The Fatslayer Chronicles

Aug 31, 2005 at 21:11 o\clock

Woes

by: Fatslayer

Today's Fatslaying Workout Nothing

Today's Weight 192.5 lbs

*********

I had a distressing conversation with one of my friends yesterday, and it made me realise just how screwed up your mind can get when you’ve been overweight your whole life in a society that values slenderness above everything else as a yardstick to measure attractiveness.

 

My friend’s first husband (a pilot) had numerous affairs and eventually left her for a much younger, slimmer woman, after telling my friend that her weight was the cause of his infidelity (yeah, right).

 

Fuelled by misery and the fury of the scorned woman, my friend lost about a hundred pounds, and within a couple of years of her divorce she had met and married a man 17 years her junior. He met her when she was at her lifetime’s skinniest, and when they married she was a UK size 10. That was a happy day for her.

 

In the twenty years since then, my friend has battled constantly with her weight. She’ll lose twenty pounds and gain twenty-five, lose thirty and gain forty – it seems to be a never-ending cycle. She is now about 100-120lbs overweight. Her husband is supportive and loving, never makes an issue of her weight, but is gently encouraging of her (erratic) dieting efforts. However, he is also extremely fit and active (he earns his living as a mountain bike guide, and he's also a marathon runner, cross-country skier and fell-walker), and she constantly feels as if she married him under false pretences, making him think he would have a slim, fit wife instead of an obese, physically unfit one.

 

Nothing he says or does can alter this belief, which has become almost a mono-maniacal obsession for her, and which colours every waking moment of every day.

 

She cried all day on her 40th birthday because she was fat and forty, and did the same on her 50th birthday.  She is miserable beyond belief. She can’t seem to either come to terms with being large (and work on maximising her health and fitness), or to successfully get her weight down to where she feels happy. She’s simply stuck in a place she hates, and doesn’t know how to move forwards.

 

Her poor husband is thoroughly perplexed, and at a loss of how to convince her that he loves her regardless of her size. He tries to encourage her to quit worrying about her shape and just have fun – he wants her to dance and jiggle her little heart out and stop worrying constantly about what people will think. He worries about her health, and all the opportunities to have fun that she’s constantly letting slip through her fingers.

 

A couple of months ago they went on their first ever cruise, to celebrate their 20th wedding anniversary - they’ve been saving up for it for the past 5 years. The cruise cost £17,000 each, and was for 11 nights. It was on a luxury liner, complete with 6 decks of casinos, ballrooms, fitness suites, restaurants, beauty salons, swimming pools, sun loungers, cocktail bars, cinemas – you name it, they had it.

 

At the 11th hour my friend almost backed out of going, because she was afraid that people she hadn’t met before would judge her purely on her weight. Eventually after much cajoling they embarked, and for the next 11 nights she only left their cabin once (for a midnight trip to see the Aurora Borealis). The rest of the time she had room service meals in the cabin, and read romance novels all day long, whilst her husband (urged by her – sincerely - to have fun) took the opportunity to do some glacier skiing and snowboarding when the ship anchored, and spent much of the rest of the time enjoying the first class gym facilities and swimming pools that the ship offered.

 

After the eleven days, he came home tanned, energised, rested, invigorated – my friend came home 10 pounds heavier than when they left because she comfort ate the entire time they were away, and with her self-esteem at rock-bottom.

 

Last night she was in tears. Since the holiday she’s gained a further 15 pounds. None of her clothes fit, and she has ulcerated skin beneath her boobs and at the top of her thighs where her skin rubs against itself. The temperature had soared to 90F/30C and she was hot and fractious and miserable and feeling like crap. She’s worried that her husband will get fed up with her refusing to do anything together, and will leave her the way her first husband did. It’s almost as if she’s pushing him out of the door – she can see she’s doing it, too, but can’t help herself.

 

I didn’t know what to say to help – nothing seemed to console her. She’s tried weight loss groups, starvation, counselling, fad diets, hypnosis, diet pills, acupuncture, bulimia and laxative abuse, personal trainers, Prozac, therapy, holistic medicine, weight loss surgery (she was turned down) – none of it has worked and her depression is intensifying.

 

She forgets that she wasn’t happy for much of the time when she finally got to be skinny, and she sees losing weight as some sort of magical panacea – and like most magical things, she thinks it’s beyond her reach. She can’t take the first step – it’s as if she’s paralysed. I know from my own bitter experience how hard it can be to take the first step – you have to wait for the ‘click’, and it’s not something that can be forced – but I don’t know the right words to help the click along for her!

 

She asked me about my own weight loss efforts, and though I tried to downplay them and not rub her nose in it, she was spiteful and bitchy (and tearful), because she feels as if I’m betraying her by leaving her stranded. She seemed to be willing me to fail, so that she and I could be miserable together – I felt horribly selfish and egotistical, and had to give myself a stern talking to so that I wouldn’t dive into the biscuit tin our of sheer guilty remorse.

 

I had to remind myself that even when you’re fat in company it doesn’t really make it any easier, and that I’d be doing my friend no real favours if I fell off the wagon into a tub of ice-cream. You can have all the fat companionship in the world, but when push comes to shove you have to face your inner uncertainties and anxieties on your own – no amount of solidarity can make you feel better about yourself when you’re face to face with your fat demons.

 

Having said that, does any one have any bright ideas of how I can help my friend?  It’s heart breaking to see her so unhappy….

 

Aug 30, 2005 at 22:39 o\clock

In Cod We Trust...

by: Fatslayer

Today's Fatslaying Workout Nothing

Today's Weight 191.5 lbs

*********

This healthy eating lark can work out really expensive - our food bill has practically doubled since we started cutting out the crap and eating lots of fresh fruit and veggies. Today I bought a pound of fresh cod and by my quick reckoning it worked out more expensive per ounce than gold - it'd better be worth it!

I like fish but I have an uncomfortable battle with my conscience every time I buy it. Most meat is farmed from sustainable stocks, and since I don't like meat very much I tend to buy a little of it and go for quality not quantity. It salves my conscience if I'm eating my burgers made with organically reared, humanely slaughtered beef - I can con myself that Daisy the Cow had a good life and a painless death.

It's not so easy to stifle my conscience when I buy fish, though. I feel that every time I eat fish I'm complicit in some sort of rape of the ocean - fish stocks in the North Sea are in dire straits, and it's not as if you can set up a cod or tuna farm and have done with it. I feel as if I'm contributing to the destruction of an entire eco-system!

But since I eat meat maybe one day a month, I'm allergic to soya and I don't like cheese, eggs or dairy produce, I struggle for good quality protein sources. I'd LIKE to give up fish, but woman (or at least THIS woman) cannot live by nuts and pulses alone.

Any suggestions for alternative protein sources, anyone, so that I can start looking my goldfish (Tango) in the eye again? I feel like a mass-murderer every time I approach his bowl to shake in a bit of fish food!

Aug 29, 2005 at 19:43 o\clock

People are strange...

by: Fatslayer

Today's Fatslaying Workout 80 minute cycle ride

Today's Weight 191.5 lbs

*********

I went, I camped, I conquered the temptation to eat nothing but Cornish pasties and cream teas for the entire seven days, and I came home a pound lighter than the day I left.

 

Yowzer!

 

Camping was fun, but I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m too anti-social to really enjoy going away for a whole week with anybody other than K. K I’m used to – I feel comfortable and at ease with him (it would be pretty bad if after 15 years together that wasn’t the case!)- but any one else is a bit of a trial.

 

I expected to have the most friction with K’s chauvinistic friend Ty, but in the end it was his girlfriend Debbie who was the most difficult to tolerate. She seemed to be on the verge of a strop from the very first half hour, and her mood deteriorated noticeably as the week wore on, and by Wednesday it was so bad that even K (Mr Easy-Going) was finding it difficult to tolerate.

 

I’m not so placid as K and, as her passive/aggressive remarks were aimed mainly at me, I was finding it a real struggle to be pleasant by the end of the week. I succeeded, but it came at the cost of much gritting of teeth and counting to ten. I’m not even so sure it was worth it – at times I felt like blasting her with both barrels!

 

The fact that K and I were trying to eat reasonably healthily seemed to really get under her skin, and was the catalyst for most of her bitchy comments. Have you noticed that some people seem to get really upset when you try to be healthy, as if they’re worried you’re implying something derogatory about them in comparison? It’s simply bizarre!

 

She doesn’t have a weight problem as such, but she’s extremely flat-chested, and carries what excess pounds she does have in her bum, hips and thighs (typical English pear-shape). As Ty calls her Bubble Butt constantly, this is obviously not lost on both of them.

 

K and I were being very discreet about our health kick, not rubbing their noses in it or anything like that or being fussy about where we ate, but trying to make healthy choices from whatever menu was put before us. As the week wore on and it became apparent that they were each drinking 10 pints of lager and smoking twenty cigarettes every day, having chips with every meal, and a cream tea at every town we visited, whereas K and I were choosing meals with new potatoes and veggies, and sharing a cream tea every third day or so, and alternating our drinks between wine, lager and mineral water, then I think Debbie felt increasingly threatened by that, and the snide comments intensified.

 

Examples of the remarks she came out with were:

 

“Are you saving up for cosmetic surgery for when you’ve got to your goal? I’ve heard that skin loses all its elasticity when people are as chronically obese as you were…”

 

“Don’t you think it’s a bit of a waste of time you trying to lose weight? If you’ve not done it by your age you’re not likely to do it at all, are you?”

 

“Has K ever said he’s repulsed by the size you were?”

 

“I expect that this time next year you’ll be at your highest ever weight – that’s always what happens, isn’t it? You lose a few pounds and end up regaining them all and a few more on top…”

 

I was getting well cheesed off with this but I didn’t know how to handle it without ruining everyone’s holiday, so I just deflected the comments as best as I could and pointedly tried to change the subject every time it seemed to be veering in a dangerous direction.

 

I just couldn’t understand what was causing the hostility and aggression, and it was seriously pissing me off that every time I ordered grilled fish or a mineral water or declined a cream scone or a pint of lager, that there would be some kind of dig made… what the fuck business of hers was it what I ate or didn’t eat?

 

Jeeze, some people are just hard work, aren’t they?

 

Anyway, despite the digs I stuck to my guns and wasn’t coerced into eating anything I didn’t want to (nor was K) and both of us came home feeling that we’d passed some kind of test, and come out stronger as a result. The peer pressure to booze ourselves senseless and constantly eat crap was really strong and we withstood it, kept civil and didn’t resort to some kind of tit-for-tat bitchiness. Yay for us!

 

But if I have any say in the matter, that’s the last week away I ever have with them – there’s only so much teeth gritting a gal can do – next time I won’t be so forbearing!

 

Aug 16, 2005 at 21:02 o\clock

Marooned Five

by: Fatslayer

Today's Fatslaying Workout 70 minute walk

Today's Weight 193.0 lbs

*********

K and I have been house and dog/cat sitting for K’s mom since Saturday, and using it as a trial run for trying to eat sensibly without a proper routine in advance of next week’s camping trip to Cornwall. Her house is only 5 miles from ours, so its not exactly the ends of the earth, but I wanted to avoid the temptation to run home every five minutes – I’m pretending to myself that I’m marooned from my everyday surroundings, and trying to see how I cope with the unfamiliarity. Luckily I have a good imagination!

K goes home every evening at bedtime, so that our own house isn’t left too long unattended, but I stay the night here to look after the animals (we bought K2 over here with us). All I’ve allowed myself is half an hour at home every morning after I’ve walked the doggies to weigh and shower – there are some things that a gal just can’t do without!

Basically, though I like to think of myself as a free-spirited hippy-chick wild-child, patently this is just wishful thinking on my part. The painful reality is that my disposition is much more anally-retentive and control-freaky (hey, I’m an accountant, so I’m working with a stacked deck here!), and any change from my established routine causes me untold anxiety and apprehension.

Living in someone else’s house for 5 days, without recourse to my usual exercise equipment, walking routes, healthy ingredients and snack foods etc. would ordinarily be a licence to run amok and eat everything in sight (before replacing it so I don’t look like a piggy-porker of course). The challenge for the week was to stay reasonably on-track, to try and get a couple of long walks in, to try and eat sensibly without running to the village pub for sausage and chips because I can’t figure out how to cook on the Aga, and to generally not go to hell in a handcart.

Within my first hour here I checked out the freeze, fridge and larders (there are three) and did a thorough inventory of what I could eat and what I couldn’t. This may sound stalkerish and slightly alarming, but I swear on my mother’s life that I haven’t rummaged through a single underwear drawer, medicine cabinet, bedside nightstand or any other personal space – I’m not a snoop, I just like to know what there is to eat!

Anyway, on the pro side there was fruit, bran cereal, canned tuna (in brine, not water, but hell, I can be a bit wild when I have to be!), skim milk, canned tomatoes, cashew nuts, olive oil, organic free-range eggs, wholemeal bread.

On the con side there wasn’t a single veggie in the house, or any salad items whatsoever, there was only regular pasta (not wholemeal), and there was no lean meat or fish of any kind other than the aforementioned canned tuna.

On the double-con side there was a fridge full of wine and beer and butter and cheese, a cupboard full of crisps and chocolate, and three home-made cakes (left for our benefit, with a note exhorting us to eat all three of them, and the jam-tarts in the freezer too). Hmm, what is it with mothers and mothers-outlaw? How difficult can the concept ‘we’re trying to eat healthily’ be?! It seems the more I insist that we want to avoid crap, the more temptation they try to put in our path. However, I’m never one to run away from a challenge…

I was expecting to replace what we ate, but I’ve gotta be honest, it’s been difficult to concoct healthy nutritious meals from such slim pickings. We’ve had pasta with home-made tomato, basil, garlic and olive oil sauce for dinner twice, and tuna wholemeal sandwiches for lunch every day. I was trying to be all Robinson Crusoe-ish and survive entirely on what I could find in the house, but on day two I had to crack and buy salad items – life without them is intolerable!

Overall, I don’t think we’ve done too badly. The exercise has suffered a little, but we walked for an hour today, and intend to do so again tomorrow. The scales have been kind, showing me at 193lbs – that’s 6lbs dropped in two weeks, which I know is way too fast, but it makes up for the two-to-three plateau weeks at the start of August. It gives me a little buffer in case I find Cornwall a bit of a struggle.

The good thing – and the most encouraging sign for next week – is that we’ve managed to avoid the crap in the house completely, and the lure of the village pub too. Neither of us have so much as sniffed the chocolate or a cork – despite there being some top quality wine staring us in the face every time we open the fridge. I’ve kept my calories between 1200 and 1400 every day, and though I’m not getting as much lean protein and fibre in as I’d like, I think I’m managing to make pretty good choices and to work well within the parameters I’ve got to work with.

If I can handle the challenges of Cornwall (with K's chauvinistic friend and his ‘Bubble-Butt fiancée) with the same pragmatism and aplomb I’ll be well chuffed! The problem with next week is that Tyrone and Debbie are both big boozers, and Ty eats crap all day long, and will nag K and me (K especially) to match him drink for drink and Cornish pasty for Cornish pasty. It’ll be a difficult week for K in particular, because he won’t want to keep saying no all the time (men hate that, don’t they?!) Trying to keep myself accountable whilst not being a big party-pooper drag may be a difficult balancing act – especially as I don’t want to abandon K to his fate just to save my own dieting arse!

Hopefully I’ll find the time for one more entry before we hit the canvas on Saturday, but if not, wish me luck next week – I think I may need it!

Aug 11, 2005 at 19:32 o\clock

Things I want more...

by: Fatslayer

Today's Fatslaying Workout Nothing - but 70 minute walk/jog yesterday

Today's Weight 196.0 lbs

*********

Sometimes I have a tendency to lose my sense of perspective (you, noticed that, huh?), and I have to make a real mental effort to stop freaking out and pull myself back towards normality. This journey I’m on is supposed to be a drive towards healthy living, and the whole object of the exercise is to feel better, not worse, in mind body and spirit. Plunging into depression because of stupid things like the scales moving in the wrong direction just isn’t healthy, and neither is narrowing my whole life down to one obsessive, neurotic, all-pervasive drive to shed the blubber at all costs.

 

It’s important, yes, but it’s not THAT important.

 

Bearing this in mind, I tried to think of the things that I WOULDN’T sacrifice to be slim and healthy – and it was a surprisingly long list.

 

If I had to choose between being healthy or loving and being loved, I’d choose to be love and be loved.

 

If I had to choose between the epitaphs ‘She did good’ or ‘She looked good’, I’d choose the former.

 

If I had to choose between being healthily fat or unhealthily thin, I’d choose healthily fat.

 

If I had to choose between living for 100 miserable years or for 50 happy years, I’d choose the latter.

 

If I had to choose between wearing black because it’s supposedly slimming or red because it makes me feel sexy and confident, I’d choose to wear red.

 

If I had to choose between eating celery soup followed by a night on the treadmill, or licking off chocolate body paint followed by a night of passion, I’d choose the body paint and night of passion without hesitation. (Obviously I’m just a wanton hussy!)

 

If I had to carry one (or two, or three, or ten) extra pound of fat for every extra year added to K’s life expectancy I would do it in a heartbeat, and gladly.

 

If I had to choose between curing cancer or being slim, I'd choose to cure cancer.

 

If a fairy Godmother offered me the choice of inner beauty or outer beauty I would (after only the teensiest hesitation) choose the inner beauty.

 

If it was a choice of getting through a bad patch without wine and chocolate or with wine and chocolate, I'd choose the wine and chocolate.

 

If the cost of being slim was to lose my sense of humour, I’d consider it a lousy bargain.

 

If I had to choose between being slim, or being intelligent, I’d choose to be intelligent (she said intelligently!)

 

If being slim meant I couldn’t ever spend another lazy Sunday cuddled up on the sofa next to K, reading Jane Austen and eating Pringles, I’d choose to stay fat.

 

**********

 

Well, there you have it, my perspective-restoring list. Phew, I’m so glad I don’t have to actually make those choices, but at least it shows that there is more to life than losing weight.

 

I want to get fit and healthy, but I don’t want it at any cost. If I just keep plugging away I’ll get there eventually, but in the meantime there are lots of things I have already that I’ve not been appreciating properly. Hmmm, maybe it’s time I started to count my blessings!

Aug 9, 2005 at 22:35 o\clock

The Lord Moves in Mysterious Ways

by: Fatslayer

Today's Fatslaying Workout Nothing - but 70 minute walk/jog yesterday

Today's Weight 196.0 lbs

*********

I'm back, perspective restored, and feeling a little bit silly for making a mountain out of a molehill, if the truth be told.

I can now see the humourous side of my skirt embarrassment, and have told it as a funny story at work, where everyone thought it was an absolute hoot (of course). Hearing everyone's laughter has made me realise that it really isn't that big a deal - yes, at the time it was mortifying, but the only thing hurt was my pride, and if that's the most mortifying thing that ever happens to me I think I ought to count myself lucky.

Wendy's comment made my question my behaviour over the past few days since the wedding, when I've been back in the healthy-living saddle like a woman possessed. Yes, there is pride at stake, and a desire never to feel judged because of my weight per se, but I really don't think I'm driving myself on this week because I'm trying to impress other people.

I really don't, honestly.

I've realised (finally! boy, I'm a slow learner sometimes) that the people who are really important and whose opinions really matter to me love me whatever I look like, and regardless of the foolish things I do and the sticky messes I get myself into. Their opinion isn't capricious or variable, it's not conditional upon me losing another 20 or 40 or 60 lbs or whatever - it's based upon deeper things like trust and respect and love.

I could try forever to make the lecherous uncles of this world feel more kindly towards me, but hell, I don't give a flying fuck for the opinions of lecherous sleazy old tossers, and I'm not going to waste a second regretting that I don't conform to their idea of a desirable woman.

What DOES motivate me, though, is looking and feeling good for myself - so that I can enjoy the energy surging through my body, and know that I'm making the best of what the good Lord gave me. My body may not be catwalk quality, but it's the only one I've got and I want to do it justice, and not burden or drag it down with excess lumpage and blubber.

At the wedding I was surrounded by folks in their 70s, with diabetes (4 individuals), heart problems (3 individuals), mobility problems (4 - female, overweight - individuals)....and it bought home to me that I can't afford to slack off or backslide.

I think it crashed home so much because after being really good with the food all day - only one small glass of red wine and half a glass of champagne for the toast, vegetables and one potato for lunch, eating less than a third of my dessert - the skirt incident happened when I'd finally cracked and decided to go into the kitchen and help myself to a homemade chocolate flapjack.

There were chocolate flapjacks on the table in front of me in the garden, but reaching for one of those would have exposed me as a greedy-guts for everyone to see, when I'd made such a fuss of my new healthy living regime. Instead, my cunning plan was to sneak into the house on the pretext of opening more wine, and to scoff a flapjack when no one was looking.

This was why the furies punished me. Trying to avoid exposure of one kind (for eating a bloody flapjack for chrissakes. Go ahead, stone me to death!) I laid myself open to a much more humiliating form of exposure, and you'd better believe it pushed thoughts of chocolate flapjacks straight out of my head!

I swore solemnly to myself when I started this journey that this time I WOULD NOT CHEAT MYSELF. My vow was that if I wanted something to eat and I could justify the desire, then I would bloody well have it, loud and proud, and not sneak off to indulge my desire surreptitiously like some grubby knicker-sniffer.

But old habits die hard, don't they? I was starting down that slippery slope, so that's why I was taught a lesson, and it's not one I'm likely to forget in a hurry. At least if it gets me back on track and keeps me there it'll have served a useful purpose.

Aug 5, 2005 at 19:15 o\clock

Self-Pity and Self-Loathing in the United Kingdom

by: Fatslayer

Today's Fatslaying Workout Nothing - houseful of guests

Today's Weight 199.5 lbs

*********

OK, I warn you well in advance that today’s entry is heavy on self-pity and self-hatred, and light (nay, non-existent) on humour and sense of perspective. Those of a sensitive or nervous disposition may wish to avert their gaze now…

 

**********

 

Well, the wedding came and went, and I survived it and live to fight another day, but it won’t exactly go down in the annals as one of my better days.

 

There is nothing designed to make you so aware of your shortcomings as a wedding, is there? Suddenly the security blanket of old shapeless comfy jeans and sweaters is torn away, and you’re expected to metamorphose into some gorgeous creature in chiffon, stilettos and a hat, posing in all your photogenic glory for endless photos, whilst managing not to upstage the bride at the same time as you retain enough sexiness to engender lustful thoughts in the male contingent.

 

Ergo, it was destined to be a disaster.

 

The trauma started weeks ago, when I couldn’t find a single flattering outfit in my size and price bracket, and I ‘settled’ – in the manner of fat girls everywhere – for the least horrible thing that fitted, with the consequence that instead of happy anticipation as the blessed day approached, my stomach got more and more clenched and knotty, and I felt almost sick with tension and unexpressed misery by the time the day dawned.

 

The preceding evening, K’s brother arrived with his partner, and she modelled her dress for us, which was a hugely flattering, black clingy creation that had cost her £300…and I was suddenly glaringly aware that my outfit was nothing but a glorified summer skirt and T-shirt combo that was more suited to a day at the beach than for the wedding of your sister-out-law.

 

It was pretty much downhill from then onwards.

 

K did his best to reassure me that there was nothing wrong with wearing a T-shirt to a wedding, and said that I should ‘pretend that I was smartly dressed, and hold my head up high’, which was supposed to make me feel better, but somehow it didn’t. Men, they never get it right, do they? Poor things – they try their best and it always backfires!

 

I felt ashamed and ugly the whole day, exacerbated by the fact that K’s uncle was like a lecherous old goat with K’s brother's girlfriend and the groom’s forty-something daughter, but greeted me with the immortal words “Hello, Chunk”, and then directed a constant stream of anti-fat comments towards me the whole day.

 

[By the way, I didn’t think I was missing much by not having him pawing all over me all day, but you know what I mean, right? I didn’t want him humping my leg like a lust-crazed Jack Russell, but I didn’t want him treating me like an ugly old bat either. *Sigh*. A happy medium would have been nice, that's all I'm saying.]

 

Anyway, I gritted my teeth and got through the photos and the wedding and the lunch - dignity just about intact – and then cut ahead a few hours, and I did the one thing that we fat girls probably dread most of all in the whole world.

 

Yep, you guessed it – I walked back into the gathering (having gone for a pee) with the inner lining of my skirt tucked up in my undies at the back and the whole of my arse on view through the gauzy transparent outer layer.

 

Man, I am just so not a girly girl! That never happens with jeans! I'm obviously not a woman who can be trusted with feminine accoutrements...

 

As if that wasn’t mortifying enough, I’m still far too fat to be able to go bare-legged in the summer so I was wearing a pair of tights (pantyhose to any American readers) cut off above the knee to protect me from fattie-thigh-chafe, so not only was the gathering treated to the sight of my fat arse in its lovely granny-drawers, but, as an added bonus, they got let in on one of my most-despised fat-girl secrets too.

 

Yay, me.

 

Forget Bridget Jones sliding down the firemen’s pole – this was THE MOST MORTIFYING EXPERIENCE OF MY ENTIRE LIFE (even worse than The Great Sugaring Fiasco – remind me to tell you about that one some other time!)

 

K (bless him!), gallantly leapt to stand behind me and whisper in my ear about my predicament, and said he was “sure he was the only one who noticed” (yeah, right), and that even if he wasn’t, I “shouldn’t be embarrassed, because these things happen”.

 

Yes, they happen. To me they happen.

 

Oh, yes, to me they happen.

 

**********

 

To end on a positive note, two good things came out of the day.

 

One, I now know (if I ever doubted it before) with 100% certainty that K loves me whatever I do and however I look. He expressed that love with numerous heart-aching kindnesses designed to boost my confidence and self-esteem throughout the day and to mitigate my horrendous embarrassment. He is truly a special man, and I'm so lucky to have him.

 

Two, I am more committed to getting to a healthy weight than ever before. My enthusiasm and desire to get to goal have come back with renewed force and intensity, because - quite frankly - I don’t want to feel that worthless and ugly and humiliated because of my size ever again. Commitment has risen, phoenix-like, from the flames of degradation and shame.

 

Of great humiliation, great resolves are born.

 

In future if I walk into a crowded room with my dress tucked up my arse-crack, I'll at least have butt-cheeks and thighs to be proud of.

 

Remind me of those words if I ever run out of motivation again...

Aug 1, 2005 at 18:08 o\clock

Bubble Butt and Dick Head

by: Fatslayer

Today's Fatslaying Workout 1hr 10 minute brisk walk

Today's Weight 199.0 lbs

*********

What is it with some women? Why do they seem to think any man, even a bad one, is better than no man at all?

 

If any man called me ‘Bubble Butt’ once - let alone repeatedly – I’d kick him into touch so fast that his head would spin for a week. 

 

Oh yeah, and what were the delightful alternatives? Hottentot, Double Wide, Thunder Thighs, Lard Arse – you bet we’ve heard ‘em all this weekend, uttered by the neanderthal moron who’s staying with us at the moment, and directed at his lovely (though patently stupid) fiancée.

 

Isn’t life just grand when you hold your SO’s lifelong pal in such high regard?

 

K, thankfully, is just as horrified at the chauvinistic crap his mate spouts as I am, but he thinks we should ignore it and not interfere. He and Ty have only recently got reacquainted after fifteen years of little contact, and K (who has few friends and gets a little lonely from time to time) doesn’t want to rock the boat. I’m in the mood to capsize the fucking thing completely!

 

I think we should tell him to shut the fuck up, especially when he’s a guest in our house.

 

I also think we should tell the fiancée to grow a backbone and stop letting him wipe his feet all over her – but then that’s just me. Maybe she likes being treated like shit by a loser deadbeat who tells her she’s lucky to have him because no other man would tolerate such a fat cow (yeah, right, her BMI is 24, she can’t be too fucking choosy, can she?)

 

Deep breath….deep breath….

 

Can you tell I’m mad?

 

Hell, I’m not just mad, I’m SERIOUSLY PISSED OFF LIKE YOU WOULDN’T BELIEVE!

 

Call me naïve, but I never realised guys like that existed. Not these days. Twenty five years ago there were more of them around than you could shake a stick at, but lately they seem to have been supplanted by a more sensitive ‘new man’, who has the sense to keep his drivel to himself.

 

Even my sister’s husband has mellowed recently, so there must have been some sort of chauvinistic sea-change. This was the guy who reduced my sis to tears 25 years ago, when he said she was too ugly to have sex with – the arsehole literally made her put a bag on her head, until my dad heard about it and threatened to break his kneecaps. Lately he’s even stopped cracking solar eclipse ‘jokes’ every time she walks past a window, so things must be looking up.

 

K’s friend is 42, and his fiancée is 30. He’s a builder and she’s a police inspector in an anti-paedophile unit. He left school at 16, while she’s a law graduate with a post-doctoral degree in psychology. He’s lazy and slobbish and falls asleep on the sofa in his underpants every evening after dinner like Homer Simpson, while she’s fit and healthy and works out regularly.

 

Naturally, then, he thinks she’s lucky to have him – and she seems to agree.

 

WTF????

 

When she’s not around to poke fun at and generally belittle, he’s actually quite funny, intelligent and charming – there seems to be some kind of Jeckyll and Hyde thing going on. He hasn’t had much luck with women in the past (jeeze, what a shocker!), and K’s pop-psychology interpretation is that he’s ‘showing off’ in front of me and K, and that behind closed doors he’s probably not half so bad.

 

Hmm….I’m not convinced.

 

For one thing, you’d have to be pretty dumb to think it’s impressive to humiliate and degrade someone that loves you, and for another, why would he feel the need to do that when K and I patently have a much more equal and rounded relationship?

 

If I hear him make one more crack about fat chicks all bets are off, and he’ll find out the hard way that you can pack a pretty good wallop when you’re carrying eighty extra pounds.

 

Hell, I knew there must be a reason for doing all that upper-body weight training!