Days 50 - 74

Q: What do fat people do in summer?

A: Sweat.



I put on weight while I was away and I've been avoiding writing.

You make shitty little promises to yourself.

'I'm not going to buy any new clothes until I've lost 10 kilos’

And then your clothes slowly turn to rags and drop off your body. You're naked in a school yard and an assignment is due that you’ve forgotten about. The usual.

I realised a while ago that I was punishing myself with the clothes I wanted to wear. I let them hang in my wardrobe and remind me of how far away I was from the goals I had set for myself. Fuck that. I took them off the hangers, lovingly folded them and pushed them under my bed, so we could be reunited some time down the track. S says that the Germans say ‘Mann sieht sich zweimal im Leben’ – ‘In life, you always meet twice’.

'See you next time, denim minidress’

'In a while, ruffled cocktail dress’

I got off the plane, shunned my loved ones and headed straight for the scales, tired, bloated, covered in a sheen of rancid sweat.

And the scales said 109.

I’ll save you the hyperbole.

This represented a gain of 4kg and I figured that was better than the 6 I put on last time in Germany.

A day later I visit the clinic and I am 108, which, from the perspective of the clinic, represents a gain of 1kg only. I have lost 4cm from my waist and hips.

On the drive down, N and I speak about our progress. Things are not happening as quickly as we were expecting them too. Especially given our perceived reduction in appetite and portion sizes. Things were in fact, pretty much staying the same. N is back at the gym and seeing her trainer but not seeing the results that she was expecting. Disappointment ensues.

The psychologist again encourages me to focus on process and not outcome. He tells me I can eat whatever I want. I realise I have no snacks in my house. I have a chilling, bowel liquefying fear of having ‘dangerous' foods around me. I am Bronte hiding in her room with towels at the bottom of the door to stop calories getting in. Except, you know, fat.

I give myself permission to go to the supermarket and buy whatever I want. Whatever I want. And then to go home and eat what and whenever I want. I am on the brink of tears. I have been locked up tight for years.

I don't cry. I figure he sees enough sobbing fatties in his working day. Let's try for something different.

(I buy oat clusters, bananas, milk, one punnet of every different brand of strawberry yoghurt, rice pudding, chocolate mousse, tinned fruits, tofu, tuna, ricotta, olives, corn, tabasco, ryvita, apples, rice, vegetarian curries with dahl, vegetables, potatoes and paneer, broccolini and lean cuisine)

I try to reassure myself. I can probably safely say that I will never be heavier than now. I can’t imagine how that would be possible. Another participant, a year ahead of us, also a blogger, lost of total of around 20kg in the first 12 months. Not a staggering amount and possibly a disappointing amount from her perspective. But as far as I can tell from the information she presents in her blog, this may well be her first substantial loss. I don’t see her gaining it back in the future. How could she?

If I am 20kg lighter in a year this will represent a little less than half a kilo loss per week. Which is probably healthier than one kilo loss per week, depending on how you do it. If I am 20kg lighter in a year I will be 92kg. Disappointing? I can cram myself into a pair of size 14 jeans at 92 kilos. I was 92 kilos at my admission and I reckon I was looking pretty fine. You know, for a Rubenesque lady. My Mother even deigned to tell me that I had ‘managed to dress appropriately’. I’m pretty sure this means ‘You look beautiful and I am very proud of you’ in my Mother’s language.

It may or may not be relevant that in past lives I garnered a pleasing amount of male interest at 92kg. How much male interest garnered at the Downunder Bar on a Thursday night counts, I am unsure.

I guess it is important to note that I don’t require myself to be thin before I consider myself to be beautiful or attractive. Fuck that. True, there is more primping required for me to feel the same level of comfort with my look when I am heavier. This is a point I have pondered before.

In The Whole Woman, Germaine Greer describes women as ‘hairy, smelly and bloody’. Previously I had credited myself with an above average regard for my own vagina and vaginas in general. In a lewd, crude sort of way I felt that on a conversational level (read: in the context of shit talk in the beer garden) I was capable of promoting the vagina and its interests. Hell, I even bought a vaginal portrait necklace from VulvaLoveLovely (I wore it to the pub and inexplicably lost half of my labia minora – a fact pointed out to me by my ex’s paramour). But to be perfectly frank my current level of vagina love took a lot of work. And washing. And grooming. And skipping of sugar pills.

It saddened me when I realised that to love my vagina I required her to be odourless, hairless, bloodless. To a great extent I was requiring the same things of the rest of my body. I cannot express to you how much terror the potential for body odour evoked (evokes) in me. A piece titled Obesity Really Is Disgusting reposted on Jezebel.com from Corpulent discusses the results of a recent study into negative attitudes toward fat people – the findings being that negative attitudes towards "obese" people are based on an emotional response of disgust rather than moral appraisals of fat people as lazy or undisciplined on the basis of the perceived controllability of body weight.

So being fat is one thing. But if you can somehow manage to make yourself slightly less disgusting, then that’s probably ok. Enter Summer’s Eve, Gillette Venus, Max Factor and Yasmin. Isn’t this the basis of most teen makeover movies? The girl isn’t even actually ugly, she’s just gross. She’s only ever a brow wax and costume change away from being a stunner.

That reminds me. I need a brow wax.


Start weight: 112.5
Current weight: 107.5
Weight lost: 5
LT goal weight: 75
ST goal weight: 99