Impossible is a typoRunning my pants off and loving myself along the way

Yeah, say that 10 times fast.

I’m not one to jump on the bandwagon of fashionable food fads (wow, I’m getting fancy with the alliteration today!). Well no, that’s not true. I will try out fads and then the fad fades and well gee, that was fun and pointless. I like treating my body and sometimes my life (hello ex-boyfriends!) like experiments, sometimes with clipboards and spreadsheets and everything. But at the end of the day most of these experiments fizzle out (goodbye ex-boyfriends!).

Wheat and Gluten Free foods are all the rage right now. This is not to say that Celiac Disease isn’t real and terrible and I profoundly feel for anyone having the disease, but I’m not so sure that there is as much “gluten intolerant” folks out there as your local expensive healthfood store will make you believe. It’s ever so fashionable to go “gluten free” right now, just like it was fashionable to be vegan a few years back, and go “low-carb” before that.

So why am I being all trendy and going wheat free for a week? Well, Welcome to TMI-Ville. You see, I’ve been having tummy issues for quite some time now ranging from mild discomfort and indigestion to well, let’s just say I’ve been having tummy issues. Could wheat and gluten be the problem? Sure as could a myrid of other things, but I’ll never know unless I experiment.

I’m not actually going gluten free, because that’s far too tricky. My time eating animal-free taught me that eliminating entire ingredient categories from your diet entirely is really really difficult. It boggles my tiny little red head where milk protein and wheat products show up. So I’m going wheat-free, the light and lazy way. Basically, I’m not doing any bread or pasta or wheat flour baked good for a week. If I feel remarkably better after a week. I’ll reassess how wheat fits in my life.

She leans against the trendy out cropping of exposed brick with a lazy comfortability that comes from hanging out in a joint where everyone knows your name. It’s like being in your own living room with really uncomfortable chairs and a sometimes sticky floor. Lazy conversation with known associates far too eager to toot their own horns. But, you know, it’s part of their charm. This isn’t boredom really, but she’s heard some version of these stories already.

He walks in. Half the joint notices him, then dismisses him in a quick breath. He obviously didn’t get the memo, sticking out with his jeans and flannel in the black clad NY crowd. His sneakers squeak as he surveys the room and begins to meander with what looks like intent.

With a spine shiver, a Jekyll-to-Hyde quake overtakes her. Her posture shifts from lazy to alert, tracking him like prey thru the room. Lips parted and almost panting, she pushes off the wall with her elbow and sashays across the room to unheard burlesque music, coming to an aggressive halt inches from him. Hip cocked, head tilted, she drawls, “You look lost.” He chuckles and rubs the gruff scruff on his chin. She purrs“Careful. Someone might mistake you for a puppy and take you home.”

Fat Girl in her La-Z-Boy and Fit Girl on her spin bike scream in unison “No she didn’t!” Shock and awe abounding, Fat Girl and Fit Girl both marvel at the emergence of this new character that apparently inhabits my head. Hello Fabulous Girl

You see, I’ve never really felt sexy. I’ve never really felt like a femme fatal who could command a room with the power of her hips and cleavage. Sure, I’ve felt confident. Sure, I’ve felt moments of being rash and bold and all full of moxy. But I’ve never really felt that breed of confidence where you can saunter across a room and know that you can ask for exactly what you want and know that you’ll get it. Well, I guess this will be fun to explore.

I feel like I have a lot to catch up on this blog after my Month o’Blahs. I have half-written posts and notes all over the place. I have successes to celebrate, failures to laugh at and never ending nonsense from the Crazy Fat Girl that lives in my head to share.

But before I get to that, I guess I should hit the gym huh?

Fat Girl, in Secret Agent mode, scans the terrain for hostiles. The buffet table is at 6 o’clock. Deserts staged at 4 o’clock. Nut bowl at 3.

Alert! Alert! Aunt Betty is circulating with a platter of pigs in blankets. Repeat! Pigs in blankets on the move!

Side stepping the incoming bogey, Fat Girls slides stealthily into the den. She’ll deal with the Weapons of Waistline Destruction (AKA Thanksgiving Dinner) later. A trickier and deadlier foe lies in wait ready to pounce and unleash the fury of hell itself in a quick snap and flash.

As cool and trained as she is, tension pulls Fat Girl wire tight. A bead of sweat forms at her temple. She knows the stakes. This ain’t her first rodeo. She’s failed in the past. The thought of getting tagged instantly and publicly sends a shiver down her spine. Fat Girl steadies herself with a piggie, and clicks on the HUD display in her sexy librarian glasses.

Red warning lights explode like Christmas lights. No, wait, with a peak over her glasses, those are just plain old Christmas lights. My bad. A scan of the room produces 2 iPhones, a Blackberry, a smart phone of undetermined make, an Olympus FE-280 8 megapixel 3X optical zoom. Eep. Small, quietly and deadly. But manageable given the target rich environment of couches and arm chairs to hide behind. Fat Girl’s eyes backtrack to the desk.

For the love of all that is good and fattening. It can’t be. Fat Girl pales, the blood draining past her knees that turned to jelly. Warning alarms explode in her head.

Mayday. Mayday. Code RED! Repeat Code RED! Implement anti-camcorder protocols STAT. Get out of there Secret Agent Fat Girl. Abort. ABORT! Get OUT! Dear God, save us!

The alarm shrieks in her head dull to a low rumble. She grits her teeth to quell the shakes. She reaches for a cocktail napkin to dab at the rivulet of sweat now running from her temple (after eating the 2 pigs in blankets of course as they were deployed upon the needed napkin. She’ll need her strength for the coming battle of course. There no time to count points now). Coolly, despite her heart thundering in her chest, Fat Girl assess her resources and tactical options.

Sports and politics are always handy diversions. You could always stir up Yankees vs. Mets drama in a NY household with out too much collateral damage. Popping another piggie, Fat Girl chews over the alternatives. She mulls the ultimate fail safe option – ‘Accidental’ Breakage. Could she go there? Would all her training fail her at the last moment? “Tactical success in the field is often the result of exploiting moments of chance and happenstance.” At the very moment Fat Girl resolves to break her uncle’s camcorder on purpose rather than face seeing images of herself plastered on Facebook, Aunt Betty glides into the room with a platter of cookies so tall the Colossus would turn green. Diving through this window of opportunity, Fat Girl springs into action by re arranging the desk to clear space for the cookies. The camcorder is now neutralized behind the poinsettia and the framed picture of Rufus the cat with Santa. Two celebratory cookies later and Fat Girl gears up for the Annual Battle of the Pies.

For 30 years, I’ve come up with super creative, Ninja-like ways to not be photographed.

“No no, it’s fine. You get in there. I’ll take the photo.”

“Here. Come stand in front of me. I’m taller.”

“I’m having a bad hair day, take the picture later!”

“What if I peeked around the corner of this wall and just my nose was peeping out. That would be so artistic!”

You’d think I was a spy, hoping to erase all photographic evidence of myself. Seeing myself in photographs pushes ever self conscious button I have. I’ve lost 6 dress sizes and I still want to throw up every time a camera is pointed towards me.

A few months ago I visited a friend up in Boston. He owns a photography studio (Shameless plug, if you need pictures, ImagineNext.com are the people to contact!) and he’s tried to convince me for years to get in front of his camera. I have always slipped out of that, never giving an out right no. You see, to me, the image of who I am and what I look like in my head is radically different from what I see in photographs. So when I’m confronted with what I see in a photograph, I’m shocked back into reality and go to “Not-Enough-Land” where I’m not thin enough, or pretty enough, my hair is not straight enough. It never occurs to me in that moment to call up an image of what IS enough. It never occurs to me that I’m comparing myself to completely fictional image that doesn’t exist and isn’t defined. All I know is that it’s not enough.

I got an email with the pictures in it and it took me a full 5 days to open it. All this work I’ve done on myself to get comfortable with who I am right now, in this moment, in this reality, splintered apart with a single mouse click. I downloaded the pictures and was instantly horrified by how fat I looked and walked away from my computer.

It took me 2 more days to really settle in and look at the pictures. And I do look fat in those pictures. Those pictures were taken 20 pounds ago. Those pictures are not what is so in this reality, in this moment in time, they are a wee slice of the oh so recent past. It both amuses me and saddens me that all I could see upon first glance were my chubby arms and my poofy tummy. I look great in these photos despite the 20 lbs and the chubby arms and the tummy poof. My crazy inner Fat Girl has to learn how to get a grip on what is the actualy state of affairs in this moment in time. And for now, I’m going to take a break from photography. Whew. Oh, yeah, here’s the pictures..

OM

The Grass IS greener on the other side

I should have put the flowers in my hair

I’ve been down lately and very quiet, not just on this blog but in my life. Phone calls are un-returned, emails aren’t even opened. I’d start writing a post and delete it rather quickly knowing that the crankiness flowing from my fingertips didn’t serve me, or my readers, or whatever it is I’m trying to do here. These posts were pure woe-is-me that didn’t even make me feel better.

A good portion of the blahs are fueled by the Holidays and the cold (oy, I hate the cold). Let’s face it, when you’re single, you don’t have kids AND you work in retail, the holiday season loses its sparkle and magic. The holidays morph into something to endure, to survive, to get through.

And that’s been my life for a while now. Surviving. Getting through it. Waiting for X to happen -

“When I lose the weight I’ll…”

“Why bother doing X when I’m going to be moving at some point?”

“When I get a new job, I’ll…”

It’s like I’m in a holding pattern, stuck in some cosmic airport lounge waiting for my indefinitely delayed flight and the batteries of my laptop have died and I’ve run out of knitting. There’s nothing to do but wait for that flight for the adventure to start.  And I’m not sure how to change that.

I get that I don’t have to wait to lose weight to be the person that I want to be when I lose weight. Happiness is not contingent upon a number on the scale. I get that I don’t have to have a boyfriend to experience love in my life.

That all takes work and effort. And frankly, I’ve been pooped. There have been days that I’ve been too crazed and cranky to find matching socks, so generating creative energy  was a bit of a stretch. But I’ve had enough of the blahs. This year is going to be about sidestepping that and getting to where I want to be.

I am not doing new year’s resolutions this year.

I have goals.

I have plans.

I have a few tricks up my sleeve.

Watch out 2011. Here I come.

A few months ago I joked that for New Year’s Eve I wanted a date, a trip and a size 10 dress.

I got the dress.

1 out of 3 ain’t bad.