Bigger (The Nicky Beets series) (6 page)

Despite appearances, I had been on a fair number of diets in the previous
couple of years – a juice diet, the no-carb diet, the Sugar Busters! Diet,
the Carbohydrate Addict’s Diet. They all worked for a couple of weeks before I
would break down and devour a pizza with Chuck. He didn’t mean to sabotage me,
but he told me that as a native Texan, he couldn’t tolerate a house filled with
only fruits and vegetables. Meat and cheese were his main staples. It felt
impossible to diet around him.

In explaining this to Roxanne, she was sympathetic but I could tell she
didn’t relate. She was chronically single and lived with only her cat, Jujube.
As best I could tell, her fridge contained only Type-O diet-friendly foods and
almost every evening she ate a small, lean piece of meat and a sweet potato,
plain. Sometimes she sucked on a single, small piece of dark chocolate, and
claimed to be cured of her chocolate craving for the day. She was a creature I
did not understand.

Roxanne seemed to have little interest in settling down. She dated
frequently and was often entertaining me with news of her latest rendezvous.
But normally within about five dates, her new relationships fizzled. She would
lose interest when she realized the man had a paunch he’d been hiding or that
he didn’t floss his teeth regularly or that he had a dog – she hated
dogs.

I accused her of being petty in her dating pursuits, comparing her with
Jerry Seinfeld’s character on
Seinfeld
– he’d once dumped a woman because she smelled like soup. But the truth
was a large part of me envied her.

Roxanne led the kind of life I envisioned was possible for myself, if I
could only take more than a passing interest in my mental and physical well-being.
Rox slept in on weekends, curled up with Jujube, and rolled out of bed when she
was ready to. She’d pull on a track-suit and Gucci sunglasses, sweep her hair
into a ponytail and walk to a nearby coffee shop from her San Francisco
apartment. She often spent weekends enjoying facials, manicures and pedicures
before joining her single girlfriends for tequila shots and flirtation with the
abundant men frequenting bars in the city.

I could have done those things, too, sans the flirtation, obviously. The
main personality flaw preventing me from doing so was complacency; things were
good enough the way they were. Chuck and I went about our routines every day,
and life was tolerable enough, especially when there was a nice bottle of red
wine waiting at the end of the day. Breaking that routine would require effort,
and I’d already proven to myself that putting forth any amount of effort to
improve my quality of life was not my strong suit.

And then there was the fact that I didn’t feel I deserved to be happier
than I was. I didn’t deserve happiness, therefore I stagnated. Nothing changed
for the better, which caused me to be disappointed with myself, which in turn
perpetuated my ongoing belief that I didn’t deserve happiness; the proverbial
vicious cycle.

So I’d stick to what I always did. Cooking meals, cleaning the house,
grocery shopping, doing laundry, scheduling blog posts. It didn’t seem like
much. So why did the necessary tasks in my life seem so much more overwhelming
than those in Roxanne’s?

We finished lunch and were waiting for the server to bring our check when
Roxanne looked at me pointedly.

“So, you are going to come to yoga tomorrow, right?” she asked.

I sighed. My complacency didn’t want to go to yoga; it wanted to go
straight home after work, sit on the couch, and eat Chinese food. I inwardly
shushed my complacent voice and answered, “Yes.”

“Ok, good,” she said. “So you should probably eat light for lunch
tomorrow. Otherwise you might get a little burpy.”

“You mean I might vomit,” I grinned ruefully. “I can’t imagine trying to
exercise after what I just ate.”

“That’s just the thing,” Roxanne said. “You might want to think about
changing your eating habits if you’re going to take up exercise. No need to
negate all your hard work with cheeseburgers.”

This was the closest Roxanne had ever come to telling me I needed to
participate in portion control.
 

“You’re right,” I nodded. I wasn’t sure why Rox could tell me this
without offending me. When my mom broached the topic, I flew into a rage. Probably
because Rox hadn’t been sending me mixed messages my entire life. I might have
been offended if she had said this to me on any other day, but after the
humiliation of the evening prior, I had no choice but to face the facts. I
gestured toward my full stomach. “I’ve been thinking I need to do something
about this.”

“I’m telling you – the Blood Type Diet!” she enthused.

“I’m thinking low-carb. Or no-carb,” I told her. “I’ve tried it before
and it seems to work pretty well, if I can just stick with it.”

“Well, low carb is really the way you should be eating for your blood
type, anyway,” she lectured. “So when are you going to start? Tomorrow?”

I thought for a moment. I wanted to diet – or rather, I wanted to
lose weight. I’d proven to myself in the past that I wasn’t able to diet,
especially around Chuck. But I could surely explain to Chuck my need to shed
the weight, and he would understand that this time he would need to be more
supportive than he had been in the past. And if I was going to begin a yoga class
the following day, it only made sense to start the diet the following day.

“Yeah,” I decided. “Tomorrow.”

“Ok, awesome!” Roxanne enthused. “You can do this.”

I smiled uncertainly. My track record didn’t inspire me with confidence,
and the complacent part of me didn’t relish the idea of exerting a lot of
effort with exercise without being rewarded with delicious food. But, my skinny
friend seemed ready and willing to prod me lovingly to the starting line, and
for that I could only be grateful.

The remainder of our workday was quiet and slow, allowing Rox and I to
spend inordinate amounts of time on the Internet; shopping, scrolling through
social media sites, and emailing friends. I used the time to compile a two-week
menu and grocery list that included mainly lean meat and vegetables. There were
many healthy salads in my future if I stuck with this. The thought made me
morose, and I began to worry about how my blog readers were going to respond.

My plan was to stop at the grocery store on the way home from work to
procure all of my new, healthy foods. I would take them home; remove all
processed food, sugary stuff and fattening grub from my kitchen; and begin what
was sure to be another challenging weight loss program.

After one last blast that evening. I couldn’t very well start a crazy new
diet plan without having a “last meal” – never mind how many “last meals”
I’d had prior to previous failed diets. I’d read somewhere that when we
repeatedly break our promises to ourselves, we begin to lose trust in our own
words. I’d probably reached the point where I didn’t believe a thing I said
when it came to weight loss, but I had to put that out of my mind, now. I had to
believe this time the plan would stick, and this last meal would be a true
final indulgence before I cut “bad” carbs out of my life forever.

At dusk, I trudged toward the dark garage where my car was parked, making
my way along the sidewalks with hundreds of other worker bees. My cell phone
rang as soon as I sat in the driver’s seat and shut the car door. It was my
best friend, Laurie. She liked to call me during my evening commute so she
could have my undivided attention. Traffic was usually slow enough that it
sometimes took me an hour to get home. I slipped in my earbuds and answered the
phone.

“Dude,” I answered. I’ve been calling men and women alike “dude” for as
long as I’ve been alive, and I don’t see myself being able to break the habit.

“Nic,” Laurie greeted me. “Hey, so … did you by chance watch the news
last night?”

“Mother fucker,” I swore.

“I take it you saw it, too,” she ventured.

“Sure did. Flattering, no?”

“Simply horrifying,” she answered. She didn’t have to elaborate. She knew
me well enough to know I’d be enormously pissed off. “I’m so sorry. What are
you doing right now?”

“I’m on my way to the grocery store to buy my new healthy staples so I
can lose a quadrillion pounds so this never happens to me again,” I told her.

Laurie sighed. “Come over to my place. Have some wine.”

Chuck was working late that night, so he wouldn’t miss me if I wasn’t
home. And Laurie knew me well – nothing in the world sounded better than
a big glass of zinfandel at that moment. “All right, but I have to go grocery
shopping at some point tonight, so I can’t stay late.”

“Cool. See you soon.”

I pulled up to Laurie’s Berkeley bungalow forty-five minutes later and
took note of my friend’s new dirt garden; where grass had once grown in her
front yard, there was now just an expanse of dry dirt. Clumps of earth and
roots were spilling messily onto the sidewalk.

I let myself into Laurie’s unlocked front door and greeted my friend,
“The hell happened to your yard?”

I heard the tinkling of glasses from the kitchen, and Laurie emerged in a
swirling peasant skirt, wine goblets and sustainable organic red wine in hand.

“I decided to stop watering the lawn because it was a waste of a precious
resource, and then Frank got pissed off at me and had all the grass torn out,”
she laughed and poured me a generous glassful of wine. “The goddamned neighbors
have their panties all in a bunch about it, so I’m thinking of putting in some
native plants that don’t need much water.”

“How dare they?” I teased her.

Laurie is the crunchiest granola hippie I’ve ever had the pleasure of
knowing – and I’ve known her since the eighth grade. She’s hell bent on
saving and re-using resources, buying only organic, unprocessed goods and
overall doing her share – and probably mine as well – to save the
world.

Normally, Laurie wore earth-toned organic cotton maxi dresses, locally
made jewelry and comfortable (organic!) shoes. If I’d tried to wear the things
she traipses around in, I would look ridiculous, but somehow she pulls it off.
She’s a little plump, following the birth of her daughter, Sage, three years
prior, and is large-chested and ample-hipped. Her cheeks are always tinted pink
and her hazel eyes twinkle next to her satin complexion, which she absolutely
never touches with makeup (
Dioxins!
Laurie
chides).

A French major in college, my friend now teaches mostly drama nerds
French at a local public high school. Something about the French language
appeals to the romantic in every geek, but the realists all enroll in Spanish.

Laurie’s married to a computer scientist – Frank Zinck. He is her
polar opposite. Frank is a pale, English introvert who stumbled upon loud
American Laurie during her month-long trip to France a couple years after
college. To meet Frank now, you’d never guess he’d had the balls to snag
Laurie, or precisely what it was she saw in the Brit that made her fall in
love. He’s nineteen years her senior, and so introverted you could accurately
describe him as a recluse. Opposites attract, I suppose.
I met an older guy from the UK…
We’re
getting married,
she surprised us all upon her return home
.

My friend is impulsive, but it somehow always seems to work out for her.
She and Frank married at a winery in Saratoga about four months following their
first encounter, and baby girl Sage followed soon thereafter. Frank managed to
obtain his green card and from what I could tell, he now spent much of his time
at work or holed up in his home office tinkering away at something or the
other. He seemed content keeping to himself while Laurie mothered their
daughter and embarked on new Earth-saving adventures.

“You should come see my new compost pile,” she said.

“Mmm, tempting,” I answered, taking a sip of wine and settling into the
couch.

“I’m going to fertilize the garden with it, once it’s ready to go.”

“Sounds awesome. And smelly.”

Laurie settled into the couch with her glass of wine.

“So,” she began. “This newscast you were part of.”

I groaned.

“Did they ask you if they could use your image on television?” she asked.

“No.” I told her. “According to Chuck, they don’t have to if you’re in a
public place. And really, if you think about it, if you’re in public, you
should be presentable and expect to be seen by others, anyway. I just didn’t
expect to be seen by
so many
others.”

“At least they didn’t show your face,” she offered.

“Thank God,” I answered. “Still, it’s completely embarrassing. Honestly,
Laurie, I had no idea how bad I looked.”

Laurie shook her head. “You don’t. The camera adds ten pounds. Besides
which, it wasn’t the most flattering … anything. I mean, it didn’t help that
you were eating hot dogs. Not that it’s your fault – pretty much
everybody eats lunch every day, just most of us don’t do it on camera.”

“The camera adding ten pounds is seriously the least of my worries,
dude,” I said, shaking my head in resignation. “It’s almost like I didn’t even
realize how big I was until I saw that. It made me finally realize I can’t keep
ignoring my weight. I have to do something about it.”

Discussing weight issues ran counter to everything Laurie believed in.
She was a feminist of the first order and believed women shouldn’t have to look
any way in particular to earn respect. However, she couldn’t ignore
disadvantages as far as my health was concerned, or my happiness for that
matter.

“What can I do?” she asked sympathetically.

“I have to do the work, but just don’t let me pretend I don’t have a
major issue,” I told her. “And for the love of God, no chocolate.”

“What about eating in moderation?” she asked.

I gave her a meaningful look.