Maybe a robin. I’m not good at identifying birds. At identifying anything. Trees, flowers, feelings, appropriate mates.
Redford was barking at the ground. I thought, “That’s about right.” But when I went out into the yard, there lay a flickering, floppity robin, its mouth opening in quick, wide yawns. I shooed Redford away and ran inside to get some Saran wrap. I didn’t have any rubber gloves, and I had heard that birds carry disease. Did I hear that? Maybe. Maybe I made it up.
I covered my hand in the plastic and picked up the bird. Its body was warm and weighed nothing. Nothing. How does an animal survive when it weighs zero pounds, zero ounces?
Its bird friends shrieked at me as I took it out of the back yard and placed it on the mulch. “I have to get ready for work,” I thought, but I stood there in my bathrobe, in my driveway, watching its beak open and close.
When I was eight or nine, I watched my cat Scratch (sister of Patch, of course) do the same thing. A speedy CRX came around the blind curve in front of my house and tagged her. She sprinted out of the road, which made me think she was OK. But when I followed her, I found her lying behind a tree, mouth opening and closing.
What is that? Why do animals do that? Will I, when the time comes?
I remember, after seeing the movie Amélie for the first time, having a conversation with someone, probably my mom, about how we should re-watch it every Sunday night before we had to go back to work on Monday. I know exactly jack shit about cinematography so I’m not sure how Jean-Pierre Jeunet rendered the colors that bright and the soundtrack that poignant and the characters that sublimely flawed and the story that enthralling and delightful. All I know is I walked out of the theater all teary and smiley, repeating “Bredoteau! Bretodeau!” in a distinctly Le Pewian accent to myself, wanting to go out and live life! Do good deeds! Find love!
I mean: enthralling story, yes. But Jesus. I wanted to crawl into my bed and pull the covers over my head. Which I did. But before I did, I checked Facebook one more time and saw the news of Osama’s bin Laden’s death.
Some people were rejoicing (“Bin Laden is DEAD!!! Rot in hell you dirty piece of shit!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”). Some were sober (“No death is worth celebrating.”). Some questioned others’ Christianity (“Christians, we have been called to live a life that is pleasing to Jesus Christ. How does harboring so much hate glorify our Lord and Savior?”)
My first reaction was surprise—I never thought we’d get him—followed by relief, that this guy who orchestrated a movement that has killed thousands finally got his. And then I had a little Toby Keith moment, where I was like, “And at the hands of the Amurricans goddammit!” I shook that off but quickly realized this little operation would greatly increase Barack Obama’s chances of getting re-elected in 2012. So I posted something like: “Ten years. Obama ftw! Seriously, men and women of the U.S. Military and Commander-in-Chief Obama, I’m awed.”
Of course, what followed was quotes from MLK Jr.: “Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”
And videos from Ground Zero and DC, where people were straight up celebrating, and it reminded me of the footage from Muslim countries around the world, of crowds rejoicing as the Twin Towers collapsed. And I thought, “What are we doing?! We’re doing the same thing we found reprehensible!”
The horror of The Road, combined with the ambivalent feelings I had about the assassination, made for some pretty extraordinary bruxercising for me. I woke up this morning and felt like someone had punched me in the ear infection. That’s right. Like I had had an ear infection and then someone punched me in it. I ground my teeth so hard that my jaw’s still all tender on the left side.
I was grumpy all day. One of my students was doing everything in her power to be my Buddha, and my uterus started causing me my monthly strife. I ate too much. Carbopalooza. I got home to find Violet’s limp not any better than it was yesterday. The WOD kicked my ass. And not one of you, MY SO-CALLED FRIENDS, had told me that my nostril hair had gotten completely out of control.
Downtrodden.
But then my friend (the one I quoted at the beginning of this post) updated her status to: ok, y’all: i get and agree that the death of any human, yes even osama bin laden, is not to be taken lightly, and that his death marks the beginning of yet another period of uncertainty, but before we get all “spiritual” and “now, now kids…”, i think we as americans, and for fuck’s sake definitely our troops, deserve a shot of tequila and a high five. we can go back to being “the better person” tomorrow…
It wasn’t Amélie, but it sure made me feel better.
Like 95% of females in this country, I have spent a really stupid number of hours of my life fretting about what number would show up when I stepped on a scale. But about eight years ago, when I decided to seek treatment for my food addiction, I started by buying two books, one called Overcoming Overeating and the other, When Women Stop Hating Their Bodies. In them, the authors said, Do NOT weigh yourself; throw out your scale. And I did. I didn’t weight myself for years. When I went to the doctor’s office, I would close my eyes and tell the nurse not to say my weight out loud. I still don’t weigh myself. I don’t own a scale. I only know approximately how much I weigh.
Here’s the thing, I like measurable results. I like to see data about how I’ve improved. Or not. I think it can be really motivational. But only when there’s no mental illness involved in your outcomes.
Because, for a compulsive overeater/food addict/emotional eater/what-have-you, the absolute worst thing you can do is focus on your weight. If you’re trying to heal yourself from obsessive thoughts about food, weighing yourself adds a whole new level of crazy. I know this first-hand. When I used to go on diets, I would think about nothing but food, I would gorge myself on food I hated because it was low in Points, and I would scheme how to trick the scale—“Maybe if I take off my earrings before I weigh in, I’ll hit my weight goal.”
Now I have a new weight goal. It’s called a PR, and I won’t ever see it by stepping on a scale. A PR is a personal record. As in, you pick up more weight than you ever have before.
You may remember my first attempts at the clean & jerk back in late August. I was lifting about 25 lbs. Well, by December 29, I hit a one-rep max of 73 lbs. I hadn’t tried for a new 1RM since. This week’s Open WOD called for clean & jerks…at 110 lbs. for females. Ha! I knew I wouldn’t be able to C&J 110 lbs., but I figured it was a good time to find my new 1RM. If I hit 88 pounds, I was fixing to be really happy.
I worked up to 73, doing three reps at a time. Cake.
I decided to do one rep at each increment from there on out.
78. Easy.
83. No problem.
88. Fine.
93. Fail.
Coaching from Rich…93. Yep.
95.5. With more coaching from Rich, done.
98. Rich, coaching, got it.
100.5. Fail. Rest. Rich, coaching. Cleaned, and motherfucking jerked.
I tried 103, but I was shot. I did not care. 100.5 pounds! Now I can’t wait to get back in there and lift 103 pounds over my head.
Why I love CrossFit (with a hat tip to friend and awesome athlete, Nelly, and I quote): My “weight goal” is now something that I want to LIFT, as opposed to something I want to BE.
I hate clothes shopping. I mean it—I loathe it. I despise it. Just thinking about it makes me put a hand to my forehead and stagger to my fainting couch. And it’s for one reason, and one reason only. Not really. It’s for every reason, but for one huge, major reason.
Pants.
Shirts, I can buy. I don’t love doing it, but it’s one of those chores that just makes life a little easier in the long run. Thinking about all the no-shirt-no-service establishments to which I’m given entrée makes buying shirts tolerable.
Shoes, fine. I have a hierarchy when it comes to shoes: comfort > cost > cuteness. I’ll pay a lot of money for a comfortable pair of shoes. Whether my feet look cute in them is the least important part of the formula. I dig clogs, and I dig flip-flops. You will never find me out on a Friday night in FMPs. Maybe if I lost half my body weight, but would you want to walk around with 170 pounds of pressure funneled into your smooshed-up toes? I thought not. Whatever, shoe shopping is not the problem.
Dresses are all right. I mean, how often do I have to buy a dress? And I can actually look cute in a dress…I just tried to find photographic evidence, but the only full-body shot I could come up with was this:
What am I doing, you ask? I was trying to do this adorable pose my friend Cat does, in which she indeed looks like a cat. I look less like a cat, and more like a dainty, flirtacious hippo.
You’ll have to take my word for it, I can look really cute in a dress. (Sidenote: that flowery, flowy dress up there, I bought that in, like, ’99. No shit. Wore it to my friend Dan’s wedding in October of last year. Probably gonna wear it to your wedding when you invite me.)
Of course, with dresses there’s the chub-rub issue. Chubby girls require
these
or
this
to avoid shredding the insides of their thighs when they walk. But again, how often do I wear a dress? I’m gonna go with twice a year. An average of two people I know get married every year.
Which brings me to pants. First of all, finding pants that fit my ghetto ass requires a tenacity usually found only in the honey badger. Second, remember the chub-rub? Well, that continues with pants, but fortunately, or un-, there’s fabric in between the frictional bodies. Fortunately, because there’s no angry rash. Unfortunately, because I will abrade the living shit out of the inner-thigh part of a pair of jeans. Seriously, if you were stranded on a desert island, you wouldn’t need matches or even two sticks to rub together. All you’d need is me, a pair of size-14 corduroys, and an up-tempo song on your iPod. I would start walking and blaze that motherfucker up.
Now about two years ago, I found a pair of jeans at Marshall’s—Donna Karan jeans (she’s a designer!)—and they fit, and even the social worker at my old school (female, straight, sort of uptight) said, “Wow, Amy, those jeans make your bottom look so cute!” I loved those jeans from the moment I bought them.
Well
shit.
Yep, that’s my fingers sticking through the gaping hole in my DKNYs. But I wasn’t done with those pantaloons yet. Who knew when the next time was that I’d find such a prize. I decided to patch that hole. What could it take? A little fabric, some thread, a little elbow grease.
A number of people have told me they enjoy my blog. One guy said I’m his favorite blogger (buffs nails on shirt). A couple friends have mentioned they get mad when there are no new posts. This is all flattering, to say the least.
I love writing this blog. I look forward to the time, after work is finished and the dogs are fed and exercised, when I can sit down at my computer and put words into cyberspace.
And, I realized today that when I’m writing is the only time that I don’t think about food at all. So I’d like to do it as much as possible.
But, I have to admit, sometimes I have nothing to say. No—often I have nothing to say.
Part of me worries that I have a finite number of stories knocking around in my brain. Like I’m a vessel, and once I pour out the stories, all done.
And to a certain extent, that’s true. I have a terrible memory. Terrible. I think it’s because I started eating compulsively when I was in second grade, and if there’s one thing addiction does to a person, it robs her of the ability to be in the present moment. I was so fixated on the food that could satiate my demons that I just didn’t encode what was happening around me. So stories from the era when I was frequently and heavily binge-eating? (That would be 7 to 34ish.) Few and far between.
I try to remind myself that new things happen to me all the time, and I can write about those things. And that content on this blog is generated, not unloaded, and I can generate content any time, out of anything.
A lot of the time though, I got nothin. I futz around the house, I peruse only-sort-of friends’ Disney vacation photos on Facebook, I call people and answer emails. And I fret because I have no words.
However.
I’ve found a damn-near foolproof method of sparking an idea. I’ve used it a bunch of times, and it’s always rendered some catalyst for me. Here’s hoping I don’t jinx it. Ready?
Sometimes I have to do nothing for four minutes, but it has never taken more than that. In two to four minutes, something bubbles to the surface, and I start banging away on this keyboard.
So if you’re feeling uninspired, or overwhelmed, or underwhelmed, try it. And let me know what you think. (And if you have other means of inspiration, do tell.)
I’ve been eating like crazy for the past week. I mean, I’ve found myself totally full and completely physiologically sated after having eaten fruit, vegetables, nuts, eggs, meat—real whole foods, you know?—but walking myself directly to the vending machine to buy a Three Musketeers after I dismiss the kids.
I don’t even like Three Musketeers. Has there ever been a more boring candy bar?
But I just can’t help myself. My job is so stressful.
Tonight I found myself at an ersatz wedding reception, recreationally eating Peanut M&Ms. Well, I guess recreationally is the only way you can eat M&Ms. Unless you were that dude from “127 Hours” and your arm was caught under a boulder for a few days. Then if you had some M&Ms, you’d eat them for survival.
Not the point.
The point is, I was NOT hungry. I had already had my daily allotment of sugar (emphasis on lot). But I didn’t know that many people at the party. And so I just kept popping those little bastards in my mouth.
I simply must learn some alternate strategies to deal with uncomfortable emotions. That, or commit myself to an institution.
CrossFit Durham linked my blog to their website. They listed me under Athlete Blogs….hahahahahahakljakjahahahakljl;ahsh! (cough)
I am so not an athlete. Indeed, today I thought I was going to die during the last round of the WOD. Stupid box jumps. After every three or four jumps (and there were twenty in each round…along with ten wall balls and tenknees-to-elbows knees-to-somewhere-around-my-navel…five rounds! Great googly moogly!), I collapsed onto my knees with my face against the box. I finished in about twice the time everybody else took. Granted, I was having an asthma attack, but I still felt like a weakling.
When my sister and I were training to walk a marathon the first time, she bought us both Nike shirts that just had the swoosh and the word ATHLETE on them. We wore them ironically, of course, but we worried that others would think we sincerely imagined ourselves bad-asses. Wa said she kept meaning to take a Sharpie and put quotation marks around it.
That being said, remember my hissy fit (OK, hissy fitS) about people telling me I’ve lost weight? The hissy fits I had because, when they tell me that, I’ve never actually lost weight? Well, I guess I have because people keep saying it.
I don’t see it on the scale, but then again I don’t weigh myself much. I don’t feel it in my clothes, but with my ghetto ass, it takes a lot to feel a difference. I remember back that one time I did lose weight, people would chirp, “Ten pounds is a pants size!” I lost 25 pounds and barely went from a 16 to a 14. (For you dudes, that’s one pants size.)
Anywhoodle, I am definitely getting harder, better, faster, stronger.
The Linebacker: Your entitled to your opionion….once again “excluding medical conditions” and I said ‘commonly’ associated not It was the only cause…Ive seen plenty of obese people and their obese because there freaking lazy and eat to much..I was one of them
And I was just so mad at that point.
I wanted to hurt somebody.
I stopped and closed my eyes and felt the blood pulsing in my ears.
And just over the throbbing, I could hear a little voice from inside my head. What did it say? I listened closer, and I heard it. It said:
You’re the asshole here.
That’s right. I was the asshole in this situation. I was berating TL for “making people wrong”. Really? What exactly was I doing? Arguing a point, after making sure nobody could hear anything I said because I called them all idiots.
So I emailed TL privately and used my big-girl words: I wasn’t trying to alienate you with my comments. As someone who hits the charts at the obese level, and someone who has an eating disorder, I just felt demeaned by your post.
You have every right to be proud of the progress that you’ve made.
He emailed back immediately: Amy please know that I wasnt in any way trying to be evil! I promise you Im not like that and please forgive me if I appeared that way!! I wasnt in any way talking about people like you Amy who work damn hard and take a stand in their life!! Amy I def wasnt talking about anyone who has a disorder as well I take that seriously I promise!!! I just meant lazy people…..do u want me to take the message down Amy? I promise I will if u want me to I dont want to offend someone who works as hard as you
That was sweet. Now I felt bad.
Me: No worries, TL. Sometimes I speak without taking the requisite ten deep breaths to calm myself down and realize I might be overreacting.
TL: Never apologize for speaking your mind Amy you have the right to your opinion no matter If I or anyone else agrees with it! and Im deleting the post because my goal of the post wasnt for any one to fell less than appreciated! and honestly I shouldnt have posted that anyway!
Turns out The Linebacker is a really nice dude.
So to recap for our heroine: judgmental…check, preachy…check, temper tantrum…whoa, Nelly!, and Big Life Lesson…learned.
Here it is, in case you didn’t catch it: Every so often, I need to stop and ask myself, who’s the asshole? Chances are the answer will be, I am.
I’m the asshole.
(I still don’t think TL and I are going to be besties.)
Sorry, I didn’t realize that putting “to be continued” at the end of a post would make people all twitchy for the next installment.
Now I’ve got everybody thinking that the defensive line of TL’s college team is going to bash down my door, bare-fisted, and pummel me on the floor of my kitchen, while an illiterate grad student stands by and shouts, “Beecomn to obesed!”
Alas, I remain un-pummeled. Relax. It’s not that exciting.
(Part 4 is posted; part 5 will be tonight or tomorrow morning.)
Listen, here it is: I’m obese because I have an eating disorder. I have since I was seven.
It’s not anorexia, clearly. It’s not bulimia. Some people call it compulsive overeating, or binge-eating disorder. I’ve heard it called generalized eating disorder. I call it food addiction.
I started out (when I was a little kid, going through some difficult shit) overeating, eating mindlessly, eating to calm feelings, to prevent feelings.
When I spent that year in Italy at age 18, and everybody over there kept telling me how fat I was, it got way worse. (What a surprise.) I started sneaking food, hiding food, just like an alcoholic might hide her alcohol, a heroin addict might conceal his stash. I began to binge-eat. Ate until I was sick. Never threw up, never used laxatives.
Just let myself hurt. Yelled at myself. Called myself names. Isolated myself.
For years.
And for years, I’ve been working on it. I don’t binge anymore. I didn’t even eat to discomfort at Thanksgiving dinner a couple weeks ago. Occasionally, I’ll let myself get too full. Probably about as often as the next guy.
But I still eat when I’m not hungry. I still eat to calm feelings, to prevent feelings. Even positive ones. They all scare me.
My nervous system has developed an automatic response to emotions. I don’t even have to feel them yet and my disordered brain sends up a flare and directs me toward food.
Quick, it says.
Danger, it says.
You’re about to be uncomfortable.
Fix it.
And this whole eating disorder business has made me terribly uncomfortable with my body. I’ll be in bed with a boyfriend, and my robe will slip open, and I’ll think, “Ick!” at the very same moment he’s saying, “Hey….” I’ll turn around and face the dressing room door when trying on clothes, just so I don’t have to look at this vessel I carry all my organs around in.
Anyway. (Jesus, this has gone on for a while, hasn’t it?) I felt the need to respond to TL’s last comment. It’s pretty clear in hindsight that his original status update touched a very tender nerve, one that gets touched all the time. Whenever I find myself pulling cabinets open, knowing my body is not asking for food. Whenever I see women’s magazines effusing about how to drop 10 pounds in two weeks!…how to make your body bikini-ready by summer!…how to get rid of cellulite! When I see totally average-looking women modeling for Lane Bryant. When a dude’s online dating profile says “No fatties”.
But I couldn’t see that then. I was just angry and raw.
Me: Ever heard of a compulsive eating disorder? It’s real. It’s not affected by willpower. It’s not solved by tough love. It’s an addiction, a psychological condition, that needs treatment. So, no, it’s not very simple.
And I’ll reiterate that calling people lazy is just a way to make yourself right and other people wrong. It doesn’t actually help solve the problem.
