The Fatty Show

Imagine my weight loss class is a play. I do. For starters, meetings of this nature generally bore me, so it's easier to pretend I'm watching a movie or a play. A bad movie. But even bad movies are better than watching paint dry if you're trying to pass the time.

Well, I suppose not all bad movies are better than watching paint dry. When I was 16, a friend of mine took me to the movies for my birthday. We saw Bonfire of the Vanities. I should have known it would be a disaster. For one, I had never heard of it before. Secondly, I didn't, and still don't, understand the title. Can someone please enlighten me? I really have no idea what it means. And that doesn't bode well for the movie. I am one of the few people I know who ever saw it (and I use the term "saw" loosely) so I can't even ask anyone what it was about. Even the HG, the world's biggest movie trivia buff, can give me a coherent description of the movie. Why? He was smart enough to skip it. Take my word for it. Don't waste your money or space in your netflix queue with this one. It didn't even deserve the Raspberry Awards it won.

But on a snowy, winter day in late December my friend Shane and I got on the bus and headed to the closest movie theater. 20 miles away. Ah, small town living is such fun. The best part of the day was the 30 minute ride we bought $3 each. Oh, and the twizzlers. I love twizzlers. They make the best straws. Bite each end off, insert in soda, and voila! Yummy straw. And the twizzler gets all mushy on the inside so after a while your soda takes on twizzler flavor. This is my second piece of movie advice. Get the twizzlers. (I'm racking up loads of karma points tonight. I'm going to need them in a moment.)

We were, quite literally, the only two people in the theater. We should have returned our tickets, crossed the street to the 24 hour diner and drank our weight in coffee. It was, in later years, one of my favorite pastimes. But, alas, on that day, we elected to stay for the entire movie. Can someone please call Brian De Palma and ask for those 2 hours and 5 minutes of my life back? He doesn't take my calls anymore.

So the moral of the story is that sometimes, watching paint dry isn't so bad. But that's an extreme example. At the fatty show, I simply prefer to sit back and watch the actors play their parts. I am convinced they are simply actors and actresses. Caricatures of this nature cannot simply exist in real life. And if they do, certainly I am not lucky enough to spend roughly an hour a week with 6 of them at the same time. The HG goes and attempts not to speak at all. I, on the other hand, and am sucker for interactive theater and often join in the show.

Perhaps my favorite of the group is a guy I'll call "Denial Boy". When come into the meeting, there is a big board where we write down the number of meal replacements we've had all week, as well as, the number of days we've been on the diet (without cheating) and the amount of physical activity we've gotten during the week. Denial's stats frequently look like like this: 10, 3, 5,000. In other words, 10 meal replacements, 3 days "on plan" and 5,000 calories burned. Week one he lost 9 pounds. Week 2 he lost 9 pounds. I think I hate Denial. But week 3 he lost 2 pounds. And this week he lost 1.5. And yet, despite his dismal results, he consistently insists that his plan works for him. He is, after all, still losing weight. Um, yes, yes you are. But when asked why he's spending hundreds of dollars a month on a diet he's not following, he insists he is following the plan. That's where the denial comes in. There are two rules on this diet: eat the food they give you and nothing else and work out daily. Hitting one of two rules doesn't count. Our leader keeps trying to point out that his habits will not lead to long term success. He disagrees. My 10 year old niece could point out the denial here....9,9, 2, 1.5....would seem his success gets less and less obvious as time goes on. But hey, whatever works for him (insert sarcasm here. Hey, I warned I'd be cashing in some karma points.).

There is also a sweet young girl who I adore. She's just so cute. She's 17 and I swear to you, if my children end up like her, I'm giving them up for adoption. But, hey, she's not mine, so she makes me laugh. Last week, we engaged in a discussion regarding her recent failure to make it all week on plan. She was honest in admitting she didn't follow the plan one night, while out with friends. Our fearless leader asked her what she ate. Sweet young girl said, "I didn't eat anything off plan." Our leader further questioned, "So you were on plan all week?" SYG: "No, I wasn't." Leader, "So what did you eat?" SYG: "I didn't EAT anything..." Leader, "So you were off plan because you didn't get all your food in?" SYG, "No, I got my food in....I just didn't EAT anything off plan." Our poor leader was confused. I, having been SYG at one point, immediately understood that the cheating was in liquid form. Illegal liquid form. She cracks me up. She frequently doesn't eat anything off plan...thank God she's not my kid. Though I suspect my children will also not eat off plan....

Then there is the one we call Boca Burger. Boca Burger earned her name when she confessed that during week one she consumed 1/2 a boca burger at a BBQ and was "so full" she couldn't finish it. Can we discuss this? Boca Burger weighs more than I do. And while I suppose I can't say for sure that she can probably eat more than I do, let's just say, she didn't gain weight by only eating half of her burgers. I'm just sayin.

I could continue to describe the players in my little show. But really, they all have one thing in common: failure to do what they're supposed to do. I know it sucks, I do. Trust me, it sucks for me too. I want nothing more than to not eat anything off plan. Or eat 1/2 a boca burger. Or spend 4 of 7 days deciding I've "earned it". But the fact is that doing those things is what landed me the role in this show as it is. I've certainly earned it. Pizza, chips, cookies, and things with cheese were my main food groups for a long time. I have no excuse. I have reasons. There are reasons I gained weight. I was depressed. I had a shitty job. I was bored. I was angry. I was going to start my diet tomorrow. But none of my excuses make it OK. And it doesn't mean I can keep doing it and hope that somehow the food in the little blue boxes will help me reach my goal if I don't do all the work. Not half the work. And that means always, ever day, doing what I'm supposed to.

I know, not so much fun. But you know what is fun? Losing weight. Looking in mirror in the morning and seeing almost the same girl when I get to work. Mirror girl sticks around a lot more these days.

And shopping is more fun. I like going to stores and dreaming about the things I could wear if I just keep doing the work. That's wicked fun.

And the most fun of all? Knowing that with every day that passes, I'm getting closer to getting my babies back. And that someday, when they're old enough to understand I can tell them just how hard I worked for them.

I suppose it's wrong to talk about the players in my show like this. But come on. As the HG says, it's like smoking. If you quit smoking, and then have a cigarette, you're no longer a former smoker. Either you're following the diet or your not. And if you're eating (or NOT eating) food off the diet, you're not on the diet. See, simple?

And yes, I feel somewhat superior for not cheating. Hey, before this, the only thing I committed to for a long period of time was my love of all things baked. Ok, baked goods and the HG. But other than that, there's not much. Not even jobs. So, yes, I feel superior that I'm doing this now.

See? I told you I'd be cashing in a bajillionty karma points. I wasn't wrong.