The Fat Chick Speaks

Weight Loss Counselor: So, Deanna, if you continue in your current habits, where do you see yourself a year from now?

Me: Dead.


Morbid? Yes. Exaggeration? Not so much. As stated before, many moons ago when I gave Weight Watchers my 14th try, this is not a weight loss blog. Chronicling the ebb and flow of the number on the scale and blogging about every morsel that passes my lips is not the point of this venture. But it's worth mentioning that my weight is something I've struggled with my whole life, starting when I was about 10 years old. I put up a humorous, Roseann-esque front about it most of the time (like yesterday when I pointed out the irony of the shirt I was wearing - it had whales on it), but deep inside I've always known it would be my demise if not lassoed and corralled for good.

When I was in my 20's, weight loss came easily. Weight gain came easier. I bounced up and down the scale at astonishing speeds. And then when I turned 30, it was like I could hear the audible grinding halt of my metabolism, damaged by years of yo-yo-ing and a myriad of eating disorders, and I've done little else but pack on weight ever since. I'm not going to crunch numbers here, or reveal how much I actually weigh, but I will say that I am officially 108 pounds heavier than I was six years ago, and the most I've ever weighed in my life. Somewhere in those six years I lost about 40 pounds, and put it back on, then lost 35, and put that back on even faster. And while it's been weighing heavy on my mind (nice pun, ha, I kill me!) these last few months, Bill's death last month was the wake-up call I needed. Bill wasn't even overweight, but it brought to light the fact that if I could lose two acquaintances and nearly lose another - all under 40 - to heart attacks, then it wasn't so far-reaching to think that I, myself, weighing over 100 pounds more than I should - could be on a mortician's slab before long. I'm not "obsessed with death," as has been charged by some; I'm simply faced with my own mortality.

I will confess that I waxed poetic about the futility of life for a while after Bill died, thinking, "wow, what's the point if I eat this donut or not...I could drop dead in the street tomorrow anyway." Yet if I'm going to be found dead on the street, I don't want to weigh so much that they need a fucking piano crane to lift me up into the coroner's wagon. I'd also like to lose some weight so that I have the energy to clean my house before I drop dead and end up with one of my friends or family members saddled with the task.

So. Yeah. I joined Whoopi's ranks today and signed on with L.A. Weight Loss. In the last 20 years or so, I've tried Weight Watchers (several times) and various offshoots like dear old Ida's Ideal Weight Program (several times). I've done the Idiot's Diet, the Grapefruit Diet, the Hollywood Diet (oh, yuck), pills, pills, and more pills, from quack mail-order shit from the back of Cosmo to Metabolife to prescriptions like Meridia and Phentermine. I've consumed enough Slim-Fast to drown an entire small nation in artificial vanilla flavor. I've done protein shakes, South Beach, Beach Body, fasting, and some diet that a customer gave me to try. Some of these plans have worked. Some of them worked well. Others didn't work at all. But nonetheless, the weight always came back, and with a vengeance. I never tried Susan Powter's diet, but I can see now where the "Stop the Insanity!" sentiment comes from.

Anyway, this entry has gone on long enough. You get the point. I'm fat, and I'm trying to not be. But more than anything, I'm just trying not to be dead.