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After a lifetime of battling my weight, I'm determined to win. This blog chronicles my journey. Stay tuned for the downs and ups of the scale, dieting, exercise, and life.

Obsession

I'd like to meet the person who can diet effectively without being compulsive. Cause that's not me. 2 weeks in, and I'm going nuts.

So here's the deal. I get 31 points a day on Weight Watchers. I also get 35 extra points each week to use as I choose. I can also earn even more points through exercise. For some reason, though I'm stockpiling my extra points like I'm preparing for nuclear war. I don't have a good reason to not use them, but when I do, I feel guilty. It's bizarrely paralyzing and empowering. I feel great and proud of myself for knowing that I can't eat crap now and crap later, but I just want to save them for something really good. And although something may seem really good now, how am I to know that something better won't come along that I could use them on later.

To put this into perspective, I used 2.5 of my weekly points on Monday. That leaves me with 32.5. I also have 24 activity points. That's more than 50 extra points...which is literally 5 extra meals worth of points. Or 4 Big Macs. I've never eaten a Big Mac in my life, but yeah.

Crazily enough,....just typing calmed me a little. I have to go to happy hour tonight. Having a cocktail will dip into my weekly points. I'm going to try to be calm and mature about it.


Maybe

Already?

It's been a week. I'm 3 lbs down (yay) and a coworker asked me today if I'd lost weight. I can't imagine that it's noticeable already....but I'll take the compliment.

Wanna hear something you've heard before?

Yeah.

You guessed it.

I'm back.


So I've been working like crazy. And eating like crazy. Because nothing says crazy busy time of year like stress eating plus tired eating plus not having enough time to even think about eating healthy. And my weight has ballooned to (mumble, mumble) or something above (mumble, mumble). And enough being enough, Mom bought me 3 months of Weight Watchers Online, a pair of Reebok EasyTones, and stocked my cabinets for my first week.

It will be a week on Wednesday. I've lost 2 pounds so far. I love my EasyTones. I hate counting points. I must lose weight. Gonna keep blogging. This should be entertaining or educational or both.







I'm fat, not stupid

Lately, stores have stopped carrying size 16 in store.

Express went years ago.

Then Banana Republic and White House Black Market.

And most recently, Ann Taylor and Ann Taylor Loft.

I actually cried over the last two. I’ve been a loyal shopper (and former employee) of those stores for years. It was hard to not take the slashing of my size personally.

However, as painful as it is to be told that keeping 2 or 3 pieces of clothing for you isn’t important, it’s more insulting that the stores act like it shouldn’t be an inconvenience.

For instance, I called Ann Taylor’s customer service, and received this email response:

Thank you for your e-mail. We were sorry to hear that you have been unable to find the size 16 at your local store. Currently size 16 items are exclusively available through anntaylor.com and LOFTonline.com. Due to low demand and spacing limitations within our stores we are unable to offer the full collection including both colors and sizes. However our online store does offer additional lengths and colors as well as the full petite collection for clients to ship as needed. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused as this is purely based on sales and not intended to cause any inconvenience. I will gladly share your request with our Product Allocation team as well for future consideration.

We certainly value your feedback and appreciate your efforts to contact us directly and share your concerns. In the meantime, we do hope that you will continue to check back with our store locations as well as our online store for any updates and/or special offers


Seriously?

I’m fat. Not stupid.

Or maybe I am stupid. I am assuming that having to shop online is an inconvenience. Let's think about this. I have to pay shipping. In fact, if I need a certain item for a certain event on a certain date, I probably have to pay for expedited shipping...and just to be safe, I need to buy multiple items in maybe a couple sizes. Then pay for shipping to return it. Plus, I may notice that prices sometimes are reduced in store more than online and that I can't get a price adjustment for that. Oh! and the sales associate who may be on commission really has no desire to check inventory online for my size when they won't receive credit. It's a wee bit insulting to be told that all of these factors shouldn't cause me an inconvenience.

I may also be stupid if I fail to understand why stores continue to make the business decision to marginalize more than half of their consumers. The average American woman is a size 14. More than half of American women are classified as overweight. I’m a size 16 (ok – 18 more recently), and basic statistics would say that there are a lot of us. We’re young. We’re old. We have money. We want to look nice. We’re just fat.

It's hard to accept that this is a "sales" and "space" consideration when I worked retail for 10 years. I know that only 2-4 of each style number is a size 14 or 16, while there are usually a dozen size 6 or 8. I know that mannequins are size 0 and so are in store ads. I know that I often have dismissed stores and not gone in because they look like skinny people stores. I also know that when I have gone in, often all of the 16s are sold out. Of course it seems like they sell fewer items - there aren't as many in the store to begin with. Maybe I am stupid if I believe that the myth that size 16 doesn't sell is instead a self-fulfilling prophecy.

So, Dear Retailers: I’m fat. Not stupid. Not unfashionable. Just fat. I’m busy and my time is important to me. If you make cute clothes that fit and are available in my size, I will shop, and so will my friends.

I'm back - Pain, Shame, Motivation

So I'm back.

For now at least.

I know what you're thinking: "why?" and "are you really back and committed and motivated?"

No. I did not get the motivation to come back to the blog and to losing weight on my own.

I wish I did. I wish I really wanted to do this for my health or some other positive and uplifting reason. But no. It's because I don't fit into my clothes, because I look at pictures and I can't believe that the person I see is me, and because my lifetime bigness has moved into being fat. And I'm fine with fat. Kinda. There will be a whole posting about kinda being fine with fat. But recently, everything just seems worse. Getting dressed in the morning is an ordeal. I have tons of clothes that I just cannot wear, but I have too much pride (and hope) to give or throw away. Shopping has become a painful, humiliating, and strategic affair - an exercise in damage mitigation. I only go to stores that carry at least a 16, everything gets reviewed and inspected and stretched before going into the fitting room in order to prevent falling in love with anything that won't fit.

So I'm back. Until I'm not. I know that's no way to build an online following. But that's life as a fat girl. The motivation wanes. The shame comes and goes in waves. There are days when I want to share the ups and downs and days when I want to hide. Sometimes I can push myself, and sometimes I can't. Today I can. Tomorrow who knows.