the thing is that it's time. it's time. i've been thinking about starting a blog for a few years, and have been thinking about fitness, health and general wellness since i can remember. and this summer is finally going to be the summer where i do it.
family, friends, strangers, enemies: welcome to the fat blog. my fat blog. this is the place where i'm enlisting your attention to keep me on track, in the mindset of wellness and not unhealthiness, for the entire. summer. (and beyond.)
history of flab
since i can remember, i've been uncomfortable with my weight. when i was little, i'd spend the summer in my swimsuit with my friends, constantly thinking about whether my belly was sticking out more than theirs. as i got older, i gained more and more weight and was increasingly discontent with my body. in middle school and high school, this discomfort led to long bouts of anorexia, unhealthy exercise habits and general malnutrition/mistreatment of my body.
by the end of high school, i'd conquered many - but not all - of these demons. but in college, long bouts of depression kept me from losing weight, even as i became a serious runner, sometimes running 30 miles a week. in fact, by the end of the summer after my sophomore year, i was the heaviest (read: fattest) i've ever been. (or will ever be, god willing.)
the last few weeks of that summer found me in france with my grandpa and our italian/french family. my cousin berengere was getting married, and i'd brought a beautiful blue floral dress with me to wear to the wedding. when we first arrived, i noticed that the zipper was broken and asked elizabeth, my grandpa's 70-something niece-in-law, to fix it for me. she did so gladly.
the day before the wedding, i pulled the dress over my head and found...that it didn't fit. the zipper would allow me to zip past my stomach up most of my back, but would not go any further.
here's the part where i went into the panic that all women who have ever struggled with weight (so, all women) know well:
1) denial: the zipper must be bad. why didn't elizabeth check it before she sewed it into my dress?
2) anger: this zipper HAS TO WORK. WHY IS IT NOT WORKING.
3) bargaining: maybe i could wear a tanktop underneath it, fold up the sides that won't zip and that will somehow nudge the zipper up my back, around my boobs and into figure-flattering heaven.
at this point, i left my room, found elizabeth and asked for her help. her response was to tell me that of course the previous zipper was broken: the dress didn't fit! and my tanktop was dirty. and i'd ruin the dress if i tried any harder. and why did i not try it on before the trip (pre-stage 1 denial?), and maybe i could borrow something of hers (made for 170-pound women under 5'1'' who wore then-fashionable mother-of-the-bride dresses somewhere around 1972), and no my other dress wasn't nice enough to wear to a wedding.
and then, she said the thing that all women implicitly know but never, ever, can stand hearing:
"tu as grossit."
basically:
"you got fat."
the worst part? she was right.
4) depression: i was so upset that i couldn't eat dinner. (at which point elizabeth said something to the effect of, "well, you can't fix it now. you should've stopped eating months ago if you wanted to wear that dress.")
5) acceptance: ....
the irony? i'd spent the whole summer attempting to get back into my best running shape and spent hours at the gym each week running and lifting weights. the moment i got to france, i started daily (sometimes twice-daily) runs along the beautiful hills lining my family's property. but that summer, like so months before and since, i just wasn't taking care of myself wholly. sure, i exercised, but i didn't always eat well, i wasn't active in my daily life and i was going through a terrible depression that i wasn't really dealing with.
i've come a very long way since then but, like all of us, i still have a lot of work to do.
goals (for this blog and this summer)
1) post at least every other day
2) log exercise and food (tracking fruits/vegetables, calories and protein intake)
3) try one new thing a week
4) spend at least an hour outside a day (even when it's disgusting out)
5) bring mindfulness to healthy living
i'm hoping this will actually be fun to read, eventually. i would love, love, love your help with the following:
1) follow my blog!
2) post comments whenever you have them
3) send this blog to other people. the more audience pressure on me, the better
okay, guys. let's do this. operation ana battles the pink robots. and...go.
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