Got to get it tight, got to get it right
I was five when I was first introduced to the wonderful world of dieting. Two of my relatives sequestered me in the kitchen and showed me a salad as if it was the Holy Grail. I was told how I needed to be on a diet. I don’t think that I really understood what a diet was at 5.
I know now.
I know what diets are, the meaning of fats, carbohydrates, body mass indicators, pilates and yoga. I’ve learned so much about dieting and weight loss that I feel like I can write a book on it. (Maybe I will if I ever finish this one.)
After I broke up with my ex-fiancée, I decided to drop all of my inhibitions and enter a gym. Basically, I emerged from there 80 pounds lighter. Then I hit that plateau where I didn’t lose anything or gain anything. That’s more frustrating than being in a war with a gun full of ammo, trying to shoot people, but your gun is jammed.
Then my loss started happening again when I embarked on what I called “My 90 day Plan to be a Sexier Man”. It’s been a lot of hard work, but I have been happy to see my results. My body is starting to take the form that I always wanted and always knew was somewhere under my skin. My newest inspiration is not a diet. Diets are for doodleheads. (That’s my statement; you can quote me on that.) It’s not a reunion or a wedding for which I am toning. It’s just good old me. I have inspired me.
That and a little help from Beyonce and Trinity from the Matrix.
Trinity (laying on her back having jumped down a flight of stairs): “Get up!”
Beyoncé (on getting herself in shape): “Got to get it tight, Got to get it right.”
What else would you expect from me but to have these aphorisms run my fitness life?
For me, though, I have always had a problem with my weight. I have always been heavy. It seems to me that skinny people have more issues with trying to be skinny or skinnier than a lot of bigger people including me have had with always been thick and wanting to see a change.
For instance, this girl I knew that I used to tutor, let’s call her Lisa, used to obsess over weight issues. Of course, like I have intimated a little earlier, when you are not small, you think that everyone that is smaller than you are should have no problem with body image. I have learned differently thanks to Lisa and others that I have met that, to me, seem like waifs, but to them, seem like whales awaiting harpooning. She was a really nice girl, and I thought that she was quite attractive, to be honest.
Anyway, so I am in the middle of tutoring her, when one of her roommates comes into the kitchen area, where we are, at the table. Roommate approaches and asks everyone in the kitchen (including me) “Did you eat my ice cream?” This impassioned plea reminded me of the best soap opera moments that only make sense in a world of complete make-believe. I have never heard someone so concerned about food, especially a dessert. (Well, there was that time when I flipped out because my father ate my apple cinnamon pancakes, but even the drama king that I am, I didn’t react this vehemently.) It was like a mother looking for her child, or how Hello Kitty would be if she could lament why she has no mouth. (Of course, if she had a mouth, which the stuffed Hello Kitty Dolls and the drawn cartoon version don’t, this would nullify her need to have this discussion. You get my drift.)
So, she went to each person in the house to ask them if they were responsible for demolishing her ice cream supply.
She even asked me.
So when it became clear that the culprit was not present, or might have been too afraid to face her wrath at the moment, she went on to relate to us, almost tearfully how she had “bought this ice cream so that” she could “eat for a week”. No, she had not bought peanut butter and jelly or a chicken, or even crackers. She bought a ½ gallon of ice cream for a week’s worth of nourishment. However, the ridiculousness does not stop there.
So she tells us how she had no money now, not even enough to put gas in her car to go to work. (It would seem that she should have wanted to work more, if she had to be put in this situation.) She had bought this ½ gallon of frozen cream heaven so that she would not starve and someone decided to eat almost all of it. In her defense, the ½ gallon had really been decimated as if a plague or a hungry nation had devoured it.
She left a letter for the culprit and she read it to us. Basically, it read:
“Hi. I hope that you enjoyed my ice cream. That was all that I had to eat for this week. Here’s the rest of it to finish since you liked it so much. I hope that you are planning to buy me another one.”
It is to be noted that this note was read to us with the seriousness of a president declaring war on the world.
How surprising, then, is it to find out that one of the girls in the house was later diagnosed with bulimia? Apparently, after months of mysterious food decimation, this one girl was caught scarfing down another roommate’s food, and the girls of the house put two and two together.
This is proof that everyone’s battle is different and offers different challenges.
I hate crunches, but they are a necessary thing, like breathing.
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