Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Whatcha gonna do with all that junk?

Me, at 16, with Mark Darling and my smoking bod

So, I’ve gotten fat. Fat for me. I have cellulite on my upper arms and my gut is looking a little fanny-packish. It’s not the first time. It won’t be the last. But I am sort of pissed about it.

In 2008 I spent more than $1,000 to lose 11 pounds with Jenny Craig and gained it back in six months (I know. I know.).

So far in 2009, I’ve lost the ten again, and gained it back, again. Plus four.

I am not quite as fat as I was after giving birth to twins. I’m not even exactly what you’d call fat. I’m on the chubby side of normal. I can still squeeze into my size 10 jeans, but the resulting muffin top makes all but the most maternity of tops utterly useless. I weigh 164 pounds.

That’s one of the most humiliating sentence I’ve ever written. And I’ve written about my pubic hair. Twice. At the same time, to be perfectly honest, it's not that big a deal to me. So I'm a chubbers? Oh well. I have other things going for me.


Me, at 39, with Hilary and my much less smoking bod

My mom used to describe her particularly thin and self-denying friends as "having a horror of fat." I don't have that horror. In fact, I prefer some soft edges. But I would like to look a little hotter in my clothes. Just, like, 15 pounds hotter.

What makes me mad is that for all my rotundity, I’m not a glutton. As I’ve established, I love my chow, but I have never, not once, eaten an entire pint of ice cream, or polished off a whole frozen pizza. I am not secretly gobbling candy bars or sneaking Pop Tarts.

Yes, I went about six weeks without a drink-free day this summer (hello, last six pounds), but that was a highly unusual binge and doesn’t account for my overall waddliness.

I exercise. I love chard. I drink eight glasses of water a day. WTF?

I get tempted to blame the Mister, who was born with genes so tall and sleek, that fat cells verily run off of him. I’m pretty sure we weigh the same. And he’s 6’ 1”. And he EATS. Like every hour. He has dessert after dinner, lunch and breakfast. He thinks roll-em-up pancakes stuffed with jam and sprinkled with powdered sugar are healthy because the batter has an egg in it. Sometimes, right after he eats, he has an actual snack-size anxiety attack about where his next meal is coming from, especially if we are going to the movies and he thinks it might be a couple of hours before his next caloric intake.

Imagine, if you will, the pleasures and pains of trying to keep up with him. I mean, it’s nice to share a hobby, but the results of our shared recreation are that I get cellulite on my upper arms and he weighs what he wrestled in high school.


The real reason for the fanny pack gut

All this is a long-winded way of telling you that today I joined Weight Watchers (which I could totally be CEO of by this time if I just had a little more willpower). My plan? To enter the normal range of normal. Stay tuned to watch as the only-slightly-overweight-me emerges like a 39-year-old butterfly from the really-quite-alarmingly-overweight-me. It’s gonna be a showstopper, folks.

8 comments:

Simply Mel {Reverie} said...

So it's a bad thing to eat an entire pint of ice cream?

I know, that's not what you needed right now.

Instead, kudos to you for chasing that slim butterfly and feeling good about the journey. ;)

Lydia said...

The first pic of you looks like it was from a slick mag photo shoot. The second pic looks like it could be from an issue of Body and Soul, some article about true happiness. Both are great. So are you for committing to some weight loss.

Petunia Face said...

I don't think it's fair to compare a 39 year old woman to her 16 year old self. You're beautiful. That being said, I am writing this wearing a face mask to erase fine lines, so I should stop flapping my mouth (else my face mask will crack).

Also? That bikini you are wearing at 16 is rad.

MirandaJ said...

um. when you told me to read the blog to find out the shocking number it contained i had braced myself for something extreme. 164 isn't terrible. i can see it from where my thighs are sitting, in fact.

that picture of you and mark darling (who looks like he would eat you on a spoon if he only had one handy) is amazing. i would blow it up and make it into a poster. not. kidding.

just think, some people never ever ever look at that hot. you have proof of looking that hot.

Chelsea Talks Smack said...

I think you look glowing and beautiful in both of them!

krista said...

*sigh* we are totally in the same place, aren't we?
and pastries are delicious.

Up Mama's Wall said...

Thanks, guys, A big, fat cupcake with butter cream frosting for you all (I'll have the sashimi and water).

P.S. Lest you think I'm deluded, I am NOT trying to get the 16-year-old body back. I think I weighed 106 in that photo.

Susan said...

Samantha, you are so refreshing. I have to go hunt for the pubic hair remarks- I have my own opinion about such things. Btw, I have always thought you were simply beautiful- and especially so because you look like a real woman. That's what matters in the end.

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