Big Fat Assumptions

I need to rant. I just got off the phone with my mother. I called her to tell her that I'd gone through all of her and dad's health insurance papers and sorted out some issues, wrote some letters and faxed some stuff out. Their doctors' bills should be resolved soon. Then I also informed her that I bought her and dad a lottery ticket today. Cuz I know they could having a much better retirement than they have and, well, you never know.

After this I told her I was about to go do my workout but then I added flippantly, "not that it's doing me much good." To which, after proving myself to be a dutiful daughter, she added dryly, "well then, just stop eating." I figured that was a good time to end the conversation. If my own mother, who's watched me for years cannot understand my plight, then no one can.

I have been working out pretty regularly now for a bit over 10 years. I started in my early 20s when I had gotten into the worst shape of my life and knew I better do something about it. Then in my late 20s I managed to get into the best shape of my life. This is how I managed it. It was the same year I took a year off from singing because I was frustrated with the whole process. So, the time I would have spent practicing, I now had freed up for workouts. I upped my workouts to 5 days a week. I was doing a VERY HARD African dance class (people left there dripping pools of sweat down the corridor - gross, but effective). Generally, after the African dance class, which lasted an hour, I'd go do weights and crunches, which usually took another half hour to 45 minutes. I'm certain that at the height of this, I never spent less than an hour and a half at the gym. My eating habits were generallt like this. I'd take whatever food i thought I might want to eat that day, let's say it was a sandwich (like an average ham and cheese sandwich) and split it in half. One half was breakfast with a cup of coffee. The other half was lunch with juice. The rest of the day I drank water and for dinner I had steamed broccoli or maybe, if I was hungry, a veggie wrap. I had also started running and had a new boyfriend who kept me busy with dates and parties and emotional drama . It took me a full year of this sort of measured eating and perpetual motion to finally take off 40lbs. In essence, any time I didn't spend at work (I had an office job), I was working out and I took the equivalent of one "normal" person's lunch and rationed that out over a full day. This is what it took for me to lose 40 lbs in one year. So, when I say that I'm one of those people who has to work like a dog to lose weight, I know what I'm talking about. I've done it at least once.

Nowadays I work out maybe between a half hour to an hour anything from 2 - 5 days a week, depending on my week. Lately, it's more because I've decided to try to push the weight loss issue again. I only drink soft drinks once in a while, I drink loads of water, eat salads for dinner and, while it's true sometimes I have a loaded egg and cheese sandwich for breakfast, I make up for it by making the next two meals, light salads with very little chicken, fish or beef on the side. Do I have one drink on the weekends with friends? On occassion. Do I have one or two desserts during the course of the month? Yes, but the point here isn't to defend my eating and exercise lifestyle, it's to make the point that despite my managing to be overweight I'm not some sedentary eating machine. I don't never exercise and/or sit around eating bags of doritos and drinking Yoohoo. If you look at my exercise habits and eating habits, I'm not doing anything that should make me a big, fat, girl. And yet, I am. I can honestly say that the only way I know of to not be a big fat girl is to do what I did 10 years ago. I have to become obsessive about my exercise and eating habits. I have to eat the bare minimum and exercise the absolute maximum.

This is what your "average" person cannot empathize or comprehend. For someone who only needs to lose 20 lbs, you can keep up the perpetual motion, tiny eating for a couple of months or so. After the weight comes off you can taper off and go into maintenance mode. But for someone like me, who really could stand to lose between 50 and 60 lbs, I'd need to keep up that kind of momentum for anywhere from 6 months to a year (as I learned). It's hard work and difficult to keep up. And you know what happened the SECOND I slowed down? The moment I decided to only work out 2 days a week for a month? This is no exaggeration. I gained 15 lbs. the first month I decided I wanted to be a normal person and not be at the gym each night till 9:30pm. I wanted to go home, call up a friend and have a cup of coffee and chat. I didn't want to be in the gym 2 hours each night and then commute home another 1/2 hour. The minute I wanted a LIFE the weight jumped back on my body like a stalker who knew the restraining order had been lifted!!

So, I rant here because I am tired of people, my mother included, making assumptions about me just because they've never had to grapple with this issue personally. I could lose weight - yes. But for several years now I've decided that the full time obsession with exercise and diet that would have to be my life is more than I've wanted to deal with. And no one can better scream at me, "but your health!" That's just bullshit. I eat a pretty healthy diet, I live clean, I do most of my own yard work and handywork around the house, I work out enough so my body is pretty strong and flexible and oddly toned for a fat girl. I don't think I'm in danger of having a heart explosion. And if I am, I'd like to point out that many an athlete has suddenly collapsed.

I worked for a scientific research firm at a very presitgious university for many years. I know that when a field of study is hot, they will crunch the statistics to make it look anyway they want. Right now they want people to lose weight and they want the health insurance companies to have an easy out. But that's a discussion for another day. I'm not saying being overweight isn't dangerous. It is. I'm not saying that there aren't people who are seriously impeding their progress and their success in life by being overweight. There are. I'm also not saying that being seriously overweight and out of shape doesn't put you at risk for certain diseases, it does. But so does being slim and smoking or being slim and never exercising and secretly vomiting up your meals. Many things that aren't easy to spot are dangerous for your health. Being overweight is just an easy target. The scientific and political community is being just as lazy with this issue as they were when they started the "just say no" campaign.

Sorry... back to the current rant.

Mainly, I just want everybody to shut the hell up. When all the people in my life and all the people I come in contact with are spending 2 gruelling, sweaty hours at the gym (walking on the treadmill doesn't even come close to counting) 5 days a week and eating salads and mini sandwiches with water for a period upwards of 6 months, then they can come to me and call me fat and lazy. Until then - shut the F*(# up!