The Weight-loss Diaries (35 page)

Am I replacing an addiction to food with an addiction to things, or am I just becoming obsessed with
things
because I can’t have what I really want—to be thin? Lately there are so many things I want to own, and I keep coming up with new ones. Earrings from Tiffany’s. CDs. Books. Cute shoes. Chanel lipstick. The newest spa product from Bliss. Forty-five-dollar Diptyque candles. A Birkin bag. A $24,000 Cathy Waterman necklace (which, depressingly, I will probably never be able to afford).

A tidal wave of wanting.

But I still want to eat.

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Month 18 (June)

Between Australia and the flood, I haven’t gone on a proper grocery-shopping expedition in nearly two months.

I never officially decided to stop going weekly—somehow it just happened. Staying at Mary’s disrupted the routine. Then a Sunday away, another Sunday busy, another Sunday lazy, and there you go. With the end of weekly grocery shopping also went my mental fast forward of the upcoming week, looking for potential food land mines. And then the slow unraveling of the rest of the routine: the weekly bag of healthy snacks for the office, which means I contemplate eating things at 4:00 p.m. that I know I shouldn’t. When I eat the cookies or chips, I debate skipping dinner, or some part of it. At 10:00 or 11:00 p.m., I realize I’m starving and there’s nothing healthy in my apartment to grab. So I buy something else I shouldn’t, then wake up full and tired the next morning and don’t go to the gym.

Losing weight is like wearing a watch that needs daily winding—if you don’t start from the proper place, you’re always going to get it wrong. I opened my refrigerator tonight and wondered if it was actually possible to make dinner (forget about tomorrow’s lunch) out of nail polish, Healthy Choice string cheese, diet salad dressing, and a bottle of soy sauce of indeterminate age.

No more excuses. I’m getting up at 5:00 a.m. tomorrow so I can hit the gym and the Safeway before work.

Shape
wants me to work on a feature story called “Does Your Environment Make You Fat?” I love this story, and I know exactly why: I love the idea of more excuses.
See? It’s not my fault I’m overweight
. Then again, a sign over my 209

Copyright © 2004 by Courtney Rubin. Click here for terms of use.

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body that says, “It’s not my fault I’m overweight” will never ever replace a sexy black dress as the perfect party outfit.

My
Shape
e-mail account keeps overflowing. I can’t bear to read the mail.

Depending on my mood, it makes me feel like an impostor (so many of the writers think I’ve got an answer for them), depressed (because the readers haven’t yet seen how much weight I’ve gained), or guilty (for not answering it all personally).

Shape
again. Their patience with my gain-a-few, lose-one, gain-some-more routine is starting to wear thin. Got an e-mail from my editor asking whether I’ve been successful at losing any more weight. Maureen says she doesn’t want me to feel like she’s pressuring me, but maybe it’s time to shake up the routine. “What have Peeke and Shari been saying?” she wants to know.

I told her I’ve just seen Shari, which is true, and that we’re working on things. That I’m keeping food journals again. That we’re trying to identify the emotional triggers that make me want to pig out (again I avoid using the word
binge
). That I plan to start lifting weights again. That I start marathon training again soon.

Just knowing that
Shape
was getting impatient—or seeming to—made me panic all day: Oh, no. I’m hungry. I’m
never
going to lose weight. I kept thinking I was hungry because I knew I couldn’t eat any more—because I have got to start losing weight again. And to think that this was exactly the sort of pressure I thought would motivate me to lose weight when I decided to get myself into this
Shape
thing last year.

Since in the past I have obviously not been able to leap back on track—

at least for more than a couple of days—I’ve decided to break my return to ideal diet behavior into baby steps. I went to the grocery store this week. Next week I’ll work on getting my workouts back up to fifty minutes (I’d slipped to forty-five and now it’s more like forty). Maybe then I’ll be able to deal with lifting weights again, yet another thing I’ve let slide. At this rate nothing will happen fast. But I’m trying to remind myself that it’s a start.

This month—per discussion with Shari—I’m supposed to work on setting boundaries, because if I can’t do it with the rest of my life, I’m apparently never going to be able to do it with food. I’m supposed to decide how many freelance assignments I’ll take per month and—because I’m the original girl who can’t say no when there’s an editor on the phone—I’m to post this number on my desk (along with a script for what I’ll say when someone calls and

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I’m up to my monthly limit). I’m supposed to decide ahead of time what time I’m going to bed and not answer the phone after that. The goal is to master my life and let food follow.

I’m scared that nobody—editor or friend—will ever call again. For me, being overweight has always meant that I have to take what I can get—as if with each extra pound I have I lose a little more of the right to demand more, or to demand better, whether from friends or anyone else. I’m not sure where and how this idea took root, only that it’s been there for as long as I can remember.

Shape
online chat. Sample questions: What’s my favorite flavor of Ben & Jerry’s? What did I eat for dinner tonight? What’s my favorite snack? What music do I like to listen to when I run? What do I do when I’m hungry right after lunch?

I answered all the questions, but all I wanted to type was: “You don’t want to copy me.” You do not want to replicate my results or, more accurately, lack thereof.

Grandma is too busy worrying about someone else’s weight to ask me about mine.

Mom is losing weight. At first Grandma sounded pleased: “Your mother never eats,” she told me one Sunday, sounding awed. “You should see your mother,” she told me another.

I can’t quite pinpoint when, but lately the “You should see your mother”

has been sounding panicked. Not “You should
see
your mother,” but “
You
should see your mother.” The tone is accusing, too: what kind of daughter am I for not getting down to Florida more often?

I know I should go visit, but I’m afraid. Mostly I’m afraid to see what her life is like now: the dining room table—the last anniversary present—crammed into Mom’s apartment instead of the big house it was intended for. Occasionally Mom mentions—always offhandedly—that the phone rarely rings, and that pains me so much I immediately have to cauterize the wound, which I do by making suggestions I know aren’t helpful: has she looked up that old friend?

What about the organization she used to volunteer for? Grandma wants her to join a book club, but I know Mom can’t. She won’t be able to remember what she’s read. Grandma doesn’t want to hear that, so I don’t say anything.

It didn’t help my guilt that I got impatient with Mom tonight for giving me, essentially, a minute-by-minute update of how her Lean Cuisine peanut noodles were progressing in the microwave. Though Mom talks this way all

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the time these days—the attention-span problem again—I still want her to sound OK to assuage my guilt about not going down to visit more often.

Truthfully, I want her to sound more than OK. I want every minute I talk with her to be meaningful, and, of course, it can’t be.

Times like these I think Diana and I have that twin ESP thing. I called her right after talking to Mom. As soon as she heard my voice she said, “We have got to go to Florida.” We made plans to go Labor Day weekend.

I’m going to turn into a fat-free Fudgsicle. Or at least a Fudgsicle. I can only wish I’d be fat-free.

I’ve been eating about four a night. Four are only 240 calories. But while the Fudgsicles are better than baby carrots or cherry tomatoes, they still don’t quite cut it.

Spent forty-five minutes at the grocery store tonight looking for things I might want to eat—or at least things that aren’t totally icky (brussels sprouts) but also don’t make me want to eat all sorts of other (unhealthy) things. I was shocked to discover that my frozen food options are not actually limited to Healthy Choice and Weight Watchers. Stouffer’s regular old chicken and dumplings has just 280 calories, the same as some candy bars and less than a couple of Boca Burgers. It’s pathetic how excited I am by this discovery.

Hello from Camp Canyon Ranch
, I feel like writing on postcards.
Please send
Diet Coke
.

Shape
has sent me to the spa as a reward for my first anniversary, and it’s taken until now to schedule the trip.

The place reminds me of a summer camp. You’re issued water bottles and tote bags, and it’s not considered the least bit strange to walk around in big white terry cloth robes that are in endless supply.

Before I got here, I worried about all the fun things I’d be missing during my five days away, and I feared being lonely and depressed, watching all the mother-daughter pairs I was sure I’d find here. They are here, and sometimes I feel the pangs. But I’m busy. I’ve stopped caring about what’s going on at home—stopped trying to check my e-mail on the one crappy connection—and am loving waking up and having nothing to do but focus on myself. No fear of food: I know it’s there, I know it’s going to be good, and I know it’s going to be low-fat.

I wish I could come here every year, just to rejuvenate and to be reminded, as I have been, that I’m more athletic than I think I am. Yesterday I worked out for almost four hours straight. One of the classes I took was a stride class,

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213

a group workout on treadmills, where I won an actual athletic contest. I was the one who could hold the walk at the fastest speed (6.1 mph), which is an achievement because it’s actually a lot harder—and a better calorie-burner—

to try to walk very fast than to break into a run or a jog. And I did what Mary might call a buttload of squats—in kickboxing and then in boot camp—and my thighs aren’t even sore. Guess I’m stronger than I think, too.

I’m halfway through my two-hour wait to have my blood taken again. I had it taken for the first time at 7:45 a.m., after two days of dreading the needle.

I wasn’t allowed to eat after 9:00 p.m. last night or to have breakfast this morning before I had the first sample taken. Then I was given a disgusting glucose drink.

This is Canyon Ranch’s test for insulin resistance, a possible problem with my blood sugar levels that the doctor here thinks may be responsible for my inability to stop eating carbs. At first I wasn’t too keen on meeting with a doctor to discuss my diet—after more than a year of dissecting every bite that goes into my mouth with a variety of experts, I figured I’d heard practically everything there was to hear. But now I’m feeling hopeful again—I almost want them to find what they’re looking for, just because it will give me a road map. I’ll know that if I follow their instructions, I’ll definitely feel better—

and I’ll know for sure that if I eat a muffin (carbs) by itself, without any protein along with it, I’ll be in trouble, and the trouble won’t be just psychological. Years’ worth of diet advice runs through my head here: why can’t I just pretend I’m allergic—that I’ll break out in monstrous fat cells if I eat certain things? Well, because I know perfectly well that I’m not. It’s the same reason why setting my clock twenty minutes fast doesn’t make me leap out of bed, thinking I’m late.

I won’t get the results of the test for a few weeks. The last time I wished this badly for something to be medically wrong with me was when I got my thyroid tested when I was fifteen.

Went on a canoe trip yesterday—something I haven’t done since summer camp—followed by a hike in the Berkshires. And I tried a Canyon Ranch ballet workout. I was self-conscious, especially because there were a few people wearing leotards and wrap skirts while I was in shorts and a grubby old frat-party T-shirt. But I’ve been reading since forever that ballet is supposed to do wonders for your muscles, and I figured better to try it here—where practically everyone is supportive—than back home. I didn’t flail around nearly as much as I thought I would.

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This morning—my last—I was supposed to have a manicure and pedi-

cure. But I canceled them. Those I could get anywhere, and I wanted to go on one last hike.

I feel embarrassingly like a spa testimonial, but a week after I’ve left I’m still on a Canyon Ranch high. I’ve also lost two pounds. I feel smugly, nauseatingly healthy. I’ve been to the farmers’ market and then to Fresh Fields and have not put a single processed thing in my body. I’ve drunk nothing but water—no Diet Coke, no after-work drinks. I’ve even cooked something from the Canyon Ranch cookbook—this banana nut French toast that

seemed to have seventy-two ingredients and 437 steps. Don’t know that I’ll be doing that again anytime soon, but it was nice to realize that a break from the same old safe foods doesn’t have to mean ice cream or nachos.

Is telling people what I’m feeling always going to make me regret it or otherwise make me feel crummier than I did before I decided to try to make myself feel better by getting the problem off my chest?

Today a message from one of my best friends from college—someone I’ve known for eight years—popped up in my e-mail box. I feel I hear from him only when he needs something or when he’s stuck at work late waiting for his boss to sign off on something and has exhausted all other ways of filling time.

I haven’t heard from him in several months. I’m sure I was being hyper-sensitive, but the e-mail felt like a classic “I’m e-mailing you so you can’t say I never e-mail you.” Nothing except a question about whether I’m on another continent this week.

So, buoyed by the Canyon Ranch high, I decided to take charge of at least one (nonfood) part of my life: I decided it was time to try working on my assertiveness. Except I didn’t exactly go about it in the best way.