Fat Anxiety

Yesterday I had to attend a meeting where I would be getting to know a bunch of new students. Since I already have pretty major social anxiety, I was nervous going in. As I was getting ready, all I could think about was what clothes I could possibly wear that wouldn't make me look like the obese person I am.

It's not that I really believe I own clothing that could camoflage something as obvious as how overweight I am, but I didn't want to accentuate the fat, and everything I put on seemed to make it worse.

As I changed again and again, I was getting panicky instead of just anxious and had to stop and calm down several times, to the point where I was a few minutes late to my meeting. All I could think about was the bulge of fat where my underwear were tight at the waist. I was holding my breath as I walked to the meeting, and I realized that was not helping to alleviate how anxious and upset I was.

In some kind of incredible universal irony, a guy leaned out his window and cat-called right when I was feeling my most vulnerable and unattractive. Instead of thinking that maybe I'd put together a decent outfit after all, my self-talk became even more antsy, and I thought my body must be really obvious in this shirt, that guy must like big women, etc. It didn't occur to me that maybe I looked good.

As I was sitting in the meeting, my attention was not really on the speaker, so much as keeping my purse strategically in front of my midsection. I knew the roll was visible from the side, so I had my arm pinned around it, clutching at my bag. For someone so anxious about making a good impression, I didn't think about how I looked paranoid, antisocial, and withdrawn. I just didn't want people to look at my side fat.

When it came time to introduce myself, I spoke quickly and practically incoherently, trying to divert attention away from myself as much as possible. Usually in these types of circumstances I would crack a joke or say something cheeky instead of sincerely telling about myself and giving people an opportunity to know me. I don't even remember what I said this time because I was just thinking about my purse shifting and people seeing my stomach fat through a light-colored shirt.

By the end of the meeting my armpits were sweaty from clenching my arms so close to my body to try to mask it. I raced out of the room and tried to avoid having to talk to anyone - all I wanted to do was get somewhere private and check that my clothes hadn't warped into something even more unflattering.

This is just another time when being fat completely obstructs my concept of reality and prevents normal human interaction. Instead of standing out and being the colorful and interesting person I am, I became a shy fat girl trying to blend in with the furniture or disappear.

I'm tired of being that girl, and I'm tired of panicking because I can see a line around my waist where I wrinkled my shirt over the top of my too-tight underwear. Being overweight is making me so much more self-conscious than anyone should be, not just about appearance but about my whole self, and the kind of anxiety that creates is nothing short of crippling.

Much better eating

After yesterday's disappointing choices, I wanted to eat really good food today. I didn't have my first meal until almost 6:00 in the evening (a really really bad habit of mine), so I was starving by the time I ate it.

On top of that, I was watching TV, and I kept seeing a blitz of commercials for Dominos - they were offering free brownie bites with hot fudge dipping sauce when you ordered any large pizza. Despite living in a city full of amazing food, my weakest spot is for Dominos pizza, so this commercial was driving me absolutely crazy. I was SO tempted to go off my diet and pig out, especially seeing as I'm not making any progress (I don't think my body will go below 180 if I don't start exercising).

Breakfast

• chocolate crisp cereal with skim milk
• sliced peaches
• Stonyfield Farms maple vanilla yogurt

I went to the store to pick up more fruit and yogurt but found the produce section offering little besides those awful flavorless strawberries (the store on the corner is still renovating, so I think they're deliberately keeping their stock low). I went with canned fruit instead and found these peaches divine. I also realized that I kept putting off the plainer fruit varieties of yogurt, so I picked up the kinds I really liked instead. I mean yogurt's yogurt, right? I'm so glad I made that decision, as now the yogurt is a reward instead of something I have to eat. And the maple vanilla was just fantastic.

Lunch

• spicy Oriental noodles with vegetables
• salad with fat-free Italian dressing
• Stonyfield Farms caramel underground yogurt

This meal was perfection. The noodles were another one of those Cup Noodles-style containers, but unlike the disappointing fettuccini alfredo, these came out exactly how I wanted. They were actually spicy, with an interesting flavor and perfect texture - I was so happy. The yogurt was as close as I've ever had to dulce de leche ice cream (one of my other biggest temptors), so of course I was ecstatic.

Snack

• sliced peaches
• low-fat cottage cheese

I continued staving off cravings from those evil Dominos commercials (I even stopped watching the show I was watching because they kept airing at every break on that channel) - this time I told myself that cottage cheese was just as good as gooey mozzarella. Of course it wasn't, but it did taste good. I loved the peaches again, but I couldn't even pretend I would have preferred those to the brownie bites.

Dinner

• lasagna with meat sauce
• peas & carrots
• sliced peaches
• roasted peanuts

The obvious choice would have been to have the pizza meal for dinner, but I knew it wasn't going to be as good as real pizza, so I opted for some delicious lasagna instead. It had great sauce and good meaty flavor, but not as much cheese as I would have liked. Inexplicably, there were also beans mixed in. The spinach I could understand, but beans in lasagna is just weird.

I ate the peanuts earlier as my fat serving, and those were wonderful. I was so happy to be eating something "normal" that I ordinarily liked.

Dessert

• chocolate fudge cake

Obviously I was still thinking about those brownies, so I dove into the desserts box and came up with a small, heavenly-smelling cake. It reminded me of a brownie in its shape and smell, and even though the flavor wasn't perfect, it was pretty damn good. I was proud of myself for resisting the constant urges to blow off the diet and gorge on pizza and brownie bites, but I can't promise I won't do it at some point when I really need a treat.

Though I vastly prefer this diet to the previous one, I am getting a little tired of dieting overall, as I've been doing it for six months now. I need to develop an addictive love of exercise so that I can start making some damn progress and be able to indulge more in the foods I really enjoy.

A day of funny flavors

I started taking a new birth control pill, and I think it's contributing to my moodiness lately. My breasts are swollen and tender, so maybe it's also causing water retention - I dunno. For some reason this diet has me weigh myself every day, and not only am I not making progress - it seems I'm gaining weight this week. Argh.

Breakfast

• bran flakes with skim milk
• 3 prunes
• chunk of aged Vermont Cheddar cheese

I was kind of dissatisfied with the cereal and fruit, so I went for the cheese early on. I also counted it as my fat serving.

Lunch

• cheese tortellini
• salad with fat-free Italian dressing
• Dannon Light n' Fit Creamy French vanilla yogurt

The tortellini tasted funny to me, but it seemed good enough. The sauce was also a little off, as if it had cheese or some protein mixed in. It was satisfying enough, but not what I'd been looking forward to. I also barely tasted the yogurt.

Snack

• 3 prunes
• Dannon Light n' Fit peach yogurt

Again, I wasn't really in the mood for either of these and found the flavors off. At this point I began to think it wasn't the food - maybe it was me.

Dinner

• beef & mushroom gravy with orzo pasta
• steamed broccoli
• 3 prunes

Ugh. The gravy was overabundant and tasted weird. There was plenty of beef, but it tasted too mushroomy. The broccoli I made tasted freezer-burned. I just didn't enjoy this dinner at all.

Dessert

• chocolate chip cookies

Finally something good! After so many funky tastes and an admittedly cranky mood all day, I made sure I picked a dessert that couldn't possibly go wrong. The cookies tasted surprisingly similar to Famous Amos mini cookies, which made me very happy.

So Far, So Good

As frequently happens with me, if I don't write things down I completely forget them. My recollection of this past week's meals is shady at best, so I've resolved I'll record a little more information than a check mark next to "Breakfast" in my food diary from now on.

Today was day 5 and another good day. I'm finding that even if the meals are a little disappointing, the food I eat with them makes up for it, and I make sure to go with something I know I'll like for the next one.

Breakfast

• NutriCinnamon Squares with skim milk
• strawberries sprinkled with Splenda
• Dannon Light n' Fit blackberry yogurt

The cereal was spectacular - it reminded me of Life cereal or similar, with a delicate cinnamon flavor. The baffling thing was that they had other pieces of differently-colored and shaped cereal mixed in with the cinnamon pieces. Perhaps it was for textural interest or to get the right balance of nutrients, but I would have been perfectly happy with a bowlful of those cinnamon ones.

The strawberries I bought earlier in the week and quickly discovered they were flavorless and rather awful. I've been dreading eating them, but as I already finished all the blueberries, I decided they'd be better now than once I've let them get to a questionable freshness. The Splenda almost made them tolerable, but they still tasted quite bad, which is just disappointing.

The blackberry yogurt was delicious, though, and I had it as a midmorning snack. It more than made up for the strawberry debaucle.

Lunch

• fettuccini alfredo with mushrooms & vegetables
• Romaine hearts with 2 tbsp fat-free Italian dressing
• chunk of aged Vermont Cheddar cheese

When I ordered this lunch, I anticipated a creamy and delicious dish, but I was pretty disappointed. It was like the Cup Noodles containers (I have quite a few lunch meals in this type of packaging), to which I added boiling water and let it sit. No matter how long I left it, it didn't seem to absorb enough liquid to make the noodles tender or the sauce as thick as I'd like. The flavors were great, but the texture was closer to a creamy soup than pasta and sauce like I'd expected.

The cheese, of course, remedied my alfredo fix and proved quite satisfying. I also counted this cheese as my fat serving (a tip from my mother).

Snack

• 3 prunes
• Stonyfield Farms strawberry cheesecake yogurt

I still have another serving of strawberries sitting in the fridge, but I dare not face them. I went with the lazy and quick option of prunes instead. Theoretically, it's all the same, right?

The yogurt was good, but not as decadent as some of their other dessert-themed yogurts I've had (notably the key lime pie and chocolate underground - swoon).

Dinner

• chicken pasta parmesan
• steamed broccoli
• 3 prunes

This dish more than made up for lunch - it was absolutely delicious. The chicken was perfectly tender and juicy, the sauce was thick and great (and there was tons of it), the pasta was just the right texture - just perfect. I wonder about the amount of sodium or preservatives that go into keeping these dishes safe (you don't need to refrigerate or freeze them at all), but meals like this make me not really care - fantastic!

I even enjoyed the broccoli, which I ate before the chicken. I'm finding it easiest to eat the 2 servings of vegetables I'm supposed to have at the same time, as it's just the difference between preparing 1/2 or 1 whole cup of them. I've been using pre-cut frozen vegetables, but again... I wonder about the nutrition in that. We'll see how it works out I guess.

I really should eat something besides prunes. I'm given the option of salad or fruit, and most of the time, I've been opting for a small fruit rather than have to prepare and consume a salad. Hrmm.

Dessert

• Chocolate-Chocolate Chip Biscotti with Macadamia Nuts

This was surprisingly good. I wished that I'd made a cup of tea to dunk it in, but I ate it as I was getting ready for bed, so I didn't want to wait for tea to steep. My grandmother used to make homemade biscotti as treats for our family, and I think I may try to develop a chocolate and macadamia nut biscotti based on this one to send to them now.

One thing I wasn't prepared for after all my grumbling about cooking - I actually miss it. I really enjoy cooking sometimes, especially baking, which is why I thought I would have liked the first recipe-based diet. I think it was the skimpiness of ingredients and questionable flavors which put me off. I will have to develop my recipe repetoire toward more healthy (but still kind of gourmet) things once I am done losing all this weight - that will be fun!

First Day on the New Diet

My NutriSystem package arrived last night, so I decided I would begin the diet today. I went through the box and checked it against the packing list, then discovered they'd short-shipped me on lunches, which was mildly frustrating.

Otherwise everything looked good, and I was immensely pleased, looking forward to getting a good start.

Breakfast

• Cranberry granola bar
• Dannon Light n' Fit Creamy rasberry yogurt
• 3 prunes

I spread this out over the beginning of my day, so I didn't find myself hungry at all. I forgot how much I actually love yogurt, and I am enthused to now have a fridge full of it.

Lunch

• Chicken Stew with Barley
• Romaine hearts with fat-free Italian dressing
• low-fat cottage cheese

I realized that the types of foods I'm eating are very similar to e-diets meals, with the major exception being that all I had to do was pop open a container and heat it in the microwave for a minute. The ease of this diet is fantastic, and I found my first hot meal to be quite delicious and satisfying.

Snack

• 3 prunes
• Stonyfield Farms fat-free key lime yogurt

I was stoked that they had a snack on the meal plan in addition to the dessert meal (which is sometimes sweet, sometimes salty). Basically they call for a serving of fruit and a dairy or protein. Now maybe I sound more like 84 than 24, but I really love prunes, so I enjoyed these a lot. The yogurt was a great pick-me-up and, if possible, even tastier than the one I had earlier. Key lime is delicious!

Dinner

• turkey with dumplings
• 2 servings French-cut green beans
• 3 prunes
• 4 walnut halves

Oh man. Fantastic. The dumplings were actually great, and the turkey was tender and flavorful. The sauce was not too heavy and not too much like gravy, so I loved it. I was a little confused about the 2 servings of vegetables with one meal, but it was easy enough to just double the amount of green beans I heated. I have to work my way up to different fruits, given today's prune addiction, but it was about all I had room for anyway. I had been excited to have a teaspoon of peanut butter for my "Fat" serving, but then discovered we didn't have any (whoops), so I went for the walnuts instead and found them surprisingly good.

Dessert

• NutriCrunch chocolates

Perhaps I am predictable, but these were far and away my favorite thing I ate today. They're made mostly with protein, but the chocolate flavor is out of this world. I wish I had ordered many more of these because - wow - I would eat them even if they weren't diet food!

I'm exceptionally happy with the way this diet worked out today. I found it was effortless to pop the food in the microwave and chow down. This ease of preparation also made me look forward to meals instead of dread having to get out a skillet and start slaving over the stove.

Something else that's worked out just great - I actually drank the proper amount of water today and then some. This past weekend at Costco I picked up a case of bottled water and a big box of Crystal Light lemonade mix. Keeping a cold pitcher of lemonade in the fridge is just the best treat in August and made me happily guzzle down my recommended fluids (which admittedly, I've always been really bad with). I actually haven't had any Diet Coke all day, which is... sort of miraculous really. Way to go hydration!

I have to go read through the exercise booklet and do the prescribed exercise for today before going to bed. I'm so thrilled they make this a comprehensive program that - I can't say it enough - is SO EASY. I'm confident I will have success this time!

What It Means to Be Fat

Aside from worrying about my health and knowing I don't feel as well as I could most of the time, I realize that being overweight seriously does affect me every day in pervasive ways.

Each morning when I wake up, I put off showering as long as I can. I hate facing myself in the mirror and standing naked in the shower, staring down at my body and what I've let it become.

Getting dressed is always a challenge. I have way more clothing than I really need because none of it fits the way I want or looks the way I'd like. I am reluctant to part with any of my clothes, though, because even though I have a closet overstuffed with nothing to wear, it would be completely empty were I to remove everything I don't like wearing.

Instead of thinking of my comfort or the weather, I think about my flaws and how best I can disguise them. By the time I put an outfit together, I feel utterly defeated already, and if I was excited about what I had planned to do for the day, all enthusiasm has evaporated by the time I've dealt with clothing my body.

I am reluctant to go out and be seen in public. I don't like walking around my neighborhood or anywhere anyone might know me and see me looking awful. I won't ride my bike because I know I look repulsive. I avoid activities which are in any way physical or would call attention to my fatness, even those I used to love. I avoid going to the gym even though I realize that's the one place I'm allowed to look fat because it's where I can do something about it. I refuse to use the gym at my school because I'm afraid of being seen by classmates and professors. Instead I go to a gym that's a half-hour away, which makes it more time-consuming and makes me less likely to drive there. It should come as no surprise that I've gone exactly once this summer.

To be perfectly honest, if I get invited somewhere that there will be attractive and thin women (including my friends and family), my first impulse is to say no and try to avoid it. If I accept invitations, I spend the time leading up to events worrying, fretting that I don't have anything flattering to wear, dreading having to see people's reactions to my weight and appearance. More than a few times I've seen old friends give me sad looks which all but shouted "You used to be thin and pretty, but now I can't even remember what you looked like before you got so fat."

I resent my friends and family because I know they compare me unfavorably with other women. I feel guilty and ashamed when people see me with my boyfriend because we all know he deserves someone more attractive who takes better care of herself.

I avoid sex because I hate him touching my fat or seeing my body. I can't relax and let myself enjoy the intimacy or emotional experience because I'm constantly thinking how fat and out of shape I am. Instead of feeling pleasure, I feel disgust because I am reminded of my body and the mess I've made of it. I shy away from physical contact, and I maintain a problematic emotional distance from my boyfriend. I constantly fear he will reject me and I'm terribly afraid of his reactions to my appearance.

He has told me it's been a long while since he's found me physically attractive, and this breaks my heart every day.

I am reluctant to share my opinion or stand out at school because I don't want to call attention to myself. When I do speak up, I get distracted in the midst of discussion because I suddenly worry that my chin is wobbling or that people are looking at my arms when I'm gesticulating. I wish I could disappear most of the time.

I don't even enjoy being by myself. My thighs rub together when I walk and cause uncomfortable chaffing. My breasts and stomach roll over and I feel sick. It's so uncomfortable to wear a bra that the instant I get home I take it off, and I think everyday that I wish I didn't have to wear one.

Being overweight makes me think horribly mean things about myself and destroys my confidence about everything. I doubt my abilities and talents because I can't even control my body, let alone face the things I need to in my life. I think of my personality as weak, flawed, and full of excuses, and I let this carry into every other area of my life. I feel sorry for myself and mope instead of facing my problems.

Since I was twelve years old (if not younger), I've told myself I needed lose weight. My goals always started with "Lose weight" or "Get in shape," even when I was doing varsity sports and clinically underweight. In grade school, I hated myself and focused on thinking I was fat, and the absolute worst experience I could imagine would be my stomach growling during class. My entire life I've fantasized about looking athletic and thin, and I obsessed over the small bits of fat on my inner thighs or hips which defined me as a woman, thinking they were my huge flaws instead of the things which made me sexually appealing and not a skinny prepubescent girl.

I felt fat as a size one, and now that I'm actually fat as a size sixteen (sometimes 14 or 12), I can't believe it. When I see other people who weigh 180 pounds or wear my clothing size, I think "I can't possibly be that big" and try to rationalize my weight even though I know that yes, I really am obese. When I see photos of myself, I try to protect my ego by criticizing the photographer's use of unflattering angles or say it was an awkward pose, but I know that they've probably minimized how bad I actually look.

It seems superficial to be so upset about being overweight... and yet, I think about it constantly and it ruins a lot of experiences.

I want to lose this weight because I want to be able to respect myself and accept that I have self-control and discipline. I want my boyfriend to find me attractive again. Hell, I want to find myself attractive again. I am tired of trying to blend into the furniture - I want my body to match the personality I have inside, and I want to be able to do the things I like without worrying that - oh God - people are going to look at me and judge me for being fat.

Change of plans

I recently returned from a vacation with my mother, during which we talked some about dieting, body image, fitness, health, and so forth. She's recently lost over 20 pounds and looks absolutely amazing.

Meanwhile, I've been on ediets since the end of February and... not losing weight. Yes, I am 20 pounds lighter than when I started, but I hit a plateau and haven't been moving.

Cooking all of my meals has been torture. Spending a fortune on groceries is arduous and stressful. Keeping the blog the way I was absolutely wasn't helping.

So today I signed up for NutriSystem, which is how my mom lost all her weight. The advantage as I see it is that the most preparation these meals will require is adding some water and microwaving. I can handle that. And because the food is already in my apartment, it's not going to be a choice between cheating on the diet or going to the store - I just have to walk to the other room and heat something.

I really really hope that this works. I was about to give up dieting altogether before my mom and I talked about it. So, Diet #2 for this project.

Since I will be eating prepackaged meals, I'm not going to be posting photos of all the food (since that was really hard to keep up anyway). Maybe once in a while I will show what some of it looks like, but mostly I plan to keep this blog more in a journal format, seeing as that's the one outlet I actually need right now.

One kind of dismaying, but amusing thing. The NutriSystem site has a My Virtual Model, which I've seen before on clothing sites. I filled in my stats and yikes - she's a big fat cow! The good news is, they also show what I could look like at my goal weight (120 - right) and umm, she's pretty foxy. Good to see what I'm shooting for.