Such a Pretty Fat: One Narcissist's Quest to Discover if Her Life Makes Her Ass Look Big, or Why Pie Is Not the Answer (23 page)

Pat starts with the first item, which is “work.” “So,” she asks, “who can tell me what temptations you run into at work?”

I look back on the various places I’ve been employed and can’t remember a lot of temptations, though I can recall a number of days I was so busy that I didn’t have time to eat. Skipping meals did a number on my metabolism, but except for the unbelievable onion rings in the Hyatt-building cafeteria where I temped for a while, I can’t think of a lot of times—

“Birthday cake!” shouts the woman sitting directly behind me.

Good ganache-coated Christ; in ten years, has
no one
figured out how to deal with cake in the office? Or has my life become one elaborate setup, à la
The Truman Show
, with Ed Harris orchestrating my every move from the top of a giant bubble in the sky? Is this place a set? These walls covered with Weight Watchers’ product displays—are they real? Or are there a bunch of gaffers and grips behind them, drinking coffee and trying to perpetrate my “reality”? Are people in bars all around the world watching me on TV, and betting five bucks that I’d charge like a bull when I heard the words “birthday cake”? We gloss over the work-cake bit rather quickly, so it’s probably too soon to tell either way. (But if a can light falls from the sky next time I’m outside, I will totally be on to you people.)

Next up, Pat talks about the temptation of what we eat in our automobiles. I do not raise my hand and suggest that everyone marry Fletch and thus be forbidden to eat in the new car, even though this method is one hundred percent effective in preventing the accidental inhalation of the Burger King Texas Whopper. Seriously, I spilled a splash of skim iced coffee in there last week and I thought he was going to divorce me.

After mentioning hiding food in the closet (again? WTF?), she moves on to discuss the big kahuna, the refrigerator. She stresses again how we have to clean out what’s bad for us, and I assume she doesn’t mean the hairy kiwis I found rolling around the vegetable crisper earlier today.

“What are your triggers with the fridge?” she asks. “For me, if I open the door and see peanut butter, I throw it away and I don’t allow my children to have it for a couple of months. Yes, sir, I clean it out!”

Huh?

Pat continues, “I can’t know there’s peanut butter in my house. If I see peanut butter, I will eat the whole jar, so either my family has to keep it in a special cabinet that I don’t open or my husband has to take it to his office. As a matter of fact, he has his own closet
¹⁶⁰
where he keeps the food I don’t want to touch, so my kitchen is clean, clean, clean.”

All right, I understand temptation. This body is a living monument to the joys of excess and a lack of willpower. And even with my newfound
strongs
, at the moment there’s a real possibility that a pie in my home would have a short life expectancy. But I’ve been dieting in earnest for only about three months. I would hope that after fifteen goddamned years on Weight Watchers I’d somehow get my shit together enough to peaceably coexist with a slice of key lime pie. This leads me to believe that either Pat has Scary Food Issues, which would be better addressed in therapy, or she’s putting on a show for us fatties. Either way, I find myself disliking her more and more.

A well-put-together blond woman in her early fifties raises her hand. Today’s her first day, too, and she looks as though she has maybe fifteen pounds to lose. Pat calls on her and the woman begins to speak with what sounds like a German accent. “Wiz ze peanut butter, could you not just have ze tablespoon on maybe heavy dark bread wiz ze multigrains? You could top wiz fresh-cut strawberries. Is delicious and would be low on ze POINTS, yah?”

Oh, honey,
I giggle to myself,
you just lost yourself an invitation to the group dinner afterwards.

I can almost see Pat’s head exploding, but surprisingly, a lot of the group nods and agrees. I suspect they aren’t drinking Pat’s sugar-free Kool-Aid, either.

Pat moves on to discuss how we should clean our relationships. The burly, tattooed, leather-clad biker-type guy who came in late raises his hand and complains that his roommate is a skinny little girl and he’s having a lot of problems because she’s an “emotional baker” and he doesn’t know if he can “clean” her out of the kitchen.

I’m not sure if it’s the phrase “emotional baker” or if it’s because when he opened his mouth his
t-i-t-s
fell out, but I accidentally bark with laughter and have to cover it up with a coughing fit.

A girl one row over named Rachel tells the group how she’s taken control of her relationships. “My sister says she hates the fake sugar I keep in the house we share, but I don’t care. She can have Splenda or nothing. I’ve lost eighty-four pounds and I am not going to let her junk influence my diet.” Rachel beams, and it’s all I can do not to go over and hug her. She’s still a really big girl, but she radiates such confidence in her success that I choke up a bit. Whereas I’d like Pat to kiss the fattest part of my ass, I find Rachel to be an inspiration.

As I look around the room again and listen to everyone’s stories, it occurs to me that most of them aren’t different from me, Pat and Birthday Cake Girl notwithstanding. They seem pretty sensible and have rolled their eyes, too, whenever Pat’s gone off on a tangent. I get the feeling they’re here for the collective support and inspiration they get from one another and not for Pat’s minisermons. There’s a really cute girl two seats over with perfect blond highlights and big sapphire earrings. She looks an awful lot like me, and when she talks about starting to cook and learning to fill up on fruit and vegetables instead of always ordering takeout, she sounds exactly like me. And when Pat hands out little packets of alcohol prep swabs to keep on our persons as a visual reminder to “keep it clean,” Ponytail Girl catches my eye and mouths, “Are you fucking kidding me?”

I totally want to be this girl’s friend.

Unfortunately, the meeting ends, and before I can firmly establish a relationship with my new bestie, I have to move up front to “get orientated” with Pat. I situate myself in the first row.

I tell Pat a bit about my weight-loss experience and explain how I’m down six pounds on the plan so far, and more than thirty overall. I mention how much I like the POINTS system and eating real food, and then I tell her exactly how helpful I’ve found the online portion of the plan. In response, Pat hands me a little blue lunch bag.

“Here,” she says. “This is your official Weight Watchers starter kit.”

Yay, free swag! I love free swag!

“For only twenty-four ninety-nine,” she continues.

Oh. No free swag for me.

“It’s optional, of course,” she says, but I get the feeling it’s anything but. “This kit contains all the essential tools you’ll require to lose weight.” Hold on a second; didn’t I just mention how I’d already been losing weight without these “essential ” tools?

Pat takes out each item one by one. “This is a complete guide to finding POINTS values, and here are fifty fast and easy recipes. Here’s a coupon book worth ten dollars off Weight Watchers products and a three-month journal where you can track your daily food consumption. You need these.”

She spends the next ten minutes pitching me not only on the packet, but also on the wide variety of Weight Watchers treats sold in this facility. I’m told the grocery store doesn’t sell what they carry in this retail outlet, and vice versa. “Thank God we don’t have to compete with the Jewel!” she exclaims.

Argh! Argh! Argh!
¹⁶¹

Number one, I don’t
need
any of this stuff. I already paid for the comprehensive suite of online tools, and I made that quite clear. As for the journal, um, hi, but I’m sort of already obligated to record my thoughts and feelings on weight loss in a memoir. I don’t want to fill my pantry with a bunch of WW treats because if I wanted to eat packaged food, I’d have stayed on Jenny Craig. Packaged treats teach me nothing about making choices, and it’s simply swapping one crutch for another.

I particularly don’t like the comment on “competing” with the grocery store because that makes me very aware that this is a business, and I feel like my best interests are not being looked out for when the bottom line is so obviously involved. I was always aware of Jenny Craig being a business, and ultimately, that’s why I quit. Although had they been a tad more forthcoming about how I could supplement their food with my own, I’d still be with them.

The Weight Watchers Web site and supporting literature are pretty innocuous, so I’m wondering if this particular place isn’t a franchise, hence the blatant emphasis on sales. I quickly review the session in my head and note how Pat mentioned specific products at least a dozen times. Why would I be encouraged to opt for Weight Watchers Fruities rather than a piece of fruit when I want a sweet?

Why didn’t Pat talk about exercise
at all
? My God, movement is the key to everything. My life and body have been completely changed because I can sprint up a flight of stairs now, and not because I eat dietetic candy. And shoot, there’s a Bally’s right across the hall from here. Were I running this session, I’d encourage members to hit the gym afterward, and not inquire about where we’d all be going for our post-weigh -in splurge. I’m willing to wager that after a few more sessions with Barbie, even pie will be safe in my house because I won’t want to wreck all the progress I’ve made.

I am not giving this woman one penny. “I’m pretty happy with the online tools, but thanks anyway.”

Suddenly Pat’s attitude changes and the rest of my orientation is painfully condescending and full of clichéd advice such as “the plan works if you work the plan.” Twenty insufferable minutes later, I finally escape to the parking garage, sans swag bag, as Pat reminds my retreating form that the pretzels are buy one, get one free and this deal won’t last!

“You can tell me all about it next time,” I say.

But there will be no next time. I’ll not be back.

As I drive home, I try to formulate how I’d create a Weight Watchers-approved birthday cake. If I could, I’d make a fucking fortune.

Perhaps I should get in touch with the emotional baker to see what she suggests.

TO: stacey_at_home

FROM: [email protected]

SUBJECT: Tonight

I might be late for
Top Chef
tonight—I’m going to be doing laps at the pool and there’s a good chance I’ll be slow to shower afterward since it’s a double-workout day. Is that cool?

Oh, since you asked, yes, the pool is very nice. But the patrons? Wow. So. Many. Tattoos. When did everyone start getting their resumes permanently inked on their bodies?

Judgmentally yours.

Jen

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Swim It Out, Bitch

Session Twenty-six

I threw out my back again because while I’m apparently mentally prepared for running, I’m not quite there physically. I was still able to go to the gym a couple of times last week, but today’s the first day my doctor has allowed me to train with Barbie again.

Well, sort of, anyway.

Technically
a week
from today is the first day I’m allowed to work out with Barbie, but I’m desperate to stay on track. I have not enjoyed lying around my house, nursing the injury, watching shitty TV on TiVo. Weird, right? Since I’m really not supposed to be here, Barbie and I decided we’d split the difference—we’re going to work only arms and abs this session, and we’ll start in on legs next week.

“Sad about not doing lunges today?” Barbie asks. “They’re your favorites!”

“Honestly? A little bit,” I reply. “I even kind of miss that horrible thing you make me do when I put the resistance band around my ankles and scuttle sideways back and forth between the cones.” That move is So. Damn. Hard. By the time I’m finished, I feel like I’m being stabbed both in the lungs and in the butt cheeks. And yet my whole backside is becoming decidedly more round and less rectangular, so I appreciate the efficacy, if not the action.

Barbie giggles. “What is it you call the laterals again?” When Barbie uses the technical terms for exercises, I can’t keep them straight, so I often substitute my own terms. For example, there’s a move I do where I make a fist and twist downward, which I call “punching the dog.” The shoulder press where I take a weight and go from opposite hip to above my head is the “John Travolta,” and any crunch done on the stability ball is known as “the wedgie-maker.” I also do the “hello, yoga,” a balancing exercise, and my favorite, the “thanks for not cutting your grass, asshole.” This last one involves using one of those Reebok fitness bars, and Barbie and I push at each other from either side. Last time we did it, I kept thinking of the idiots next door, and I shoved so hard I accidentally knocked her into the Spinning room. We don’t do that one a lot anymore.

“The crabby patty,” I reply as I finish up my set of “the luggage grab.”

“Nice. OK, that’s three . . . two . . . one . . . and you’re good. We’re going to move into the weight room now.”

“Really? We never go in there.” I’m excited for the change of scenery. Almost everything we do is in one of two training rooms, or on occasion, the cardio room. We went into the weight room during my second training session, and Barbie tried to get me to do this step-on-a-box-while-holding-a -heavy-ass-bar dealie (since dubbed the “no fucking way”) and we haven’t been in there since.

“We’re going to do some moves with free weights, and I want you to be able to sit on a bench to support your back.” She grabs her clipboard and I take a swig of my energy drink before trotting along after her. The weight room is different from the rest of the gym because it’s not on an exterior wall. All the other rooms are bright and open, but this one’s dark because the ceiling in here isn’t vaulted. Although everything is nice and still quite new, between the din, the brick walls, and all the free weights, it reminds me of a prison gym.

Barbie demonstrates the exercise—she sits on a bench and, holding a couple of good-sized weights at shoulder level, lifts them up over her head before returning them to the starting position. “Shoulder presses,” she tells me. “Make sure you’re pinching your shoulder blades the whole time, and exhale on the way up. Slow and controlled, so let’s go!”

“Are these the reason my shoulders are kind of square now and my bra straps don’t slip anymore?”

“Exactly! Let’s go for fifteen, but tell me if the weights are too heavy.”

I do one rep and they’re heavy, but I can handle it. “No worries,” I tell her. I start to do the presses. The whole wall is mirrored, so I have no choice but to look at myself when I do them. As much as I normally like to preen and admire myself in any shiny surface, I don’t like to watch myself work out, but I don’t have a lot of choice here. As I continue to cycle through the reps, I watch myself strain and sweat. Today I’ve got on a black T-shirt, a black do-rag, and old gray shorts, since all my pretty gym clothes have been buried at the bottom of the laundry for the past few weeks. “Check out our reflection,” I tell Barbie. “Do we not look like we’re working out in a women’s penitentiary?”

“Oh, shut up!” She laughs and swats in my direction with the clipboard.

“No, seriously, between my outfit, the low lighting, and all the bricks, this totally looks like a prison, and this is the exercise the convicts are always doing right before they get shanked. And look how much larger I am than you. If we were in lockup, I’d probably be in charge. And you’re little and you’re standing next to me helping me, so I’m pretty sure that would make you my bitch.” Barbie smiles and shakes her head at me in the mirror. “Admit it; you missed me last week. None of your other clients would call you their prison bitch, would they?”

“They wouldn’t, and I did miss you.”

“But I’m probably in big trouble when we start working out my whole body again next week, aren’t I?”

Barbie nods earnestly. “Definitely.”

I’m OK with that. Every time we work out, Barbie pushes me further and further outside of my comfort zone . . . despite my cries to please, please, make it stop. At this point I’m doing stuff I never thought I’d even be capable of doing, as evidenced by when I ran on the treadmill a couple of weeks ago. Granted, that didn’t work out so well, but that I’d even attempt it is huge.

Because of this newfound confidence in fitness, I’m going to go swim laps at the pool tonight. I’ve been to a couple of the open swims during the day, but so far I’ve done nothing but float and sunbathe. I’ve always been a strong swimmer, but over the years my endurance dwindled to nothing, so I’ve never taken advantage of the lap pool even though I’ve lived within a mile of it for years. I feared I’d dive in and make it only one Olympic-sized length before collapsing. It’s possible I have such muscle memory from years of swimming in my parents’ pool that I’d be fine, but until recently I always quit the second anything became too physically demanding. Now that I have both confidence and commitment, I feel like I’ve become—pardon the pun—unsinkable.

“That’s four . . . three . . . two . . . and . . . one. Let’s start that round from the beginning again. Tell me what else is new,” Barbie says. “How’s the diet?”

“Right now I’m on , and I’m using their electronic tools to plan meals and track everything I eat.”

“Do you go to meetings?”

“Went to one and I hated it. I’m not sure if I’ll go back.”

“If you do, maybe I’ll go with you.”

No one I’ve ever met has been in better shape than Barbie. She’s thin, but that’s not why she looks good. Each of her muscles is perfectly defined without being all ridiculous and bodybuilderlike. She’s constantly in motion because of her profession, and she pursues fitness in her off time by biking, wake boarding, and playing beach volleyball. She’s an athlete and always has been, so I don’t even think she fully appreciates exactly what kind of shape she’s in.

“Oh, honey, no,” I tell her. “No, no, no. You can’t go to a Weight Watchers meeting.”

Barbie looks puzzled. “Why not?”

“Because they’ll
kill
you.”

“Really?”

See? Clueless.

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure they would. How about I just tell you what I learn?”

“Deal.”

We move on to abs work, and I grunt and complain the entire time. After a week off, I’ve lost some abdominal strength, and the exercises seem more difficult than usual. She’s got me doing push-ups with one hand on the floor and another on a medicine ball, aka the “Jack Palances.” Barbie sees I’m struggling, so she tries to distract me. “What are your plans for later?”

“
Ungh
. . . I’m going to go swim laps at
ungh
. . . Holstein Pool.” Every time I push myself up, a bead of sweat falls on the floor. I can actually keep track of how many Palances I’ve done by counting them.

“Really? Double-workout day, huh? Good for you. Swimming sounds like fun. Will Fletch go with you?”

“
Ungh
. . . no, probably not. He’s not a great swimmer.
Ungh
. He’s more of a
ungh
. . . cocktail-by-the-pool guy.”

“Truthfully I’m not great in the water, either. I tried to swim laps when I was in Miami, and I practically drowned. I had to grab one of those kickboards to hold myself up.”

“That’s kind of
ungh
. . . surprising. You’re so athletic, I assumed you’d be good at any sport.”

“Not swimming. And that’s two . . . one . . . and you’re finished.”

I take a second to catch my breath before telling her, “That’s because you’re not naturally buoyant. Like with me, I can be motionless in the water for hours without any effort. My brother says it’s because I’m built like a manatee.”

“Your brother sounds like an ass.”

“He absolutely is!” I agree. I take another deep breath and stretch my arms over my head. Wow and
ow
. I can already tell my everything is going to hurt tomorrow.

“You’re all done.”

“Nuh-uh! That was not an hour!”

“We did three sets of every circuit. You were just talking and didn’t notice. Check out the clock—it’s three p.m. Nice job! Glad to have you back!”

“I’m going to run out of here before you change your mind and try to make me do one more set. See you Wednesday, two o’clock?”

“Yep, see ya then! Have a great swim tonight! Let me know how it goes!”

Fifteen minutes before the lap-swim session begins, I take out my contacts and change into a bathing suit. I have a number of suits, but most of them are cut lower to accommodate proper tanning and wouldn’t work for lap swimming. The last thing I want to do is stroke, adjust, stroke, tug, so I put on a ratty old blue tank suit with extragrippy straps and support. I’ve worn it so many summers that the Lycra has been eaten away in a couple of parts, although it’s well lined, so nothing shows. Plus I’m going to be in the water the whole time, and who’s going to see me?

I yank my hair back into two rather high pigtails—again, not a look I’d ever,
ever
advocate, but it’s the only way I can keep my bangs off my face. I’m about to wash the rest of my eye makeup off, then realize I’ve spent too much time screwing around with my hair. I figure what didn’t already melt off at the gym earlier will rinse clean the second I dive in, so I leave for the pool.

I get to the field house and place everything but my towel and flip-flops in a locker, blindly heading out to the pool. I’d wear my new glasses out there, but I don’t want to leave them unattended. They’re a gorgeous horn-rim and have little diamonds on the arms, and I’m afraid someone will swipe them. I particularly don’t trust the lifeguards who work here, since I’ve yet to see them guard lives
or
order. They allow way too much horseplay during the open-swim period. Yesterday I saw a group of teenagers trying to drown one another, and the thuggy lifeguard just watched and laughed.

I’m curious; do lifeguards really need to wear cell phones when there’s a field-house phone ten paces away? How are any of them going to have time to remove all that stuff if a person needs saving? Aren’t they supposed to be in a constant state of readiness? A lifeguard needs a Speedo, whistle, and zinc oxide. (And maybe one of those little orange footballs. ) They do
not
need a do-rag, elaborately laced basketball shoes, multiple necklaces, three layered shirts, and a
pager
. I’m going to be one unhappy camper if I get a cramp and drown because these jokers need to stay in constant touch with their baby-mamas.
¹⁶²

I’m waiting at one of the picnic tables for lap swim to begin. A couple of the lifeguards belly flop into the pool. Even with my diminished vision, I can see them thrashing and sputtering along in the water as they stretch the lane dividers from end to end. Wow, we’ve really got the junior varsity squad playing tonight. I suspect all the good lifeguards work the lakefront and these people are just a bunch of guys the parks department found hanging out at a gas station. Possibly they got hired because they had their own orange tank tops embossed with a big white plus sign on the front?

I notice a couple of women sitting at the table next to me, and I see they’ve got kickboards. “Hi!” I call. “Can you guys tell me where you got those?”

“Ahh, they’re right next to you,” the younger one says with more than a trace of sarcasm.

Bristling, I look down at my foot, and I’m practically touching a whole bin of them. I’m not even sure how I sat down without tripping over them. Oh. Perhaps the sarcasm was merited.

One of the lifeguards—or possibly the leader of the Crips; who can tell?—blows his whistle, and people begin to jump in. I don’t know the protocol for lap swimming, but I assume it’s kind of like driving, that being the slower-moving vehicles stay to the right. I imagine I’ll be the cement truck on the road, at least at first, so I swan dive at the very far end of the pool.

Hot and muggy, the night is perfect for a swim. The water isn’t so cold that it’s unpleasant, but it’s not so warm that I feel sluggish; I couldn’t ask for a more ideal situation. I swim underwater for about fifteen feet and surface. I notice that everyone else is doing the crawl stroke. I much prefer the backstroke because it’s easier, but when in Rome . . .

Stroke, stroke, stroke, breathe!

Stroke, stroke, stroke, breathe!

I paddle gracefully, my limbs constantly lengthening. As I kick, I can feel the water ripple from my toes all the way up my thighs, and I know I’m getting more and more toned with every motion. My shoulders, my back, my arms—everything’s firming up.

Stroke, stroke, stroke, breathe!

Stroke, stroke, stroke, breathe!

This is glorious! Look at me! I’m a fitness queen! I am inordinately proud of myself. If you’d have told me last winter when I couldn’t even climb the stairs without getting winded that I’d easily complete a couple of hours of strenuous activity, I’d have never believed you.