My doctor told me I'm fat and I need to lose weight.
Ah, duurrrr.
"Duh" isn't even a juvenile enough response to, "You're fat and you need to lose weight."
Of course, I didn't say, "Ah, dur!" out loud. Fat people such as myself tend to be polite. Too polite to say childish things to a doctor, after all it might hurt his feelings. Then he'd have to stuff his feelings down by shoving food in his face and we'd have two fat people on our hands and not just one.
But, his saying I'm fat didn't hurt my feelings, because by some miracle I found it hilarious. I guess I knew it would make a bitchin' blog entry. One of the perks of being a writer.
He wants me to see another doctor -- a weight loss specialist -- who will help me lose weight by prescribing a 900-calorie-per-day diet -- consisting of diet bars -- diet drinks and powdered diet soups.
Yuck.
I imagine I would indeed lose weight on that diet. I also imagine I would lose my sanity and perhaps my fiance. I wouldn't want to live with me if I was only eating 900 calories a day. I'm fond of both my sanity and Doug --so, not really eager to starve myself.
The only way I can see myself signing up for that kind of torture is there is a guarantee that once I reached my ideal BMI I'd never have to worry about being fat again. If I could eat whatever I wanted to at the end of the diet FOREVER with total impunity, then MAYBE I would do that crazy diet. But, to do that diet, to suffer and have to face the inevitable weight gain when I reintroduce proper food, actual food, at the end of it, no way. Not for me.
Because COME ON. No matter what the doctor says, the dirty little secret is, after the year, after the starvation, after all the protein bars and diet drinks -- you're confronted with eating "food" again. And on my first day of freedom, broccoli will NOT be the food of choice. I can already plan the buffet that will be my first meal after I end the deprivations nonsense. It involves ice cream, french fries and a lot of other salty, fat laden and sweet things.
I know what you're thinking, "If you eat those unhealthy foods at the end you'll get sick."
And I say to you -- you don't become 90 pounds over weight unless you're committed to eating. Getting sick will be worth it as long as I can eat the foods I love again. Trust me.
I get the "in moderation thing". I just suck at it.
What I need to do is learn to eat healthfully and for it to be a picnic...
What I need to do is learn how to feed the fat girl within -- with something other than junkfood.
You know how people say inside every fat person there is a thin person waiting to get out? That's not my experience. No matter how thin I've been, there has always been a little fat girl inside of me waiting to be fed. If I can find something other than food to keep her happy -- then perhaps I can be slender and fit and athletic and all of those things.
Nothing else will make me healthy. Nothing. Because anything else is deprivation and leads to buffet style eating...
For me. That's my experience.
So to my mind a better question is, How do I feed my inner fat girl? She of course answers the question, with frozen homemade chocolate chip cookie dough and potato chips.
Lucky for me, it is no longer up to her. I don't eat those things anymore. The question is, what healthy foods do I like? How do I learn to plan my meals ahead and make it a habit? How do I learn to make feeding myself good nutritious food feel like pampering rather than deprivation?
This is as much a part of my journey as learning to like a sport. Because it's necessary on my journey to "fitness".
