The Weight-loss Diaries (13 page)

Diana immediately pounced on the fact that I was wearing new jeans today.

“What size are they? You must be losing a ton of weight if you got new jeans.”

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I shrugged. “Are you under two hundred pounds?” she asked.

I tried to change the subject.

“Are you under two hundred?” she asked again.

“Yes,” I said.

“A lot?” she asked.

“What movie do you want to see?” I asked. The “let’s not talk about this”

technique doesn’t work; I’ve tried it. So I tried ignoring her questions politely—by changing the subject—which held her off for a little while.

Then, when I broke out the single-serving cottage cheese in the movie theater, she rolled her eyes and sighed loudly.

Another episode in the Courtney and Diana show(down). Or maybe I should call it a rerun, since every fight we have I feel like we’ve had a million times before. The flash point this time: clothes that
Shape
sent for my first photo shoot. She saw there was a big box waiting for me at the front desk of our building, and she came upstairs to find out what it was.

“How did they know what size to send?” she asked.

“I told them.”

“Well, how come they sent 14s when you told me you were still wearing 16s?”

“The last time you asked about my jeans, I told you what size they were.”

“This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard of. Why are they sending you clothes? Is this your ‘after’ picture? How much weight have you lost?” All in nasty, rapid-fire succession.

“I’d rather not discuss it,” I said, straining to sound calm. At the beginning of every fight, I vow not to lose my temper and start yelling. I think I’ve managed about four times out of the past hundred. She always knows exactly how to get to me, and now I’m so primed for battle with her that the slightest thing sets me off anyway.

“Why don’t you want to discuss it? What’s the matter? Have you lost too much weight?”

On the way out she accidentally-on-purpose stomped on a white shirt that had fallen on the floor, rendering it unwearable for the shoot.

I’ve lost twenty-three pounds, and
Shape
is just now shooting my “before” picture because they didn’t get around to shooting it in December. Personally, I’m convinced they didn’t want to waste the money to shoot me earlier in case I flamed out on the diet, but never mind about that. What worries me is that I’m going to look like an idiot. As much as I don’t want to see an unflatter-

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ing picture of myself—which “before” shots always are—in glossy full color, I think I would’ve preferred having the “before” picture taken in the beginning. Now, with a twenty-three-pound head start, I’m afraid that even if I lose five pounds this month, my next photo won’t show much difference.

I loathe having my picture taken. I’m the person who always brings the camera so that I can be the one taking the pictures instead of having to be in them. In group shots I try to stand in the back, my head peeking over someone’s shoulder, my body hidden. I wear black, which
Shape
won’t allow.

They want something nice and bright.

The chat with the fashion editor—who clearly isn’t used to dealing with anyone who isn’t a sample size—did nothing to reassure me. I didn’t want to be rude, but I felt like I had to keep reminding her that not only am I a 14/16

(even I know that in certain styles a 14 won’t fit me, and this is one time where it is not to my advantage to lie about my size), but I am not a trim 14/16. In other words, no sleeveless outfits. And please, please, please—nothing too fitted.

“We want to see your body shape,” she told me.

That’s exactly what I was afraid of.

So I ended up with a box of the sort of clothes I would never wear. Fitted shirts. A pair of very slim-cut pants. And not only are the clothes bright, but in what seems to be a not-very-good omen of how this photo shoot will go, the things I need a 16 in I’ve gotten in a 14, and the things I need a 14 in are size 16.

On a scale of not-fun-ness, with one being unpacking after moving and ten being three simultaneous root canals, I’d say the photo shoot was about a six.

It snowed yesterday, and it was still freezing today, but because this photo is appearing in the September issue (which, in the weird world of magazine dates, hits the stands at the end of July), I wasn’t allowed to wear a winter jacket. Molly (the photographer) and I also had to run around hunting for places where there wasn’t snow on the ground.

Molly didn’t make me feel any better about the clothes.

“I think you should wear your own clothes,” she said.

Too bad most of my clothes are black. Besides, since we’re still in winter, I don’t really have fall clothes that fit properly—all of mine from last fall are now at least a size too big(!). So I chose the least objectionable
Shape
outfit: a long black skirt with buttons down the front, plus a deep-blue button-down shirt over a white T-shirt.

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I thought about calling a friend to come over and advise, but I don’t want to discuss the
Shape
project too much with anyone. It’s a bit like not wanting to tell anyone you’re pregnant until the third month—until it’s more of a sure thing. The whole project still seems so unreal to me—maybe because it won’t appear in print for months—so best to keep quiet for now.

So off Molly and I went. Unfortunately, Molly decided she liked the brick steps and the light outside my apartment building, so I had to walk up and down the steps, pretending I was heading to work. Molly thought I looked too serious, so she insisted I start skipping, which made me feel even more ridiculous and conspicuous, if that’s possible. There were more skipping sessions in a couple of spots where there was (a) no snow visible and (b) views of the Washington Monument—magazines always insist on that sort of background for D.C. shoots. Whatever. I stopped minding the skipping—I was freezing.

Molly had this idea that she wanted me frolicking in the Dupont Circle fountain, à la the “Friends” opening sequence. But even on a blustery March day, there were loads of people in the Circle. I tried to talk her out of it by pointing out that no one frolics in a fountain on the way to work, but reality shalt not get in the way of a good photo.

As I was skipping around the edge of the fountain, trying not to trip on my skirt and fall in (but thinking that in the scheme of embarrassing things that could happen, I’d prefer that scenario to having anyone I knew see me), a guy paused to listen to Molly urge me to smile and look happy.

“What do you think you are, a model?” he yelled and started to laugh.

“Girl, you’re no model.”

My new size 14 jeans and I are preparing to wing our way to Nashville to visit a friend. It’s supposed to be fun, but I’ve been worrying about it for days. This is the first trip I’ve been on since starting this diet, and trips are usually where I, um, trip up.

First there’s the airport and the anonymity it provides—the anonymity I so dearly love. You could eat your way across the airport—cinnamon buns, chocolate, muffins—and the chances are very small that anyone will have any idea how much you’ve consumed. Then you can eat on the plane. And on the other end if you want to, since just about the first thing anyone asks when you’ve gotten off a plane is, “Have you eaten?”

But the airport problem seems small in comparison to the idea of more than forty-eight hours with the same person. The idea of someone being able

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to see everything I eat and when I eat it terrifies me. What if the amounts and things I want to eat aren’t normal? What if she’s not hungry when I am?

I don’t know that I can explain—or want to—the urgency with which I sometimes need food, how frustrated and cranky I can get. I can’t make myself call Nicole and tell her I’m training for some 5Ks, as Peeke suggested, so I’m packing granola bars, fruit, and baby carrots in case Nicole doesn’t have anything or in case I wake up early, starving, and don’t feel I can rummage through her refrigerator. It makes me feel a little obsessed to do this—I’ve spent several days worrying about the food options and how much I’ll have to explain myself. What makes it worse is that Nicole is my friend with the best attitude toward food I’ve ever seen. I’ve never heard her talk about calories or diets or how full she feels—she just eats. And, it appears, enjoys.

Instead of thinking I can take a lesson from her, the last thing I want to do is talk about this with her. If she’s as free of all this worrying about food as she seems to be, I don’t want to be the one who makes her self-conscious.

I’m so convinced I might screw up that tonight I packed two lunches for the office refrigerator—one, of course, for tomorrow (Friday) and one for Monday, so that even if I eat poorly all weekend, I’ll have no excuse to continue doing so once I get back to work.

Yes, I’m planning for the fact that I may just pig out—and though pig-outs are hardly cause for celebration, the fact that I’m starting to recognize that the diet can and
will
go on after a pig-out definitely is worth celebrat-ing. Maybe it’s because I’ve already slipped up—the king cake, the chocolate, the gin and tonics—and I’m still here and still losing weight. Maybe it’s because I’m starting not to want to pig out or binge, not just because I might gain weight but because nothing tastes as good as feeling in control—or feeling more in control than usual—feels.

Nicole didn’t have a single healthy thing in her apartment, so I’m glad I brought a stash. She looked at me a little funny when I pulled it out but didn’t say anything.

Sunday she didn’t get up for hours. Thank God for the apple. Have to eat before I jog/walk or I feel sick. Felt sick—in the head—when I was out exercising, since everybody else appeared to be en route to church. Me? I wor-ship at the altar of thinness.

Nicole insisted on the Waffle House for breakfast. There wasn’t a single healthy option: no egg whites, nothing that wasn’t fried, buttered, or battered.

And can you imagine telling them at the Waffle House to go easy on the

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grease? I was just about to give in and order something I craved—I was lingering over the menu like it was a love letter—when I spied two ancient-looking single-serving-sized boxes of Special K. The Waffle House didn’t have skim milk, but I figured whole milk was better than waffles and hash browns with cheese. Still, it made me a little cranky to consume calories I didn’t want to consume, the way I hate having to spend paychecks on boring practical things like a new vacuum cleaner when there are so many things I’d rather have.

That evening my stomach was still growling after my shrimp fajitas made with nonfat tortillas and low-fat cheese. When Nicole suggested dessert, I was tired of resisting—I’d been resisting things all weekend. So we split a chocolate empanada. Never mind that half a dessert is less than I’d usually eat. I felt this impending sense of doom before the waiter brought it over. What was I getting myself into? Was this the beginning of the end of this diet? This was the first time since I started this diet three months ago that I had actually requested that anything I shouldn’t eat be put in front of me—all the other slipups had occurred when I was confronted with food, when it was already there.

I knew I should try to enjoy the dessert—to eat it slowly and savor it, as Peeke would say, and to eat it as though I had a right to eat it, instead of in the furtive way I usually do with things like it. But I couldn’t. I ate like someone was going to take the empanada away from me, like I was going to get caught. I felt like I was eating it ridiculously fast, so I tried to come up with an excuse but failed. Normally I’d probably lie—say something about how I hadn’t eaten much dinner or didn’t eat lunch, but those lines wouldn’t work on someone who’d seen everything I’d eaten for the past forty-eight hours.

Nicole put her fork down after several bites, saying she was full. I was just relieved she didn’t say the dessert didn’t taste that good anyway, because there was no way I was going to be able to stop eating it.

As I got down to the last bit, my forkfuls got smaller and smaller. I didn’t want to stop eating, and I was afraid of what I might want to have when the empanada was gone. I felt guilty and disgusted—I hadn’t come anywhere near the pig-outs I thought I might indulge in this weekend, but why did I have to ruin a nearly perfect forty-eight hours with this stupid chocolate empanada? I had done so well—why did I have to screw up? When I finally finished eating, I racked my brain for a way to escape Nicole and go binge.

But it was late on Sunday night, and there was no place I could plausibly need to go—no “errand” I could run—that she wouldn’t have to accompany me

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to. I tried to calm down. Back at her apartment, I debated eating granola bars—the need to eat something else was that strong. I lay in bed waiting for Nicole to fall asleep so I could get up and eat, but I must have fallen asleep first. The next thing I knew, it was morning.

At a party tonight, Mary—who is not a die-hard runner—started talking about doing a marathon. I’m not even sure how long a marathon is. That it requires running for hours is all I know. And that it’s for serious athletes—

who else could run for that long?

I’ve known Mary for only six months, though we’ve spent so much time together it feels like longer. But if she really had known me longer, she would never ask me about running a race; I’m sure of it. I suddenly realized she’s never seen me at my heaviest and most slothful—she knows me only as someone who gets up and exercises every morning. It’s so bizarre that
anyone
would think of me as someone to do something athletic with. To try someplace new to go out or to go to a movie with—yes. But a marathon?

I wanted to explain patiently to Mary that she really doesn’t know me at all. I wanted to explain that making new friends is like dating. You think you know the guy after a couple of months of dating, and suddenly you find he’s got a frightening temper or a fiancée. I wanted to say to her:
You know how
when you’re on a website and you put the arrow on, say, a picture of a prince and
it suddenly, unexpectedly, flips into a frog? That’s me. For the past few months—