Her Highness, The Fatty

All my life, I’ve had a problem with my weight. I was born fat (nine pounds) from fat parents. I was always THE fat kid in school. I was teased, ridiculed, stomped on and spit out. I also developed very early… and the boys enjoyed looking at my… er… over-development, but I was still fat.

When I was in junior high school, there was a gym teacher, Mr. L, who was just plain scary. He openly stared at the girls, had constant greasy-looking hair, fat, balding. You get the picture. God forbid, if he actually brushed against you for whatever reason! That held true for the boys too. I will forever remember the ultimate humiliation of my life. It was “gymnastics month” in gym class and all of us poor suckers had to run and hurdle over one of those pommel horse things. Can you see it now? Me, running (amusing in itself), aiming for the pommel horse where Mr. L. was standing, ready to “help” people over it. I hit the horse, and then hit Mr. L… and both of us ended up on the mats, with me on top. OMG!!! I still hear the laughter now.

Don’t get me started about having to run around the track with my boobs flying everywhere.

But, I digress. Back to the original topic.

I’ve always been fat. I’ve never been one of those fat people who eat tremendous amounts of food at one time. I’m a grazer and I love grazing on sweet stuff. Can’t get enough of it. I think my addiction to chocolate is equal to the average (if there is an average) addict and I was married to an alcoholic so I have a pretty good idea of what I’m talking about. I’m just hanging out, chillin’, then, WHAM! MUST GET CHOCOLATE NOW! Not a pretty sight.

I’ve had periods in my life where I lost a few pounds, here and there. One summer, in my early teens, I lost about 15 pounds. I was staying with my aunt and uncle in CA, and lived almost entirely on cantaloupe (if you know them, you understand), not to mention all of the walking we did around the multitude of theme parks we visited. I’ve blocked out what that did for my IBS, probably for good reason, but I was so happy when I got home.

Didn’t take long for it all to come back.

When I was 23, I found a lump in my right breast. I didn’t really care what the lump itself was (non-cancerous). After all, I already had had brain surgery. What could be worse? All I thought about was that I could finally get my big, pain-in-the-back, guy-eyeballing, boobs cut off. Yes, that’s how I thought of it, getting them CUT off. When the plastic surgeon, who was also a family friend (I used to babysit his kids) warned me that I might feel a “loss” of my breasts and get depressed, I laughed, rather hysterically. When I woke up after surgery (which was much worse than brain surgery), I looked down at my flat chest (flat from being tightly wrapped), I was ecstatic! 9 pounds had been taken off. You heard right. NINE POUNDS of gross, fat boobage!

After I was fully recovered (which was also much worse than brain surgery), and the weird torso-wide scars healed, I realized I could run! And jump! Without knocking myself out! I was running up and down the stairs at work, taking a quick jog across the parking lot. Freedom! The first time I had to have a stranger give me a proper bra fitting was thrilling! I got to throw away all of my triple Z squared times 507 size bras (I did keep one for sentimental laughs) and got to go down to a C cup. Happy day!

In high school, I was a size 26. After surgery, and months later, I got down to almost a size 14. YAY!

Then, I met a guy… who broke my heart… repeatedly. I threw away my scale.

After my husband died, I lost 24 pounds. The “I Lost a Spouse Diet” works wonders. I’m just sayin’.

Last October, almost to the day, my mentor and I decided we were going to lose weight together. His heart took a turn for the worse and it became a true life or death battle for him. We were going to walk, eat right, keep tabs on each other… blah blah blah.

Yeah. That didn’t really happen, at least for me. And the pounds have been creeping back. He’s still on my case about it but I haven’t really cared lately.

That brings me to now. 40 years old (cripes) and fatter than ever.

This morning I got on the scale and YIPEE, the weight is going back down again (probably something to do with having little food in the house)! How did I celebrate today, you ask? I had 2… fine, 3, donuts for breakfast… and 3 Twinkies after lunch.

There’s something wrong with me.