After three years of knowing me, my friends at work can't help but notice my eating has changed drastically. They can hardly fail to notice the lack of boneless hot wings and the replacement of carrots for chips with my spinach dip. But I haven't told anyone I'm dieting. What I've said is that I'm cutting out wheat to see if it helps my allergies. Which isn't a total untruth; I may have a wheat sensitivity. But I just don't want to go into the diet thing.
For one thing, they've all heard my spiels about being fine the way I am -- not because I walk around looking for ways to bring it up, but from the kinds of conversations that come up in three years of association. (Usually it's got something to do with my use of the very word fat: "Excuse me .... c'mon, I'm a fat girl, I can't fit through there!" "You're not fat! Don't talk about yourself that way!" "HAHAHA! I weigh 275 pounds, I'm fat. It's just a fact." etc.) So to start talking about dieting, well, that's going to come across as hypocritical. I don't feel hypocritical, because I know my reasons; but I just don't want to try to explain it all.
I also don't want to get sucked into the conversational quagmire that is "diet talk". You know, the conversations that go in endless circles about calories or fat grams or carbs and "good" days or "bad days" or "cheating" or whatever ... women use it as a bonding mechanism, but I really don't want to do that. It's not my actual friends I'm talking about here, but coworkers in general. I also don't want to know what Cindy Lou thought was the greatest weight-loss trick in the book, because after my many diets in the past I've heard them all -- and so many of them seem to skirt that eating disordered line.
Of course, if it goes on for any length of time, change will occur, and people will notice. I'm hoping it'll be slow enough that people won't start asking questions. At my size, small losses aren't very noticeable, so this ought to be doable. If necessary, I'll continue wearing my larger clothes longer than necessary to mask it. Because I fucking hate that "have you lost weight?" question! I hate it!
For one thing, it's so often paired with "you look great!" Implying that "looking great" can only be a function of weight loss chaps my ample ass. Also, it's nobody else's business if I'm losing weight. This is my personal skin, and what goes on under it doesn't involve anyone I don't choose to involve. Also, there's the fact that people, or more specifically women, feel the need to keep talking about it! If they'd just say "Have you lost weight? Yes? Okay." that would be one thing.
But instead it's more of the conversational quagmire -- have you lost weight? that's so great! I'm so fat! I need to lose weight too! how much have you lost? how long did it take? what are you doing? oh I tried that once and it worked/didn't work/made me sprout tentacles out of my ears. My aunt's cousin's sister's roommate lost like 200 pounds though and she looks great but it was just so hard and I thought that Weight Watchers would be better so I signed up for that but the points thing is really confusing and I have this book but what if something isn't listed or what if it's wrong like I had cheese enchilladas yesterday and they were in the book but what if this place's recipe was different how do I really know how many points it is and then I got on the scale today and it said I only lost a half a pound and I was SO GOOD yesterday so there must have been something in those enchilladas because everything else was perfect and it just upsets me so much and I know my Weight Watchers coach said to only weigh myself once a week but it's just so hard and I want to know what to expect when I go to the meeting because I don't want to start crying in front of everyone especially the women who've got those neat pins because they've actually KEPT it off and I just don't know how they do it it's so hard but they're just so inspirational and I want that to be me one day because you know my mother/father/some relative died of heart disease/diabetes/falling on a bear trap and of course you know that happened because he/she was so fat and I just don't want MY children growing up thinking it's okay to be so gross and fat like I am I just can't believe I let myself end up here!!11!!
You know I'm only partially exaggerating! And honestly it's just boring to me. So I try to avoid it. That's not to say there aren't constructive, quality conversations; I wouldn't even bother to look at any WL blogs if there weren't. But the average conversation about weight loss? Please.
So, here's hoping I can hide it and keep appearing fatter than I am! Not often you hear that, huh?
I was able to wear my one-size-down jeans, the 22s, to work today. They're not truly comfortable, like I said yesterday; when I sit down I still feel a little like my guts are being squashed up in to my ribcage -- but they're fine as long as I'm standing up, so they were great for work.
No comments:
Post a Comment