Shut your pie hole.
I’ve recently completed a full month on my new employer’s payroll. All things are a go – except, well, total and complete undermining of my weight loss efforts.
After adopting a solid ten pounds of unnecessary baggage over the course of a 2 month unemployment period with cheap groceries, coupled with overlapping holiday sweets binging, the New Year with a new job brought much-needed hope for my hopeless, ill-fitted jeans.
Four weeks flew by and offered a completely new industry with new jargon to learn and speak, a brand management role which is a brand new repertoire for my resume, not to mention learning a bunch of sophisticated, innovative products – a few that require just shy of a PhD to understand all the ins & outs.
But none of those newbie orientation jitters are as overwhelming or disconcerting as my inability to shed even a single ounce off my frame. I went to the gym at least 5 days a week all of January. I have “mixed up” the routine with a weekly intense spinning class that makes you hallucinate from exhaustion. I’ve incorporated some strength training with weights. I’ve added “running” to my regimen for Pete’s sake! But for the love of all things good, my mother-fing office has to host a wanna be skinny girl’s worst nightmare, at a minimum – twice a week. At my last job for almost four years, I could count on one hand the number of food-based festivities we had on an annual basis. I frowned upon our rather unsociable demeanor, but now I’d take it back in a heartbeat.
Let’s review.
- January 14: Welcome lunch for MaryB, Italian restaurant.
- January 21: Birthday lunch for a colleague, Chinese restaurant.
- January 22: 8am Company-wide meeting, Dunkin Donuts AND brownies.
- January 26: 2-hour new product meeting – to help people not fall asleep, everyone gets Snickers and peanut M&Ms at their seat.
- February 3: Baby shower for a colleague, brownies & a sheet cake – the size that could feed a small nation…the kind that has a ton of icing.
- February 5: SuperBowl appetizer employee contest, junk food & desserts.
- February 8: An employee’s 20th anniversary, sheet cake — the size that could feed a small nation…the kind that has a ton of icing.
HOLY SABOTAGE! I’m losing my freaking mind. Not to mention I’ve also had Mr. Big’s birthday complete with cupcakes, THREE snowed-in weekends where we passed time by cooking and consuming, and finally a SuperBowl “bring your own app” foodfest during my unclocked awake hours. I’m quite confident if I had shown up with a dish straight from the farmer’s market, I’d be voted off the party island.
Unfortunately, I have actively participated in every single one of these aforementioned calorie overload occasions, until today. The sheet cake the size of my desk can suck it. Over the weekend, I angrily decided: Enough is Enough. My mantra has always been that I have willpower…if I’m not around *it*. Meaning I’ll never make a grocery store run for the Edy’s mint chocolate chip double-churned ice cream, but if my roommate has it in stock on our freezer’s shelf, done. Hands down — my drug of choice is sugar, chocolate, and their edible cavity-producing cousins.
What’s ironic to me is, for breakfast I have a well-balanced meal, @ lunch I slowly chomp away on salads, and all day long I munch on apples and pears. Yet, somehow, we turn into them! Literally, we are what we primarily eat?
I know that once I get this access mass off my rump and can fit back into my single digit wardrobe, dabbling in the occasional dessert tray will be a non-issue. But until then, I’m offing these healthy haters by shutting my pie hole and slowing their roll who want to double mine.
The Average Woman.
I never cared much for the word Average, as C’s in high school were enough to get me grounded. But in this case, I measure up with the best of ‘em & will embrace an AW label.
And then…there is the lucky number 9 who can *eat* it, literally.
- 64% of women are on a diet right now. (busted)
- Number who have gone on a diet more than 10 times in their lives: 1 in 3.
- How long AW’s diets usually last: 2 weeks.
- Amount she wants to lose: “More than 20 pounds.” (happily)
- The worst part about weight watching: “Getting bored with the same foods.”
- #1 reason the AW wants to slim down: She’s going to be seeing her ex. (truth)
- Toughest thing to cut out: booze. (no doubt)
- Percentage of women who have dieted with their men: 29.
- Percentage whose boyfriends told them to diet: 24. (woah)
- Percentage who say calorie counting gets in the way of their relationships: 21. (yikes)
- Top three reasons: 1) He doesn’t think she needs to be on a diet 2) He hates the healthy stuff she is cooking 3) She’s always in a bad mood.
- Percentage of women who say food restriction is a libido killer: 18. (not cool)
- Percentage of women who never diet: 9. (skinny bitches)
Bridesmaid Bootcamp.
There are two very significant and unforgettable life experiences that touch the majority of young women in America.
- Gaining weight/losing weight/gaining the weight back.
- Being asked to wear a bridesmaid dress.
To make matters worse, these two sticky situations often meet each other face-to-face.
After exhausting a wide array of book subjects and on the brink of scalping myself from indecisive-filled frustration, I’m finally moving forward to engage in an electronic love affair with my laptop. The literature will be composed for the girl who has found herself, probably more than once, in a wedding party lineup as the self-proclaimed “chunky girl.” And, show her how to break the cycle of overweight maid madness.
Here is an outline snippet from the-single-biggest-project-of-my-life:
The very first thing that ran through her mind after she processed the words, “Will you be a bridesmaid?” — even before registering the financial & time investment that comes with the verbal commitment, is “For the love of all things sacred… God help me, I have to wear a bridesmaid dress.” Some have even joked that the fundamental purpose of notoriously painful BM dresses is to make the fairy princess stand out even more.
But she happily sported a smile, graciously accepted the honor of being selected to intimately celebrate with the bride-to-be, and swallowed her big booty pride.
This book takes a witty and lighthearted look at the journey of a semi-professional bridesmaid, through the eyes of a nine times over “always the bridesmaid, never the bride” and how she [eventually] leveraged the dreaded cookie cutter “one dress does not fit all” tornado of taffeta to her advantage. Having seen one too many framed group photos on fireplace mantels that made her plump ego cringe, she once and for all made a decision to no longer accept the staple full-figured role and literally sweat her ass off.
Operation: Bridesmaid Bootcamp.
Beginning at the age of 12, until the age of 30, she chronicles 18 years of ill-fitted, standard-issue frock purgatory. This elusive place, where she isn’t quite in heaven due to overpriced, unflattering fabric never to be worn again, but isn’t quite in hell either due to the overwhelming happiness for loved ones turned engaged couples, very much exemplifies her lace and tulle frequent flyer miles.
For the first several weddings during naive teenage years and a functioning metabolism, the experience was delicious and the gratitude of being chosen to stand front and center next to the stunning lady in white remained palpable.
Then as she grew older, a destructive relationship between frenemies began — the refrigerator & the scale. All the while, she started to notice very fine lines forming on her fair-skinned face. And had yet to understand what it felt like to have a man get down on his knees and effortlessly sweep her over the threshold (not that he could if he tried). The closest she had ever gotten to sporting a sparkly stone was trying on the engagement rings of fiancee friends for a solid 10 minutes while enviously sipping vodka sodas.
So she ultimately figured out—if you can’t beat them, nor seem to join them, at least look better than them [excluding the bride…of course].
