I looked in the mirror this morning as I was getting dressed and I’m sure it was tampered with. This is not how I looked yesterday, I swear! Yesterday I wore the slim blue pants and pink blouse and everything looked tucked in, pulled together and altogether lovely (if I do say so myself)! Even my hair looked good! Today, it seems, is another story. These black dress pants don’t look the same and this blue shirt is not cutting it. Or rather, it is cutting it – me! – in half. The button at the waist is straining and where did this roll of fat come from overnight that is threatening to obscure my view of my feet? This shirt is only helping to make that unidentifiable roll look more like a sausage. How did this happen in one day?! I wrack my brain and do a one minute review of my own show, “Everything I Ate Yesterday”.
Yesterday went like this: I started out the day well: bowl of oatmeal w/ blueberries, cup of coffee and small glass of orange juice. By the time the staff meeting rolled around I was hungry and had forgotten to bring my piece of fruit so I only had half a donut provided at the meeting and it wasn’t even cream filled, so it couldn’t be that. When the meeting broke up I went to lunch with several of my co-workers, even though I packed my own, but it was so much fun to go out for a change and we shared some laughs during lunch and I know I ordered the pasta alfredo instead of the heart healthy lunch but only because I didn’t want the group to think I was being ‘too good’ but I didn’t eat the WHOLE plate, I brought home about a ¼ of it and then we all shared the chocolate lava cake and I only got about 3-4 bites of it, so it couldn’t be what I had for lunch. Then it was Steve’s birthday and the boss brought in a cake but I made sure only to have a small slice because when I declined the others gave me such a hard time for not joining in the fun, but I’m sure it wasn’t that either. I was going to go to the gym after work and I had my gym bag but forgot my workout shoes and by the time I ran home to get them I knew that by the time I got back to the gym all the machines would be occupied and besides I had forgotten to take something out of the freezer for dinner so I knew I had to get something going for the family so I thought if I just did a 10 minute walk that would help but when I went to change I decided to throw in a load of wash and then I had to check on the pots on the stove and by that time it was too late for a walk and we all sat down to dinner and even though I was going to skip dinner to make up for lunch it smelled good so I was only going to have a small helping and I didn’t mean to but I had a second small helping and then since I had blown the whole day I split a bowl of ice cream with my 10 year old but surely that wasn’t enough to make my pants not fit today…….
Oh, God! Why am I so weak and such a loser!? Why can’t I just stick to a diet and look like the models in the fitness magazine? It’s not hard for them, they make everything look so easy! Losing weight is so hard and it takes so long and I just don’t have the willpower to stick with it. I know I said last Christmas that by this Christmas I’d look better but it’s just not happening. I did try for almost 2 months! Maybe I should just give up and accept that I’m never going to be thin or fit, that I’m just going to be fat the rest of my life. Really, is being fat so bad? So what if I don’t wear a size 5, or 8 or even a 10, at least I can still bend over and tie my shoes and even if I can’t go up and down the stairs without huffing and puffing I can still do lots of other things even if I can’t think of them right now. I’ll just try not to look in mirrors too often and definitely not let anyone take my picture. Who would want a picture of me anyway, I’m such a fat loser! Maybe I’ll just go to that weight loss clinic down the street and see if I can get on their program where they give you injections of hormones to lose weight. That’s got to work, right? It would be so much easier than actually having to watch what I eat and find time for exercise. I mean, really, who has the time to always be watching what they eat and working out? The last time I dieted and lost weight, even though I got down a few sizes, I still didn’t look like the models, so why bother? I mean, what’s the point if I’m just never going to look like the pictures in the magazines or on the billboards? Should I even try today? Maybe I’ll just wait til next Sunday and then try again. What difference will a few more days make? Oh, God, Is this what Laura meant when she told me I spiral out of control? Easy for her to say, she’s a size 6. I have got to pull myself together and leave for work! Maybe if I call her on my way she can give me some dieting advice. Meantime, I only have time for a poptart for breakfast. I wish I could lose weight!
by Margy Bartley, Spencer Institute graduate