Secrets of a Former Fat Girl (25 page)

And now, Former Fat Girls-to-be, it's your turn to step up. Your future is waiting.

O
nce you become a Former Fat Girl, there's one little thing you must do for yourself. You
must
do something to celebrate. Take a trip, go on a shopping spree, hire a skywriter to spread the news. You've done something you never thought you could do, something even the so-called weight loss experts say is impossible. You have pushed and kicked and elbowed your way through all the obstacles. You have carved a new image for yourself, a new body, a new life. You deserve a blowout akin to an Oscar after-party.

Yes, as a newly minted Former Fat Girl, you will have a lot to celebrate—enough to last you a good long while. I, in fact, am still celebrating, and I've been here almost twenty years now. I have never lost sight of how hard it was for me to drop those 70-plus pounds (the size of your average eight-year-old) and how hard it was for me to overcome my fear of reaching for what I wanted—whether it was a guy or a job—and getting hurt in the process. How amazing it is when I can't find a new pair of pants because everything's too big (and not because I wandered into Lane Bryant by mistake) or when I have to struggle over picking one swimsuit out of the five that not only fit but actually look
good
. It's like having to choose one chocolate—
just
one—from a box of Godiva truffles.

I know what you're saying: If those are what you call problems, bring 'em on!

Oh, you will have your share of all the delicious dilemmas you could only dream of having before. And—you knew this was coming—you will face others, too, because being a Former Fat Girl comes with its own set of challenges. You might have an image in your head of the perfect life, the perfect house, the perfect body, the perfect man, all yours when you finally take the weight off. But the reality is a little different, a little less perfect (because you know, reality is
never
perfect). You'll still have your ups and downs; you'll still have to deal with temptations, frustrations, anxiety, even depression. And you won't exactly have food to help you through it, like you did many times before.

The last thing I want to do is put a damper on your celebration, but I do want you to be prepared. You already have some powerful tools to help you deal with anything you'll face in your new life. Wait a minute—you know you can't just drop your INO at the door when you get here, right? You know that continuing to live by the Former Fat Girl secrets is the price of admission, don't you? You know this isn't some diet that just suddenly ends after you've completed your six-week or six-month stretch, yes?

All the things you've learned to get you to this point will help you rise above the challenges of navigating the world as a Former Fat Girl, but there are particularly difficult issues that I want to make sure you're on the lookout for, issues that I still struggle with even now. Here's one that came up for me just the other day. A woman at work was going from office to office with a bag of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups (the little ones), like a 3:00
P.M
. chocolate fairy doling out treats. It was a particularly stressful Monday afternoon. She came to my door, stopped herself, and said, “Oh, I know
you
wouldn't eat one!” No, not me, not
perfect little me
. I was once shamed for eating an entire bag of these things, and now I am shamed because I
won't
?

The interesting thing about this particular woman is that she and I have had this conversation before. She knows I indulge when I want to and that I am a Former Fat Girl, yet she continues to bully. So in this case I said, “Oh, Dolores, I'd
love
one. You know I eat chocolate at least once a day, and these are my favorites.” Which is true: I'm especially fond of those little peanut-butter-in-my-chocolate, chocolate-in-my-peanut-butter confections. If it were some crappy knockoff, I wouldn't have bothered. (It's that INO thing; the impostors aren't worth the calories!) But since it was the real deal, I took one and promptly put it in my desk drawer because I'd already had a couple of Hershey's Kisses that afternoon. I would save the Reese's for the next day.

But you see how it happens: The people around you will continue to be hyper-interested in what you eat. They might start thinking of you as some diet freak or some workout freak even when you go to great pains not to appear as though you're forcing your Former Fat Girl ways on them. And then there will be people—some of them men!—lobbing compliments at you, something you may never have experienced before. How do you deal with the wolf whistles? How do you dress this new body of yours? How do you handle life's little (or large) setbacks without fleeing Former Fat Girl world for good? Read on.

The Issue: You Feel Like a Selfish Bitch

Let's start with the hardest one, the one that eats away at your very soul. As a Former Fat Girl you start focusing on getting what you want, on pleasing yourself not just everyone else, remember? But don't be shocked when a little voice in the back of your mind uses the selfish b-phrase. How could you turn down brunch with the girls because of a measly workout? How could you say no to a visit to Mom's and instead go to that movie you've been dying to see? Never mind that you see the girls every week. Never mind that you've always been there when Mom needs you. Your definitions of
selfish
and
bitch
are so completely off, thanks to the Fat Girl programming you're continuing to battle, that anything short of the ultimate sacrifice seems selfish, callous, heartless, and bitchy. You are so used to giving, giving, giving that when you start to take even just a little, that selfish b-phrase comes bubbling up. You may even get it from the people around you who have benefited from your self-sacrificing in the past. But chances are
you
feel it more than anyone else does. Your “selfish bitch” meter is so sensitive that the slightest jolt can set off the alarm.

Mine was particularly difficult to deal with when I went back to work after maternity leave. It was that whole work/life balancing act: I wanted to be with my baby as much as possible while working full-time and trying to get my body back in shape after gaining those forty-two pounds. Early morning and after work exercise were not options, those were precious hours with Johnny that I would never get back. So I decided that I would spend my lunch hours at the gym. I became very protective of that time, but it was difficult for me to deflect lunch invitations without feeling like a selfish bitch. Not to mention the fact that at times I felt that it was politically risky. (I sacrificed a lunchtime workout now and then to satisfy my boss.)

How did I keep from giving in to the little voice that threatened to pull me back into self-sacrificing mode? I tapped into how it felt when my life was all about putting other people first (parents, friends, my boss, my neighbors, anyone who could hold an opinion of me), those days when their happiness was more important than my own. I remembered how empty I felt inside when I was giving everything to everyone else. I remembered the unhealthy resentment I had for the demands and the people pulling on me from every direction. And I remembered that it was my choice whether to give in or not.

The other thing I did, and I continue to do, is surround myself with role models—women like my friend Jill who took a pottery class just for her, who traveled to Italy last year with her sister, who has managed to make monthly girls' night out with her video group for more than ten years, on top of having two kids and a full-time job. I see how her choices feed her soul and how she does it without guilt because she believes she deserves it and is a better mom-wife-sister-friend-employee for it. It helps to have her around when that old people-pleasing programming rears its ugly head.

And then there's always counseling. I have seen a couple of therapists over the last twenty years, especially when I've needed to hear that it's okay to stick up for myself, that saying no, boss, I can't go to lunch with you (but how about a coffee?) doesn't mean I'm a selfish bitch. And what's good about a therapist is that she tells you if you really are a selfish bitch (whereas your mom or a friend might hesitate). You may not like hearing it, but at least you wouldn't be wondering anymore.

The Issue: Your Life Gets Interrupted

Know this: There will be days when you can't stick to your fitness routine and your food plan. You catch a cold; you sprain an ankle; you have an impossible deadline at work; your husband, your child, or your parents get sick. It happens. It's life. Expect it. And in my experience it often happens just when you start feeling good—a little cocky, even. You've finally gotten used to that 6:00
A.M
. workout wake-up call, maybe, or you've just gotten the knack of that new kickboxing class, or you've completed your search for lunch takeout that's both healthy and good (no small task).

I have had more life interruptions than I can count, both minor and major. On the more dramatic end, there was the time I wrecked my knee so spectacularly that I ended up going under the knife. It happened one late afternoon when a group of us were out on the lake in Austin, tubing behind a friend's boat. We were sitting on a monster-truck-size inflatable tube that was attached to the boat by a tow rope, apparently to get bumped and battered around as the boat reached top speed. I guess some people think it's fun; if you ask me, it's more like something you'd use to squeeze international secrets out of war prisoners. To make it even worse, the guy driving decided to play a little game with us by zigzagging around the lake in an attempt to dump us into the water. And he started playing in the middle of my turn on the tube. After a few hellish minutes of feeling like a bobblehead, the boat veered left, I swung right, and despite my death grip on the handles, I went flying through the air. Who knew water was so hard when you hit it going eighty miles an hour? I smacked into the surface, my legs at some crazy angle (luckily, I didn't land face-first or I would have ended up looking like I'd stuck my head in a panini press). I knew immediately that something was wrong with my left knee, a hunch that was confirmed when I tried to walk and my leg wouldn't straighten. I borrowed some crutches and limped around for the next couple of days, my knee ballooning up all blue and red. I was too afraid to go to the doctor because I didn't want to hear him say “surgery.” I didn't want to hear him say “rest.” I didn't want to hear him say “stop.” I was scared of the anesthesia, of the pain, of missing too much work. Not only that, after all I had worked for (I was wearing a bikini and looking pretty good when I went slamming into the water), would this stupid tubing incident put me back on the Fat Girl track?

Denial wasn't doing my knee any good; it was clear that I needed professional help. So I went to some orthopedic guy who tried to force my leg out of the 30-degree angle where it was frozen. He's lucky I couldn't get up or I would have punched him. Anyway, it didn't work. Nothing worked. It was either surgery or surgery. So I signed the consent form, slipped into a hospital gown, and prayed I'd end up with a knee that worked a lot better (and hurt a lot less) than the one I had.

The doctor found ligament damage, stitched me up, and sent me on my way in a stupor (this is what they call outpatient surgery). I had to wear a brace to keep my leg completely straight for a couple of days and then spend a few days on crutches. Then, according to the doctor, I could do fifteen minutes a day on the stationary bike. By this time I had worked up to running five miles a day plus playing volleyball and softball once a week. So I was thinking, “
Is he kidding me? Goodbye, size 5 jeans, it's been nice knowin' ya.
”

On the verge of giving up or completely freaking out, I dialed frantically back through my Former Fat Girl Fixes for help, and I found it: the whole idea that something is better than nothing. I had a new frame of reference now. I couldn't run—it was physically impossible—but I could get on the bike and see how it feels. I could be faithful to my scaled-down, fifteen-minutes-a-day regimen. I started focusing on what I could do instead of what I couldn't.

And that is what helped me get even stronger and smarter than I was before knee surgery—smarter because I learned that it didn't have to be all or nothing for me. The choice wasn't five miles or five chocolate sundaes. I didn't have to see every setback as a tragedy. There are shades of gray; there are compromises. I just had to be patient, look for them, and give myself time to heal.

Heal I did. I made myself do those fifteen-minute stints—no more, no less—every day. I added more only when my doc told me I could. At the same time I took a hard look at what I was eating, making sure my morning bowl of Bran Chex hadn't inflated, and kept a strict check on my carb-filled friends. That's all I could do, so I did it. I might have gained a few pounds during the six or so months it took me to get back up to speed, but once I (and my fully recovered knee) started hitting the running trails again, I was able to pull out my favorite pair of jeans again.

No matter what kind of interruption you experience, these lessons—being patient with yourself and doing something, however small—can serve you well. When you're keeping vigil at the hospital for a sick parent, you can't exactly stick to your workout schedule, right? But you can and should take any opportunity to move. Walk up the stairs, go out for fresh air, and sneak in a workout when you can—unless, that is, you really need sleep. Because it's all about balance. There's a lot in your life that you can have your way, like your Burger King Whopper (no cheese, no mayo) or the way you start your Saturday morning (with a walk or run, or a coffee and cruller). But when you can't be in the driver's seat, that's when it gets tough. Remember that it's not all or nothing. Remember yourself and your needs even during a crisis (because if you don't choose you at least sometimes, you're not going to be any good to anyone else). Give yourself time to find the shades of gray, to repair and recover. And know that you will bounce back. That's what Former Fat Girls do. It just takes a little while sometimes.