To Winning the War
January 19, 2006 by Pocahantas
My co-workers are all banding together in a show of office camaraderie in an effort to lose weight. The “Biggest Loser” challenge has transformed the office. No longer a place of work—seemingly, at all—it is filled with scales, measuring tapes, calorie counting SPREADSHEETS—sent out by our BOSS, and pressure to commit, no matter what level of weight loss one is planning to achieve. The pot is now at $420, with each person who wants to participate having committed themselves to $20 with the understanding that the Biggest Loser wins the pot. I have been repeatedly compelled to enlist, spurred by taunts and querulous queries by my co-workers into my eating, exercise, and sleeping habits—fortunately, however, this year I refuse.
A picture is worth a thousand words, or so they say, and the picture on my new driver’s license was a thousand curses in every language imaginable. For the past three years, I’ve simply kept my weight the same, never bothering to change it, hoping that one day I would return to that “ideal” size for my frame. Unfortunately, deluding myself did nothing but get me a quirky raised brow from the clerk at the DMV as she asked if I’d like to change anything on my license. “No,” I replied, shifting my gaze uncomfortably as her green eyes, I mean contacts, burned a hole in the side of my face. “You sure,” she asked, and I was positive that she was barely suppressing an inevitable breakdown into uncontrollable, hysterical, hyena-style laughter at the obvious oversight on my license.
Since 2001, my license has listed my height at 5’3” and my weight as 135. HA. Unfortunately, I am closer to (ok exactly) 5’2” and 165, and the evident disparity did not pass the over observant, underpaid, under-intelligent, extra ghetto, tackily dressed, cheap hair weave wearing, bad skin having…back to the subject, let’s just say the DMV clerk, Shaquitta-WHO names their child that, didn’t let it pass. “So, you sure you don’t wanna change anything?” she asked again. Fine. I’ll give her this one. “Oh yeah, you can update the weight, I’ve been meaning to do that (LOL)…I’m now 150.” Lies. Why didn’t I just ignore her? Suddenly she let loose a snort so thunderous, so vile, that it knocked my sundry paperwork onto the floor and nearly emptied the contents of my purse as well. “Ok honey, if you say so, now step right…”
Wait a Doggone minute. Is she insinuating that I look like I weigh over 150, I know she…. That’s alright, I’m moving on to the next counter, and I suppose if I looked like the bride of Frankenstein and worked at the DMV I’d be a little bitter too…. Oh HELL no she didn’t! Moving on, I calmly and quietly moved to wait for the next line, hoping against all hopes no one else had heard the exchange and was willing to give their opinions on what they thought I weighed. No such luck. Not only were the forty people in line behind me smiling, some were now wailing in hysterical laughter and not too embarrassed to attempt to hide it from me. Tactless. It seemed as though EVERYONE in the room had heard her statement as was now waiting for me to ask for absolution for my misrepresentation of the truth…ok, out and out lie. It was humiliating. I have never been more embarrassed in my life, and when I got my driver’s license back, only to see that she had listed my weight as 160, I was devastated.
It didn’t really sink in though, not until I re-evaluated those behaviours, both conscious and subconscious that had allowed me to reach this point. The self-delusions that I had created in my own mind by intentionally not weighing myself and only worrying about how I looked in my clothes, deluding myself about my weight by surreptitiously switching from a 10 in juniors to a 10 W (all the while pretending that a 10 is a 10), and convincing myself that I’d always been active and attractive and I could take the weight off whenever I got ready to.
In reality, year after year, I have reinitiated an effort to commit to losing the weight that has controlled my life since puberty—usually with a group of people who are there to “tough it out” with me, keep me grounded, and compete with me. And year after year, one by one, I have watched each participant fall by the way side, smilingly acknowledging that—at least—I never even tried. Having spent over $2000 in gym fees, weight loss counselling, coaching, mentoring, boot camp (you name it I’ve done it)—over the past two years alone, I have realised one important fact: My commitments have stemmed solely from insecurity, and not from any real desire to change my life. If other people, namely people that are probably skinnier, taller, better looking by society’s standards than I make a conscious effort to change the way they look feeling that it will make them healthier, prettier, or more fit, I begin to feel as though the way I look is not good enough, my level of fitness—or lack thereof—is sorely deficient, and I need to MUST commit myself anew to remaking myself in an image that will be more appealing to the general public.
The funny thing is that for simply years I’ve watched the weight management techniques of others. I’ve looked at my friends and envied their waists, hips, and thighs, I’ve wondered what it would be like to look that way, but, in reality, I’ve been too busy caught up in the lies with which I’ve been deluding myself.
New Year after New Year, dollar after dollar, failure after failure, I have continued to meet with the same challenge—I don’t have a purpose for my commitment and I definitely don’t have a plan to ensure my success. I’ve found that this goes for absolutely aspect of my pitiless existence, my lack of real will to do anything keeps me in vicious, self-defeating cycles over which I profess to have no control, but, in reality, I am simply apathetic. I have committed myself anew this year, but in a different way. This year there will be no group commitments, no relying on the support of others, the camaraderie, the competition—the most lasting of the forces driving my futile quest—and, most importantly; no crash diets. I refuse to commit myself to a week or two of starvation, forcing some revoltingly vile, slimy, green, unseasoned, vegetable based soup concoction down my throat three times a day with the end result of a weight loss goal of 23 pounds, and an almost instant weight recoup of 42 pounds. For the mathematically challenged, this is actually a net GAIN of 19 pounds. I refuse.
See, there is a point when confidence can become delusion, self-esteem can become self-destructive, and the lies that we tell ourselves become the truths off of which we base our life’s philosophy. I have reached and surpassed that point. My family has a history of heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and liver and kidney failure—due to readily ascertained addictive behaviours, and I have inherited this addictive personality- anyone who knows me knows that, and also have the remarkable talent of being able to completely fool myself into believing, well, myself. Bad for business. So this year, I decided that instead of creating New Year’s Resolutions, per se, I would acknowledge the harsh, painful, truth about myself and actually say it, finally. Not as a joke, but in reality, accepting the state of my life and resolving to change it before it’s too late. So here it is.
I am fat.
For my weight resolutions this year, I have decided that I’m making a drastic departure from the me of past new years, the resolutions, commitments and recommitments, the promises and grandiose statements of envisioned successes both real and imaginary. I’ve decided to turn a new leaf, grant myself a new lease on life if you will.
I have decided to love myself, respect myself, and treat and nurture both my body and spirit like I would like someone to treat me in a loving relationship. There will be no more skipping meals because I’m “too busy”; no more struggling with a choice between eating ramen noodles and finding a healthy choice in fast food because I’m “too lazy”; and, most definitely, no more substituting high-sugar complex carbohydrates for all other food groups in a vain attempt to deceive my body into the belief that it has been reasonably nourished.
I have resolved that I am worth the time, energy, and effort it takes to traverse the grocery store aisles—NOT on an empty stomach (it’s deadly); important enough to myself to merit the effort that goes into preparing a four course meal for one; and I am most certainly capable of going to the gym, the park, or just on a walk by myself. I will no longer feel that it’s unnecessary to set the table, light candles, and serve myself dinner on the “good china.” No longer will I feel embarrassed wondering why I’m even bothering to cook when “no one” will be there to eat it anyway…I am someone, and I am just as important as the next someone, I am worth it, and I will do it.
I will respect my body as a temple and refrain from the abuse of alcoholic beverages, tobacco, and any type of drugs. I will understand that I must nurture my spirit as a way to understand why my past attempts have failed, and how I can succeed in changing my outlook to create the most positive and feasible future available for me. I understand that in spite of, and somehow, because of, my history and past failures, this time is just as important as every time before, but yet it is fundamentally different from every time before. I will understand that I can change my life primarily, and, the way I look, secondarily, only one day at a time, one moment at a time, one decision at a time.
I will not be defeated the next time a Lifetime movie marathon drives me to the freezer for not one, but two pints of Haagen-Dazs. I will not be vanquished by my moment of vulnerability to the tasty treats so readily available in the break room at work. And, I will NOT be disillusioned by the veritable army of nay-saying stick figures daily parading their impossibly perfect bodies in front of me. No.
This time I choose love. I choose life. I choose me. I might not win every battle, but, by God, I will win the war.
Pocahantas is a 23 year old fiesty female with loads of common sense and yet an unstintingly healthy dose of cynicism when it comes to men and relationships. She’s currently single and living in the great metropolis of Atlanta, where half the men have lots of drama and the other half are gay. Tune in weekly for her reality check on single living in the great US of A.
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