R.I.C.E.R.

Fancy-schmancy new running shoes, socks that used to be white and are now gray, cankles, and my ever present Ace bandage. You wish you were me.

(Bet you thought, after a prolonged absence of months and months and months, that’d I’d have a much wittier title than that. You’d be wrong.)

Today is a milestone. Six weeks ago, on account of receiving a piece of paper that cost tens of thousands of dollars and claimed I was now a master of teaching (a joke I have yet to recover from), I decided I needed to begin Bringing AnorSEXYa Back™. Again. Since all my shiny new degree did was give me a leg up on my friends if we’re lining up to get into heaven based on the sheer number of degrees we’ve accumulated*, and since it most certainly wasn’t getting me any employment (or even employment prospects), I decided I would make it mean something by letting it be the starting point for yet another war against The Fatness. This time, though, it was serious. I was going to mean business. I was going to take The Fatness™ out back and give it a couple punches to the throat before kneeing it in the groin and leaving it for dead.

So I started running.

Most of my earlier attempts at fighting The Fatness™ and Bringing AnorSEXYa Back™ were unhealthy marathons of starving myself and weighing myself every single day, usually writing the ugly numbers on the bathroom mirror in black dry erase marker, so I could be reminded of how much I sucked on a pretty consistent basis. While I enjoy both of those things (constant self-deprecation and starvation), that don’t really yeild results. Not Bringing AnorSEXYa Back™ results. I wanted people to tell me to eat something because I was looking a little skinny, not because I was passed out on the floor after skipping two days worth of protein. But I’m not entirely anti-masochism, so I began this regimen of walking, tossing in a half mile of running every once in a while. The OCD got hold of it and made it into training, and pretty soon I was putting in some good, solid mileage, most of which didn’t involve me hanging onto the treadmill and wheezing while my feet tried to keep up with the belt.

I came down with shin splints. I didn’t lose any weight. I began Wii Fit-ing it after my runs, in an attempt to add some toning and strength work. I still didn’t lose any weight. I stopped wearing my baggy cut off sweatpants to run, because not only were they unhelpful in the chaffing department**, I was sweating something unbelievable in my crotch region, and I was embarrassed to walk back to my apartment afterwards looking like I wet my pants***. I started running in spandex (very sexy) and Ace bandaging my shins so I looked like some weird mummy. I spent the good part of moving from 1.5 miles to 2.5 miles reading Catch-22. I broke down and created a playlist of music I could run to so I didn’t have to fiddle with my Not an iPod. I went out and bought fancy-schmancy running shoes to wear to help with my shin splints, and got a lecture from the guy at the shoe store about how important iceing my shin splints is.

Maybe it’s worth it. I have trouble saying it is, because I feel like I’ve accomplished a lot. The Goat tells me how much healthier all this is making me, and I have to admit he’s right. When I moved from interspersing my miles with running them straight I was sure I’d end up curled into the fetal position at the end of the treadmill, but I was fine. I have more energy. I’m more successful at getting up and being a human most mornings (though there are days, like Tuesday, that I don’t really ever get into that human groove). I’d love to have something to show for it, though, like be down a pant size or have kicked off at least one freakin’ pound of The Fatness™. Instead I’m busy with the R.I.C.E.R. to treat my shin splints, and I’m looking into running a 5k before summer is out. Seeting achievable goals is good, since my primary Bringing AnorSEXYa Back™ goal is far from being accomplished.

But today, the six week day, is a milestone, because I did a straight 5k for the first time. I shouldn’t have, because I was really only scheduled to move up to 3 miles today, but I felt okay, my shin splints weren’t hurting, the fitness center actually had cool air in it (for a while there the fitness center had no cool air in it, which is why I accidentally ran 3 miles last week when I got so overheated and confused I read the treadmill screen wrong), and I figured I might as well tell The Fatness™ where it can shove it.

Soon I’ll have to move off the treadmill to do roadwork, so I can prepare for a real like 5k. I’m also planning on selling my virginity on Ebay to pay for some much needed liposuction. Eventually The Fatness™ has to be told to go fuck itself, and I’m not too proud to have it done under general anesthesia. Too poor, but not too proud.

*This is only a likely scenario if all my friends and I die on the same day, which, unless there’s some weird cataclismic event like a meteor destroying the planet or someone committing arson on a hotel holding a conference we’ve all been accepted and are presenting at (which is probably much more unlikely than the meteor), probably won’t happen. So the extra master’s degree will most likely be for naught.

**Those who don’t suffer from The Fatness™ may not understand this, but on some unfortunate souls The Fatness™ makes your thighs touch together constantly, creating unpleasantness when running or walking briskly. It also wears out the crotch area of your pants faster than is financially helpful.

***It really did look like that. Honest. I have considered actually wetting my pants to see how closely the sweating resembles an actual accident, but I have enough laundry as it is.

The plan is working. Mwah ha ha ha ha.

Granted, I did go out and buy a pair of jeans in a size larger than the size I was wearing when I started Bringing AnorSEXYa Back, so this isn’t as amazing as it could be, but

MY JEANS ARE ALMOST COMPLETELY FALLING OFF!

Take that, bitches.

If it fits, buy it.

Everyone will probably be surprised to hear I failed the The Fatness™ Ten Pounds in Two Weeks Challenge. (Failed miserably, I might add.) But I can carry on with Bringing AnorSEXYa Back, and I will, even if I never achieve the popular emaciated waif-look I covet. Never fear, dear readers, I will continue to chronicle my adventures and misadventures as The Fatness™ in a world meant for The Skinny™.

Part of Bringing AnorSEXYa Back has been a futile attempt to take better care of myself and put forth an effort regarding my appearance. It’s way too easy for me to glance in the mirror after my morning shower and shudder with disgust before looping my hair up into a wet, slicked-back ponytail, throwing on as inoffensive a t-shirt I can find, and scampering off to work in a pair of pants I believe disguises how fat I really am. My motivation behind this look is that I’m not attractive, so why should I make a fool of myself trying to be attractive? Joe Schmoe will just laugh behind his hand at my attempt at good looks, and then he’ll be distracted by someone who is The Skinny™, forgetting the waste of five seconds he spent glancing in my direction.

But what if I never achieve The Skinny™? What if (and I completely don’t believe this, but I’m putting it down anyway) my friends and family are right, and I’m not the hideous beast I’ve been trying to hide behind baggy t-shirts and fat pants? What if I can look good without being The Skinny™? To start off this test, I went a week without wearing a t-shirt to work. I succeeded, and my interest in real clothing carried into the weekend. Another week passed without t-shirts as my main staple (except for an evening of hiking and a Saturday morning workout), and while I highly doubt anyone has noticed, I don’t feel as slovenly as before. I’m also putting forth an effort with my hair, blow drying it even though the intense heat of the blow dryer following the warm and toasty shower/bath makes me puke a little in my mouth. (There was even an episode with curlers I don’t wish to talk about.) I don’t look good, but I do look something.

Then, as if a lightening bolt was sent down from the heavens to ruin my fun, I tore my famous khaki pants. I tore the hell out of them, too, and I now know why so many pants have stretch to them. In my defense, I was choreographing some dancey-dance to Sufjan Stevens’s “John Wayne Gacy,” and I normally would have changed before busting out the showstopping dance numbers, but I was so cute in my khaki pants with the rolled up bottoms and my green and white shirt I didn’t have to wear a bra with that I didn’t bother. I paid the price, though, because when you’re dealing with The Fatness™ any shopping is excruciatingly painful, especially shopping for pants, and most of those of us who suffer from The Fatness™ only have a few good pairs of trusty pants we feel less fat in, and fewer still we feel comfortable in.

I bit the bullet, though, and packed myself off to Gap late yesterday afternoon. I spent WAY too much money, but The Fatness™ often causes you to buy more than you really want if you find something that fits well and looks halfway decent. I was able to sort of replace my dearly departed khaki pants (sadly no more rolled up bottoms to show off my cankles and help tan flip-flop lines onto my feet) with pants so wonderful I bought another pair in a color that may be brown or may be dark gray (Gap has installed trick lighting in their stores so that nothing you buy matches and you have to come back and spend even more money fixing the mistake). I also found some jeans I could live with, finally, as I have been wanting to find another pair for months now (my pair du jour is ridiculously close to getting a hole in the crotch from all the wear and tear of The Fatness™). I do want to know why a size 12 fit me fabulously in the pair I bought, but when I threw on the size 12 curvy pair, it was sausage factory time. It seems if you’re going to put a little ease in your jeans, you might want to put the most in your curvy style, because that’s the one all the fat girls are going to be aiming for. (Unless this is another Gap trick like their store’s lighting, and by making the fat girls buy their fat girl jeans in one or two sizes bigger than they think they wear they’ll get depressed, go home and lose weight, then have to come back to buy new clothes.) I picked up two shirts as well, because I wanted another color in a shirt I already have, and I found a shirt that looks like it matches my brown/dark gray pants (it won’t when I try to wear it in a few days).

It’s tough, this part of Bringing AnorSEXYa Back, but if I’m going to all the trouble to restrict my calories, workout, and dutifully record my weight every morning in dry erase marker on the bathroom mirror, I suppose I can’t slink around in my craptastic clothes with my craptastic hair. I hope this sort of work is easier if you’re The Skinny™, because it most certainly isn’t fun if you suffer from The Fatness™.

And you know what else?

I was able to get through the whole week without wearing a t-shirt, and I’m actually wearing a dress right now, even though it’s Friday and I didn’t have to go to work.

I also weighed in at 160.0 pounds this morning, which means that even though I’ll miss my goal of ten pounds for The Fatness™ Ten Pounds in Two Weeks Challenge or Bringing AnorSEXYa Back, I’m am definitely on the path to greatness (and by that I mean anorSEXYa).

So eat it, News Goat.

Bringing AnorSEXYa Back–Day 9

Once again it’s time for everyone’s favorite self-deprecating discussion:

The Fatness™ Ten Pounds In Two Week Challenge

or

Bringing AnorSEXYa Back

Day Nine

It’s not good, folks. My plan of not dipping into the eating disorder realm for this challenge, just sticking with the straight up eat healthy and exercise more plan advocated by nutritionists and Dr. Oz, has run aground. Today’s grand total of pounds is 163.8, which, if you remember your elementary school math (I don’t, I’ll be using a calculator) is 1 pound more than where I started. Egads! Stop the presses! And by “presses,” I mean “consumption of food-type sustenance.”

As my An put it yesterday, “so now I’m ordering up a king-size portion of sad music and weighing out the benefits of cutting vs. eating disorders.” Except without the cutting. Losing ten pounds isn’t going to do help my appearance if I’m all scarred up. My fantastic memory of capsizing the canoe on my left shin is enough marring of my appearance for the time being. But I did remind my An that starving yourself has the double benefit of weight loss and hunger pains, so it’s sort of a two birds with one stone sort of deal. Even if I completely and totally give up on being anti-food in the next day or so, primarily due to hunger and little to no willpower, I do think I need to do a little cleaning out of my system. I declare Tuesday, July 29th, a day of fasting.

Things to remember about fasting or starving or whatever your particular poison is: If you haven’t eaten anything and then you drink coffee, you will become jittery and type poorly. I am mondo jittery right now, as I sip from my 20 ounce fair trade, black, and I don’t particularly like it. I already have a (inherited, curse my genes) tremor, that isn’t even really a resting tremor (I assume it’s only going to get more tremor-y and less rest-y as I age). Add caffeine to a minor tremor, subtract food, and you get Crazy Shaky Hand Girl! Look! She appears ridiculously nervous and flustered! Watch her drop things! Watch her take way too long to extract change from her change purse to pay for another coffee! It’s amazing! She’s the greatest superhero that ever lived (with the obvious exception of Moist.)

Dangerous lifestyle choices aside, I am bound and determined to beat this thing. I’m even wearing pants that are a tiny bit too tight, for added incentive. I understand I’m supposed to love my body and jump up and down about how great I am just being me, but I really think that’s a whole load of crap. If I want to be a bunch of pounds lighter before I love my body, no one should force me to model for a billboard in Times Square naked. Man, I’d totally love to get roped into How to Look Good Naked or What Not to Wear, just so I could be the first person in the history of reality TV to bitch slap a host for encouraging body acceptance. I bet Carson Kressley cries like a girl when you hit him.

Bringing AnorSEXYa Back–Day Five

Yesterday someone called me at “work” to ask what our summer hours were. It was probably a faculty person, but since everyone in the entire building except us has a phone with caller ID, and because of this everyone assumes we also have caller ID and no one ever identifies themselves to us, I can’t be sure who it was who I spoke to. But after assuring her we were open at 8:00 AM, she asked (in an almost snarky way) if the person who was opening at 8:00 AM was someone who actually arrives at 8:00, or if it was someone who would straggle in at 8:10 or 8:20. This is a valid question, considering my boss never gets here before 8:30 (and even that’s a stretch), our administrative specialist (assistant) doesn’t come in until 10:00 (I’m not sure what her malfunction is), and my fellow GA likes to arrive places five or so minutes after she’s supposed to be there (she’s consistent, though: if she decides she wants to be two minutes late to class, she’s always exactly two minutes late to class). I’m probably the only one who works here who believes that the hours we say we’re open are the actual hours we should be open. Still, the woman on the phone irked me, because if you were the least bit worried that was the case, might should you just show up at 8:15 or 8:20 or anything after 8:00? I made doubly sure I was here on time, though, and the mysterious Give-Me-The-Exact-Second-You’re-Going-To-Be-Open woman still isn’t here (it’s about 8:20). Part of me thinks she’s going to show up with a Big Emergency that involves something I either don’t know how to do or don’t know how to do quickly, and because neither my boss nor our administrative specialist (assistant) is here I’ll make the whole place look bad due to my incompetence.

Let that be a lesson to future bosses of the world: Don’t leave empolyees alone, dreadfully alone, unless you’re sure they’e fully capable of launching attack missles (did you hear about those guys who fell asleep?) or solving the world hunger crisis without any help from you.

—

It’s that time again:

The Fatness™ The Ten Pounds in Two Weeks Challenge

or

Bringing AnorSEXYa Back

Day Five

I’m sort of out of the habit of weighing myself incessantly (though I’m not quite sure why, since it’s so much fun), which means what I said was Day One really should have been Day Two, and then I decided I’d just weigh myself every two days and talk about The Challenge, except that didn’t pan out either. But now I’m on the ball. I weighed myself yesterday morning only to find out I weighed exactly the same: 162.8 (Boo!). Then I weighed myself yesterday evening (you should never do that) and saw the day had brought another pound to the grand total. Today is officially Day Five, though, and I am 161.6. To celebrate I took the elevator instead of the stairs this morning. I also think my pants fit looser, but that’s really because I’ve worn them a few times since I washed them, and they’re all stretched out and comfy now.

The true test of any weight loss plan is whether or not your pants, especially jeans, fit comfortably/loosely the first time you put them on after washing them.

Mom went home yesterday morning, and I was as sad to see her go as I usually am (slightly, but not terribly so). I’d like if Mom lived close enough for us to get together on a more regular basis, making the time we spend less intense and less stressful for me. I don’t want to see her ever single day (I’m not nearly emotionally stable enough for that), but I think more time together would alleviate the pressure of her dumping all her worries, concerns, and complaints on me repeatedly, basically at one sitting.

(I just want to point out that if I were marking up this blog entry the way I mark up student papers, I would have made a note that I was being redundant in that last paragraph, since I basically explained the same thing two ways, one right after the other. But, as I keep telling my Arch Nemesis, until I get paid for this here writing, I’m not editing it.)

Since Mom and the stress of making sure Mom thinks I’m happy is over, I will be able to dive into The Challenge with gusto. Eating is a bad habit, though. It’s hard to break such a delicious habit. It’s much easier for me to not be eating and not have any interest in eating, only eating when it’s absolutely necessary. Like anything else, though, the more you eat, especially tasty things, the more you get used to eating and the more you want to eat. The Pro-Anas and Pro-Mias say, “Nothing tastes as good as thin feels,” but I think a whole thing of chocolate fudge frosting is pretty close.

(By the way, I’m a huge fan of the Pro-Ana and Pro-Mia internet movements. I should find out if I can add my fandom in Facebook, since Facebook is the end all be all completely accurate representation of who a person is.)

To sum up: The Fatness™ Ten Pounds in Two Weeks Challenge isn’t going as fabulously as planned, but sometimes a slow start means you feel even more fabulous when you reach your goal. Or more depressed when you don’t. Either way, a Challenge is a Challenge.

—

I’ve been wearing my glasses a lot lately (i.e. yesterday at work and today at work, and probably about six months ago). This makes me want to go and replace my black frames the dog chewed up. I really don’t think I’m nearly as cute and semi-hipster-ish without glasses with black frames. Unfortunately I can’t afford to replace the glasses. I really need to look into selling myself on Ebay or something equally degrading and profitable. I’m not above prostitution. It’s a shame, because I’d like to be, but then again I’ve always been a crappy feminist. Might as well just screw the whole feminism thing completely and go right for the degrading sexual exploitation of prostitution. I’m sure everyone will be behind me.

Bringing AnorSEXYa Back–Day One

Oh, no worries for those of you who are afraid I’m about to turn my witty and entertaining blog into one of those dreaded Diet Blogs, where I’d record every calorie I consumed and every minute I spent exercising. I’m not nearly that patient or that healthy. Instead, I’m just going to self-deprecate while I ramble on about my new goal:

The Fatness™ Ten Pounds in Two Weeks Challenge

or

Bringing AnorSEXYa Back

And, without further ado:

The Fatness™ Ten Pounds in Two Weeks Challenge–Day One

or

Bringing AnorSEXYa Back–Day One

Since Monday really should have been day one, but I forgot to weigh myself, I am forced to start this ridiculous scheme on a Tuesday. For those of you who aren’t familiar with my little obsessive-compulsive rituals, I believe in the (fairly accurate) self-proclaimed prediction that any “project” that isn’t started on a Sunday (first official day of the week), a Monday (first day of the business week), the first day of the month (self-explanatory), or the first of a year (new, school, fiscal, or personal) is doomed to failure. Therefore, The Fatness™ Ten Pounds in Two Weeks Challenge is doomed to failure. Yet I persevere, because there are some things worth doing wrong in order to get done.

Anyway.

I harbor no delusions that I’m anything other than chubby, and because of that I’m not ashamed to admit that starting The Fatness™ Ten Pounds in Two Weeks Challenge I weigh 162.8 pounds. That’s 11 stone and 8.8 pounds for all you Brits out there. Or cool people who use British slang in order to be more hip than the rest of us. This is not the best starting point, but I do know I’ve been heavier in recent times, giving me hope that I’m somehow on slide to health and skinniness. Not that I’d be silly enough to have something like hope, but if I did, I would. Because Mom is still in town, I can’t really jump directly into the Bringing AnorSEXYa Back portion of the challenge. Mom needs to believe I do things like brush my teeth every night before bed and eat more than two meals a day. Once Mom leaves I’ll be able to follow my more foolhardy dieting scheme of starvation and exercise, the one with the drastic cutting of calories and the exercising in the beautiful July heat (99 degrees today, my friends). But because I do a lot of pretending to be healthier and happier whilst Mom is around, I’m not eating too foolishly. My teeth feel less grimy, too, except I know I’m not going to keep up the proper before bed hygiene for very long (I don’t have the patience for teeth brushing and face washing when it’s time for bed). I’ve also attended Zumba Monday night and tonight, which means I’ve been burning off some of what I’m packing in. I’ll Zumba on Thursday, too, and then three nights next week. This has the added incentive of reminding me I’m a chubby, because the mirrors at the dance studio are particularly unforgiving. And I wear about three layers of various and assorted nonsense on my bottom half, adding to the distortion of the Fat Mirror (and yes, I do believe in Fat Mirrors and Skinny Mirrors, they exist, do not try to tell me otherwise). Nothing makes you want to skip dinner like staring at your wobbly bottom half shake around to latin music for an hour, believe me.

The question you should be asking me is this: Why, Leigh? Why take on The Fatness™ Ten Pounds in Two Weeks Challenge now, at the end of a month, during a visit from your mom that entails eating delicious foods not found on any diet? It’s complicated, and I’ll ramble on about it more later (we have fourteen days of self-deprecating posts as I attempt this stupid feat, don’t get ahead of yourselves), but it involves guilt over a tube of chocolate cream cheese frosting (which wasn’t even that good, by the way, you couldn’t even taste the cream cheese, all it did was weaken the chocolate taste), an unreturned attraction to a goat (who I should be seeing on the first of August, coincidentally, or not coincidentally at all), and the fact I would very much like to celebrate the big 2-9 with a Cinnabon cinnamon roll (or two or three or four). I suppose the big 2-9 is a reason, too, because then I’ll really be on the downhill slide to 30, after which I don’t suppose it’ll be appropriate to tackle my weight issues like a high school sophomore. Not that I’ll ever stop acting like a high school sophomore, but I’ll feel more guilty about it after I turn 30.

Until next time, keep counting those calories and spitting at your reflection in the mirror when you pass by it naked.