my own way--I'm proud to support equal rights for everyone, I loved how depressed he got when Obama won TWICE (!!!!), and I crushed him by pursuing a Women's Studies degree. I've marched on Washington, I came out as a lesbian at age 18, and I never back down now when he tries to pick a fight about anything.

Except my weight. Partially because I know he's right--I am a fat failure--and partially because it's embarrassing to have anyone call me out about it. At least everyone else is polite enough to quietly ignore my skyrocketing weight. But not him.

My dad has always faced his own struggles with weight. When he was in high school, he was fat. According to him, though, he basically 'willed' all the weight off. Determination, willpower, and a jump rope--he claims that's all you need to drop 100 pounds. Well, maybe for him.

When he was older, maybe in his 30s, he started gaining weight again. He had bushy facial hair and looked like a mountain man. Our neighbor called him "Big Daddy" because he looked like a large reproduction of her own dad.

Then, he got self conscious and started working out again, cut back his portions, and lost weight. Now he wears an XL shirt where before he was pushing XXXL--and he loves to remind everyone about it any chance he gets. He never misses an opportunity to talk about how little he eats, how much energy he has, how long his bike rides are.

That just pisses me off. I don't want to hear about how awesome he is or how I just need to have the determination to lose weight. I fucking hate self-righteous people, and even more so when they're such dicks about everything else.

My dad, though, really knows how to jab the knife in.

Listen, this is a person I would hate if I met him on the street. He's obsessed with Nazi propaganda, he's an unabashed racist, he's heartless and cold and cruel. But he's still my dad, and in the way that all little fat girls do, I still seek his approval more than I seek anything else in my life. It's shameful to me how proud I am when he recognizes me when I get promoted at work, and when he brags about my professional accomplishments. I feel incredible guilt every time I smile at his compliments.

He knows how much his approval means, and he knows how much he hurts me. I think in his sick way he thinks he's helping...but he's not. Not at all.

Um, Did I Swallow a Bowling Ball?

I HAVE GAINED 10 POUNDS IN ONE. FUCKING. WEEK.

TEN POUNDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That's, like, a whole turkey. That's a cat. That's bigger than a baby.

FUUUUUUUUUUUUU...

Okay, I know it's because I just started my period. But seriously...there's not 10 fucking pounds of menses in my uterus right now. At least I fucking hope not. GROSS. And my ankles aren't swollen (I've taken water pills since my open heart surgery, and I can always tell when they're not working because it feels like I'm wearing water wings on my ankles).

So HOW did I gain TEN POUNDS?!?!

(Sidenote--did you know that there's actually a punctuation mark called an 'interrobang' that represents a combined exclamation point and question mark? It's true. And awesome. Too bad my keyboard doesn't come with an interrobang because I would use it all the fucking time.)

Seriously, though, I can't believe I gained so much weight. I'm back solidly into the 260s again. I did not want to be back here.

The last time I gained this much weight at once, I quit Weight Watchers and didn't return for three years. In that time, I gained back everything I had lost, plus another 25 pounds. It was awful. I don't want to go back there, but I can't help but get discouraged when I gain TEN. FUCKING. POUNDS.

I think I'm going to skip my weigh-in tomorrow. It's my last weigh-in before Cancun, and I don't want to go on vacation with such a bad weigh-in hanging over my head. I want to enjoy myself (within reason) and I won't be able to if there's a formal record somewhere of how hard I failed this week.

And okay, if I am being honest, it's not just my period. I was pretty bad. I was doing okay until Saturday, when I went to a Boy Scout soapbox derby for my nephew. They had all kinds of cookies and brownies and everything for sale, 50 cents each. It was like a fundraiser, right? It would have been wrong not to buy something...right?

I ate a good, healthy, filling meal before I went and I brought a whole purse full of oranges, water, apples, pears (which do NOT hold up well in a purse, I soon found out). But when I saw the monster cookies...man, I couldn't help myself. Oatmeal and peanut butter chips and M&Ms all in one delicious cookie? How could I resist?

But I've been good about letting myself eat something delicious in a reasonable quantity, as long as I'm careful about tracking it. So I thought one cookie wouldn't hurt.

Well, then my dad showed up. This man has done more to influence my weight than probably any other single person on the planet, excluding myself. He immediately started talking about how I looked good but I probably shouldn't be eating cookies...how he lost weight with sheer willpower alone and it takes resolve if you want to keep your weight down...how my sister looked so great and was getting skinnier and skinnier and she wasn't eating any cookies, was she?

Fuck him.

I bought another 50 cent bag and ate every crumb. Then I took half of my girlfriend's chocolate chip cookie. And then, fuck it, there was part of a cookie pie left and I ate that too.

Le sigh.

So I can't really blame my period. It was all me. I'm embarrassed about how much I ate, but even more embarrassed about how I let my emotions overtake me. One moment of weakness has virtually erased all of the progress I've made this past month. I let myself down.

Maybe I should weigh in tomorrow. Own up to it and learn from my mistakes. Either way, I need to be careful around my dad and food. Another week like this one and I'm afraid I'll give up...and at this point, I can't afford to do that. My body can't take it.

Family Genes

I keep meaning to write about my grandma, but I keep managing to avoid it anyway. It's embarrassing and painful and sad to think about. But here goes.

 

My grandma is awesome. Really, both of my grandmothers were awesome, but only one is still alive. I lost my wonderful paternal grandmother my freshman year of college. (Incidentally, it happened on the same day that my dad disowned me, slammed my head against a metal rod and tried to choke me out, and then told me he never wanted to see me again. They didn't tell me she was dying until it was too late to make it to the hospital. That's just another thing I don't know if I'll forgive my father for. More on this another day.) My maternal grandmother, Meme, has always doted after me, though. She sees me as a younger version of herself, and I can see it too. The way she shows love, though, is with food. ALWAYS with food.

She has always taken great pains to make my favorite cakes and dishes for Thanksgiving, Easter, and Christmas. She makes me a personal pan of stuffing without chicken broth, even though she claims she'll never understand why I'm a vegetarian. Whenever we were celebrating anything growing up, she and Papaw would take us to Red Lobster or somewhere similar. For birthdays and anniversaries, they like to buy or make thick fudgey brownies and mound ice cream, whipped cream, and chocolate on top. When I spent a month at Ghost Ranch in New Mexico, Meme made me a big box of homemade fudge to share with my new friends--I was insanely popular that day, even though I ate much of the fudge myself. When I would spend the night with them as a child, they'd cook a big supper and then have popcorn with melted butter afterward, followed by ice cream. When I used to house-sit for them, they'd get me a pantry full of chips, Lucky Charms, Little Debbies, and cashews.

Since food is tied so closely to Meme's relationships with me and others, it's no wonder that she also has considerable issues with food.

I've seen pictures of her when she was younger, and she was slim and gorgeous. She looked like Liz Taylor--the resemblance is uncanny. She wore big black beehive wigs and tight bell-bottom pants. She put on weight slowly over the years, and by the time I was born, she was pretty heavy. Some of my earliest memories of her are of her talking about her latest diets. She did a green bean diet for awhile, where she ate green beans all the time. If she wasn't hungry enough to eat plain green beans, the diet reasoned, then she wasn't really hungry. Later, she tried the Sugarbuster diet. Atkins. South Beach. Still her weight continued to rise.

I could see why. You only have to watch her eat one meal to see that her portions are huge, everything's cooked Paula Deen style (she's from Arkansas so most of her meals aren't completed without cornbread slathered with butter, or at least deep fried and covered in salt), and she eats like she's in a trance without knowing what she's intaking. She loves buffets as much as I do, and she always has donuts or coffee cake or cookies on hand.

Even so, she was still pretty. Before she retired, she was stylish and active, even if she was big. But once she retired, it was like she made a nest in her armchair and never left. She stopped swimming and they closed their pool. She stopped going to Vegas for their every-few-months trips because she had trouble fitting in the airplane seats (gee, that sounds familiar). And slowly she began to do less and less.

Now, she has terrible back problems. That's what she says, anyway. I believe that she's in pain, but I think the problems are more weight-related than back-related. I know, I know: I hate physicians who assume every problem with an obese person is nothing more than their weight. But in Meme's case, I think she got so big that moving became a burden, so she stopped trying. I know how she feels, because I was very close to that myself.

My grandfather now has to push her around in a wheelchair everywhere she goes. All 460 or so pounds of her. She got an electric wheelchair, but she doesn't like that as much because she can't get close to her slot machines (they still drive to local casinos since she can't or won't fly to Vegas). She needs help getting to the bathroom and standing up from her chair. It's not old age--she's in her 60s. She just became immobile. She can't put on her own shoes and she hired a housekeeper to do the chores. Her hairdresser has to make house calls because she can't go to the salon. My grandpa is so afraid to leave her home alone and risk her falling that he has to call someone to stay with her if he wants to go to the store or run an errand.

When she was in the hospital last year, they didn't have a bed that could accommodate her. They actually had to call an outside company to deliver a heavy-duty bariatric hospital bed. When it got there, the auto-inflating mattress kept failing. They had the tech out twice and I could tell that he was doing everything he could to avoid telling her that she was too big for the bariatric bed. (That's why I know how much she weighs--they made me try to fix the bed and I saw the weight. For some reason they think that because I can program their cell phone, I should be able to figure out any type of technology. I wish.) They let her keep her own mumu on because the hospital gowns wouldn't fit her. They have to take her blood pressure around her wrist because the cuff won't go around her upper arm. She acts like none of it bothers her, but I can only imagine the embarrassment she must feel.

I never wanted their senior years to be like this. I dreamed of them retiring and having more time for the things they used to love doing--fishing, boating, camping, shopping. Now, they can't even go out to dinner because Meme thinks it's too much of a hassle and it puts too much of a strain on Papaw.

That makes me really sad.

The only good news is that I'm pushing myself in the opposite direction this time. I really was starting to pick up some of her habits--asking my girlfriend to get things for me, choosing to stay home instead of going through the trouble of going out and risking not fitting into a booth or being stared at in a crowd. I'm happy to think that my senior years will be spent doing what I want to do without being constrained by my size...but is it too late to help Meme? She's the most stubborn woman I've met, excluding myself.

I've done all I can, and I'm starting to give up hope that she'll ever take the initiative to get healthy again. I feel like she's resigned herself to living out her final years like the mom in What's Eating Gilbert Grape, and that makes me want to cry. I had almost resigned myself to the same fate...the only difference is that I feel like I still have time to turn my life around. I wish I could say the same for her.

Trauma Club

My mom is having heart surgery today. She has already had open heart surgery (as have I) but this time, she's having a stent put in to try opening her Superior vena cava. There is a good possibility that the balloon they're using to open the SVC could rip through the old scar tissue, causing her to bleed out or go into cardiac arrest. There's also a good possibility that everything will go perfectly and she'll leave with totally restored blood flow (or at least better blood flow than she has now...it can't get much worse than it already is).

My mom has worse luck than me. She has lupus, fibromyalgia, diabetes, COPD, sleep apnea, Raynaud's Disease, and she also had her open heart surgery for a freak reason: she lived near the airport for many years and the pulverized pigeon shit on the runways became airborne and entered her lungs, leading to histoplasmosis which caused severe scarring and started blocking veins.

On top of that, my mom is big. Large. Shorter than me but rounder. I still envy her, though. She was tiny and beautiful when she was younger. She went to modeling school. She was, like, 110 pounds. I'm jealous that she's at least had a chance to be thin. But then she got pregnant with me and never lost the baby weight. 30 years later and she's bigger than ever. I'm sure she blames me for making her fat just as I partially blame her for making me fat. In the end, I guess we can only really blame ourselves. Her fat drags her down as much as mine drags me, but her additional health problems make her situation even more grim. Not like anyone is going to convince her to lose weight (or stop smoking when she's on her third bout if pneumonia or bronchitis or pleurisy in a season, or wear gloves when her fingers go numb and turn white, or stop eating cookies for breakfast when her blood sugar is 250).

With all of her health problems, you'd think that going into heart surgery she'd be worrying about what could go wrong in the operating room, what complications they might run into, bad reactions to the anesthetic, waking up in the middle of the surgery and feeling everything...the usual concerns (for me, at least).

Not my mom.

Instead, the thoughts that have occupied her mind and driven her sick with anxiety are all pre-operative. She's had this procedure done before--although it was years ago, and the blood flow is much more restricted now, making surgery even riskier--and she still remembers the steps they took.

To insert the cameras and tubing, they go through her groin. This makes a scary procedure instantly transform into sheer torture. First, they have to wash you. THEY wash you. I know first-hand how miserable and humiliating that is for a fat girl. I had the misfortune of being rushed to the cardiac ICU to treat a blood clot on my artificial valve once, and they pumped me full of clot-busting blood thinners. Because of the risk of bleeding, they confined me to my bed for several days (I even had to use a bed pan. Seriously one of the worst things I've ever been through.) and, because the cardiac ICU is apparently sterile, I had to be bathed when they brought me in. They wouldn't let me get up or move, so I laid there in horror as a team of orderlies wiped me down EVERYWHERE. And when I say everywhere, that includes under my rolls. Yes, someone had to push my stomach up to sponge me off. If I could have willed myself dead at that moment, I would have.

Which brings me to the second step my mom is dreading. In order to have unrestricted access to the entry point near her groin...they actually tape up her stomach. They push it up and hold it in place with tape throughout the entire surgery. Once, around three years ago, my girlfriend unconsciously reached up and nudged my stomach while she was going down on me and I haven't let her go down there since. That's something I have to get over...otherwise, I may never have sex again. That's a depressing thought, especially when I have such a hot girlfriend. But touch my stomach and I will never forget it. Just like my mom, whose belly will be shoved up by a stranger this morning in a room full of people.
 

Lastly, they shave her "down there." This may be the second step, I don't know, but I do know she is incredibly embarrassed by having someone push her fat around enough to shave her pubic hair. I can't imagine anyone doing that to me. That seems like something else I'd never get over. I keep myself shaved anyway (at least when it's not winter, although there isn't much of a point if I don't let my girlfriend anywhere near there) but if someone else had to get down there and shave me as I stared at the ceiling, I might die before I even made it into the operating room..

So that's what's on my mom's mind, and on mine too. I'm a little scared for her (okay, absolutely fucking terrified) but I also feel really sorry for her. That's a lot to go through in a day. Not to mention the other pitfalls of being in the hospital...having people struggling to shift you from one bed to another; not having a hospital gown that actually closes around your stomach; being in a bed with a scale embedded and knowing that one accidental button push will reveal your weight to the whole room; having to wait for a wheelchair wide enough to fit your ass...

At least she won't be alone. And I really understand where she's coming from. My sister will be there too but she can't relate--even at her biggest, she was still the small one. She wears size 6 jeans and is still losing weight. She will never know what it's like to face what my mom and I go through. Good for her. But I do know what it's like, and it sucks. It really sucks. My grandma knows too, probably more so than me or my mom, and that makes me sad. It's like we're all part of a Fat Girl Trauma Club. It's a club I never wanted to join, and I'm trying like hell to get out of it. I wish I could get my mom out too.

Keep On Truckin'

Not weighing in this week is driving me CRAZY. After three days and nights of a veritable food orgy, I really need the reality check of getting on the scale so I can point myself in the right direction again. Alas, my meeting this week was cancelled and I still don't have a working scale, so I have to wait until next Wednesday to see my Christmas damage.

Seriously, I ate a lot.

I stayed within my Points for the week--but just barely. Like, when I got into the negative numbers, I went in and gave myself Activity Points for things like doing the laundry and playing with my niece and nephew. And then when I went negative again, I started scrolling through the food I ate and amending the amounts ('that 1/2 cup of mashed potatoes was really more like 1/4 cup...and I didn't finish that piece of cake so I'll only count 3/4 of it...'). There was just so much temptation. I didn't go crazy, but I did do some serious buffet-line-grazing. And I just had to "test" the nachos every time I stirred them. And it's not like you can have just ONE chocolate chip cookie when there's a whole bag just waiting to be eaten...

Now that Christmas is over, it's hard to get back into my good habits. I had a snow day yesterday, so we spent the day lazing around and eating leftovers. I knew it wasn't a good idea to bring leftovers home, but I'm a sucker for green bean casserole.  Extra cheesy.

My stockings were thankfully candy-free! I asked everyone to refrain from giving me sweets, so I ended up with tons of new earrings and trinkets and even some sugar free Jell-o boxes (score!). Plus, I got some awesome stuff for the kitchen. A new food scale, a really nice knife block and new knives, some stainless steel measuring cups, some measuring scoops with teaspoons and tablespoons on the handles, an olive oil mister, a garlic press, etc. So in between the bombardments of cookies and candy, I also got gentle reminders of my healthier habits.

It was also really nice to hear all of the compliments from my extended family--they last saw me about twenty pounds ago, so they can see now that I'm losing weight. And I only had to delete half of the photos of myself, instead of the usual 90%, so that was nice also.

I'm struggling to get back on track, and knowing that my next weigh-in is a week away has made me even more reluctant to be good. I'm still snacking on my girlfriend's candy, and I'm not drinking the water I was before. But I'm tracking everything, so at least if I gain next week, I'll be able to flip back through the last two weeks and see all of the bad decisions I made that showed up on the scale.

Hopefully I can reign it in before then, though, and actually lose a pound or two!

Surving Christmas

This is a ROUGH time to watch your weight!

All week at work I've had to dodge platters of fudge, brownies, cupcakes, divinity, homemade marshmallows, Oreo truffles, cake balls, cookies, peanut brittle, gingerbread, chocolate dipped candy canes, caramels, muffins...not to mention all of the store bought candy! Tree-shaped Reese's, white chocolate Oreos, Snickers, Kit-Kats, Caramellos, Heath bars...there have been mugs and bags of candy left on my desk, bowls and plates full sitting around on filing cabinets and desks, tins and baskets on the counters in the office kitchen. It's worse than my parents' house (although mercifully not as wrought with emotional eating triggers as being at my parents').

I've been strong, and I've actually been proud of my resolve. I passed up the platters, I gave the bagged goodies to my girlfriend and asked her to hide them from me and eat them quickly, and I had her hide the candy and only give me pieces when I ask for them. Last year at Christmas, I ate like I would never get chocolate again. I stuffed my face all day, every day. I did not pass up a single cookie or cupcake. I had piles of empty wrappers around me at all times. I emptied bags of Lindt truffles and gorged on boxes of Ferrero Rocher and chocolate covered cherries. I tried the white chocolate Frosty, the Reindeer Tracks Blizzards, the eggnog milkshakes, the gingerbread cappachinos. I baked rolls of cookies and dipped everything in the house in chocolate (marshmallows, cashews, cookies, Ritz crackers with peppermint flavor--they taste like Thin Mints--, candy canes, cherries, graham crackers, pretzels, everything) and then I ate and ate and ate. I couldn't even begin to guess how much I ate last year at Christmas, or how much weight I gained as a result. I just didn't care. I gorged myself with everything I could get my hands on.

Gorged is a good word. When I think of gorging, I think of ticks. Have you ever seen a really, totally engorged tick? When I first found my old dog on the side of the road on spring many years ago, he had a broken leg and was covered in ticks. The Humane Society guessed he had been outside all winter because his coat was so matted and caked deep with mud. The broken leg and resulting infection were more than they could care for and they were going to put him down if I left him. So of course I kept him, snuck him into my house (I was in college and pets were strictly verboten in university housing), and gave him a bath (I was as scared as he was--here was a strange, wild Rottweiler mix that I was told had been beaten and had his leg broken by a human, not a car, and I had no idea how he would react). He let me wash him and when I was done, I began inspecting him and cleaning his wounds, and I found so many fleas and ticks in his thick fur. I knew the flea shampoo would help with those vermin, but the ticks would have to be pulled out by hand. I started pulling them out, one by one, and then found a dense cluster of them latched in one of his armpits (if you can call it that on a dog). 

While I was pulling out all of the outer ticks, this disgusting thing was slowly uncovered at the center of the cluster. It was a tick, but it was the size of my thumbnail and a sickly yellowish-orange. Once I had pulled away all of the others, I had to get that monster. It had been sucking this dog's blood for so long, it was engorged to the point of almost bursting. I was using tweezers to gently detach the ticks head-first so there wouldn't be anything left inside the dog's skin, but this tick was so huge I couldn't easily get to the head. I used my fingers to pull the tweezers apart and released them around the tick--but it was so full and fat that it was soft, and the tweezers sank in like it was a marshmallow. I finally pulled it out but it was so gross and pale and full of blood that I never forgot that sight.

I ended up rehabilitating the dog and he became the love of my life. I named him J (J. Edgar Hoover) and I spent all of my time with him. And on more than one occasion, the thought of leaving him with no one to care for him saved me from killing myself. Not to be too grim, but I have dealt with suicidal thoughts pretty much as long as I can remember. There were several times after college in the lonely years that come with graduating from school to living alone and drinking alone and living as a drunk, unhealthy slob with no direction, that looking into that dog's eyes was literally the only thing that kept me from slitting my wrists or swallowing the handful of pills. I saved him and he saved me. When he died two years ago, I thought I would die with him. And when Rob died last year, I felt lonelier than I ever have before and I considered killing myself with the very slim hope that I might see Rob and J again if I did. But I was in a better place, and I had a girlfriend who loves me and got me through, and now I'm committed to living a healthier life and giving myself a chance again. In the year after moving in with my girlfriend I had begun to eat healthier and work out, and J loved going on the trails with me as I walked and jogged along. Then I got sick, had my open heart surgery, and we stopped jogging or even walking together. I wish I had been more active with him in the years after my surgery and before he died. But now I have another dog--as very different as a dog can be from another--and I hope to give him the active time I took away from J.

But back to what I was saying. Last year, I gorged myself until I really felt like that nasty tick I pulled out of J. I could barely move and I knew every part of my body was swollen with fat. I'm determined to not let that happen this year, so I'm doing that I can to control my sweet tooth. Besides passing up the treats and having my girlfriend hide my candy, I also decided not to make sweets this year. I gave my employees little gift bags instead of the usual cookies and chocolate-covered-everything, and I invited my parents over here to visit instead of going over there to help them bake. I'm also proud of this little change: I had volunteered to contribute to a charity bake sale, but instead of baking human food, I made dog cookies. I've made them before and they're so easy--it's 2 cups of wheat flour, 1 tablespoon of baking powder, 1 cup of milk, 1 cup of peanut butter, 1 tablespoon of vanilla, and 1/4 cup of honey. I mix the dry ingredients, mix the wet ingredients, combine the two, and then knead. I rolled it out thin and used a small Christmas tree cookie cutter and baked them for 20 minutes at 375. They turned out beautifully, and I divided them into snack bags. I made little "Merry Christmas" tags with a label saying they were peanut butter cookies for dogs, and included "To" and "Love" with blank spaces so people could give them to their dogs as presents. Some curly ribbon tied to each bag made them really cute--and they were a huge hit! They made money for the charity, and they kept me away from temptation. Plus, my dog really enjoyed the cookies I made him out of the scraps :)

So I'm finding little ways to sidestep the Christmas treat landmines that are planted around my life. I'm still staying on Plan and finding ways to be more active, and I have to say that this year feels more like Christmas than last year did. It's really nice to enjoy Christmas, instead of watching it pass by the television screen while I gulp down food without thinking about it. I miss J, I miss Rob, and I do miss making plates of goodies for everyone--but I'm slowly learning to replace those gaps with healthy food, meaningful activities, and spending time with the people I love who are still with us. I don't want to be a tick this year. I want to be a Christmas elf, spreading cheer instead of sucking it all away. That was super cheesy. But the point is, I'm having a wonderful Christmas and I think I'm helping the people around me have a good Christmas too, even if I'm not handing them cookies.