He’s baaaaack. Just like the commercial tells us he is. And earlier than ever, it seemed, this year.
I am speaking of the Cadbury Bunny, the adorable, cheeky rabbit who thinks he’s a chicken and goes “buck, buck, buck, buck” and gives us those most delightful of all candies: the Cadbury Easter Cream Egg. Brilliant marketing; brilliant candy.
Some of you people out there (most likely those annoying “normal” people who don’t fight food demons on a daily basis) are thinking, “Ick. Those things are so sweet.” But for me, that’s precisely the problem: those things are so sweet! Despite my obvious (and much spoken of) bread addiction, I also suffer from a sweet tooth. All those people in the world who go ga-ga over fine dark chocolate? Crazy. Why the hell would you eat dark chocolate?! It tastes like chalk! Chocolate is supposed to be sweet! And how about those people who walk into Tim Hortons and buy cake donuts? (I know you’re reading this, Dad!) Cake donuts?! Uh uh. You gotta get the yeast donuts because those are the sweet ones, the ones with all that fabulous icing on the top. Maple dip. Now that’s a donut! Boston cream—not only is that bad boy drenched in chocolate, but its middle is filled with sweet, gooey custard. (I really shouldn’t write before I’ve eaten. I’ve noticed that when I do, my entries tend towards the “food porn” side of things.) Hell, if Tim Hortons offered to sell the maple icing in a cup so you could skip the pesky donut and just indulge in the good part with a spoon, I’d buy it. (That’s another detail I probably should’ve left off. People I know read this and that’s kind of embarrassing. Oh well—it’s true. I would eat icing if they’d sell it to me; sue me.) And the best part about going to a fair? The cotton candy. Even as an adult, I couldn’t leave the PNE in Vancouver with a bag of pink cotton candy. (What does it say about you when you have a cotton candy flavour of preference?) Sadly (or happily, I suppose), I have not had cotton candy post-gastric bypass. Hell, my stomach will reject a package of Reese’s Pieces because of the overwhelming sweetness. I can just imagine the nightmare cotton candy would be!
I confess: I am a sweet freak. So it goes without saying that the Cadbury Easter Cream Egg is my all-time favourite candy. It starts with sweet, creamy MILK chocolate and ends with that fabulous sugary goo in the middle. And as it turns out (whether this is sadly or happily, I’ll let you decide), I can handle an Easter Cream Egg post-op. I guess, despite the uber-sweetness, that the portion size is such that it does not overwhelm my sensitive system. And at 180 calories, it’s not an unreasonable treat—for the normal people who can stop there.
I can tell you that while one Easter Cream Egg is tolerated by my pouch, many are not. You see, they also make those tiny Cadbury Easter Cream Eggs. Deceptive little bastards. You think, “I’ll have one or two of those little guys. No big deal.” And once again, the normal people are nodding, saying, “Yeah, that sounds reasonable.” My fellow food addicts and I, on the other hand, are shaking our heads: “As if!” You just do not eat one or two. You eat many. And that is how I found out that while one 34g Easter Cream Egg is fine, beyond 34g leads to a session of bowing before the porcelain goddess.
The main problem with Easter Cream Eggs, or any other sugary treat, is that for the food addict, it just doesn’t stop there. Even if you only have one 34g egg, you will regret it later. It’s the damn carb cravings. If you have one sugary egg, you trigger your cravings. I’ve said it before and I will probably keep saying it until the day I die: that whole “everything in moderation” mantra is fine and dandy for normal people, but not us. A treat rarely stops there.
Fortunately for me, I entered the Easter season (while Easter itself is in April, the retailers started selling the candy in late January) better armed than usual. In January I went “back to basics” with my eating, shunning all refined carbs. I felt I was indulging too much and needed to reset my habits, and besides, I’m going to Hawaii in 10 days (not that I’m counting or anything…) and wanted to lose a few reacquired pounds. So at this point, I haven’t had refined carbs in 8 weeks. I am completely detoxed and have no cravings. If I want a snack, it’s because I’m actually hungry. And I have a piece of cheese.
But that stupid freakin’ Cadbury bunny almost got the best of me anyhow. I was at my local SuperStore buying a rotisserie chicken and a few other sensible, well-planned items (as planning is the key to eating well), when the aisle called me. They had a whole freakin’ aisle! The first half was Valentine’s crap and the second half was Easter crap. Anything your crap-craving heart could imagine and more. And I don’t exaggerate—it called me:
“Yoo hoo, Erin. The Cadbury Easter Cream Eggs are here. Come see!”
When an entire aisle calls your name, you listen. So I strolled on over and scanned all the wonderful options: Reese peanut butter eggs, spring-coloured Eggies, Peeps, and of course, Cadbury Easter Cream Eggs. In a flash, three weeks of carb-free detox evaporated as I stared longingly at the beckoning eggs. For 10 minutes. No exaggeration. Hopefully anyone who saw me standing that long in the candy section would just think I was being indecisive. I wish. Instead, a war was going on in my head between the “food devil” and the “food angel”:
Food devil: They’re only 180 calories each.
Food angel: Each being one. When have you ever stopped at one?!
Food devil: Look at how good you’ve been the last few weeks. You’re in complete control right now.
Food angel: Exactly! One egg and that’s blown all to hell. Oops. Pardon my language.
Food devil: They only come around once a year…
Food angel: They’ll still be here two months from now when you get back from Hawaii. If you still want one then, have it then.
Food devil: Two months?! You can’t wait two months for an Easter Cream Egg. You’ve already waited almost a year.
Food angel: You promised yourself you would eat well prior to the Hawaii trip. Think of how proud of yourself you will feel. Do you really want to blow it all only three weeks in? You know if you give in now, you won’t get back on track.
That last line won. I flicked the food devil off my shoulder and the angel and I strutted proudly to the produce section.
But what an epic battle. 10 minutes standing staring at the stupid Easter Cream Eggs. A grown woman, unable to resist candy. You have to give the folks at Cadbury credit. They have created a brilliant marketing scheme: a witty commercial with a likable, funny bunny who clucks like a chicken and lays eggs, along with that tag line guaranteed to add pressure to weak folks like me: but only until Easter. It makes me panic: Only until Easter?! Ah! I better get my fill now! I only have three months to enjoy them; I better take advantage! Marketing brilliance.
I may have won this battle, but others will follow. I cannot avoid the grocery store. This is why it is all the more important for me to be resolute in my rejection of treats. It is hard enough for me to be strong in the face of Cadbury-created adversity when I am detoxed. With treats in my blood, I don’t stand a chance.
I plan on letting myself enjoy my trip to Hawaii, including the food. Consequently I will return less prepared for battle. I hope I manage to find the strength to fend off that stupid clucking bunny.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhpqVpu-uYw
I cried when I watched this. I cried because I saw myself in him: I saw my past and I saw my future if not for bariatric surgery. I cried because I know how many people are laughing at him. I cried because I can’t help him.
I just got back from the grocery store. As I sit here, MacBook Pro on lap, I realize that I am not going to write about my originally planned topic. Because I can’t get the grocery store out of my head.
I don’t shop at a particularly unusual grocery store. It’s a little on the small side (retail square footage is expensive in the neighbourhood); it carries a lot of overpriced organic food to cater to the trendy people in yoga pants, carrying little dogs, who live in my neighbourhood; and it has friendly staff who really make it feel like a neighbourhood grocery store. But it could be any grocery store anywhere. And nothing out of the ordinary happened there or probably ever will happen there. Yet that simple trip to the grocery store has made me think a lot.
It’s a generally mundane activity that we do several times a week, whether we’re out for a big order on the weekend or popping by after work to pick up a few essentials. We do it without thinking. Except me. I can’t go to the grocery store without thinking.
First and foremost, I think about what I’m buying. It doesn’t matter if I’m being responsible or being a foolish twit ruled by emotions and abandoning all sense of self-control. Either way, I’m thinking. If I’m being the responsible Erin, like I have been lately, the thoughts in my head will be not unlike those of a drill sergeant, something like this:
Eyes on your list. You made a list so there will be no impulsive buys today. You have planned your meals; get what you need and get out. Immediately on your right as you enter the store you will find the tomatoes and the onions and the carrots and the celery. Check. Walk RIGHT ON past the bakery. Do NOT stop and look. Do NOT inhale. Do NOT think about that display of donuts on the left, especially the maple ones… Damn it! You looked! Get control of yourself and focus on the meat. The skinless chicken breasts are on sale and you need some. IGNORE THE BACON! Proceed to the dairy case. Check. Good job, soldier. Now make your way to the checkout via the far aisle where the frozen foods are. Do not, repeat: do NOT go near the middle aisles. Everything you need is on the periphery of the store. Grab a bag of frozen green beans from the freezer section and look straight ahead the remainder of the way. There are NO pizzas in those cases. There are NO pizzas in those cases. You’ve done well. As you wait in line, focus your attention on selecting a pack of gum, averting your eyes from the Snickers and Kit Kats.
When irresponsible Erin appears, thanks to either the gradual worsening of old habits or the appearance of smack-you-down stressors, and goes shopping, thoughts still turn to what is being bought, just with a different tone:
You need some bananas and some tomatoes, so get those. See? You’re not doing so badly. What’s that behind you? Cherry pie is on sale. At that price, you should have one. Oh! Fresh everything bagels. It’s not so bad to eat bagels once in a while. Everything in moderation, right? You should pick up some bacon. After all, fat isn’t really your weakness; carbs are. (Try not to think about the bagels and the pie as you talk yourself into a pack of bacon.) Since we’re getting bacon, we should get some bread. A bacon and tomato sandwich would be nice. You know, as a treat. Everything in moderation, right? I wonder if they have that Unico pasta on sale. I don’t really need it, but this is the only store that carries it and I should grab a box if it’s on sale. And since I’m having bagels this weekend anyhow, I might as well have some pretzels to snack on. You know, get it all over at once and get it out of my system. And I have a pretty busy week coming up and I won’t have the energy to do much cooking. So I should probably pick up some “emergency pizzas.” The line-up is long. I shouldn’t come at 4:30. Look—Snickers bars are two for $2. That’s a good deal. One Snickers bar as an afternoon snack won’t be so bad. Everything in moderation, right?
That’s an exaggeration. I don’t (usually) buy that much bad stuff in one visit. But you get the point: the food decision-making part of my brain comes up with some weird strategies and is always actively trying to convince the money decision-making part of my brain that I should buy stuff that the health decision-making part of my brain knows we shouldn’t have. If only all sections of my brain could cooperate a little better!
So grocery shopping is a bi-polar experience. Sometimes I’m right on top of things, list in hand, disciplined enough to make nothing but good decisions. Other times, not so much. You can generally tell how my life is going by what’s in my grocery cart. I am two people. And sometimes I wonder if the other shoppers can hear the voices that follow me around the store. 
So that’s one kind of thinking that accompanies a trip to the grocery store: what am I buying. The other thoughts are of anger and guilt. Yeah, I know. It’s just a stupid trip to a stupid grocery store… But I find I get really angry. Angry about how much more money it costs to eat well. As part of a New Year’s resolution, I have been keeping an eagle eye on my spending, and I am shocked at how much I spend on food. I spend fully 50% more in a month than I estimated I do. How could my guess have been so inaccurate?! The thing is, I’m not eating a lot, so I assumed I didn’t spend much. But I am eating well. And that’s expensive. It would be so much cheaper to make a box of Kraft Dinner (Mac and Cheese for my American readers) or eat a couple bowls of cereal like I did in university. But we all know where that leads. (It leads to the bariatric surgeon!) Meat and produce and dairy and nuts, staples in a balanced, healthy diet, are more expensive. And is it just me, or has produce really gone up the past year or so? I can hear my spoiled rotten inner child starting a rant: It’s not fair! Why should it cost me so much more to buy what’s good for me? Hell, they should be paying me every time I eat a salad! Isn’t it bad enough that donuts and I have had to go our separate ways? Now my money and I, too? But I guess I should be grateful at least for the fact that I can afford the healthy food. We know obesity is a disease that disproportionately affects the poor. And there are a lot of neighbourhoods where there aren’t grocery stores catering to yoga pant-wearing yuppies with small dogs. Just McDonald’s or 7/11. Maybe society ought to care a little more about facts like that.
Another reason my trips to the grocery store make me feel angry is because they serve to remind me how messed up I am. Normal people—I don’t think—don’t have either a drill sergeant or a spoiled child following them up and down the aisles. Normal people walk into a grocery store, get what they need and leave. And if they do happen to buy a Snickers bar, they don’t beat themselves up emotionally all the way home. This is why the grocery store causes me thoughts of guilt; guilt for not being perfect or disciplined or normal, or whatever it is that I’m not. Normal people can do things in moderation. Trips to the grocery store just remind me that I can’t.
I can’t go shopping without a list.
I can’t have occasional treats—they lead to always treats.
I can’t ever for the rest of my life just shop and eat like a normal person and have a chocolate bar if I feel like it and eat bacon on Sundays and throw a pizza in the oven when I’m busy and look up and down all the aisles to see what catches my fancy and not have to obsess every freakin’ waking second of my life over what I’m eating and what I shouldn’t eat.
Stupid grocery store.
Oh the sacrifices we make for bettering our lives!
If your life were about to change forever, you’d do something special, wouldn’t you? The day before you took a huge leap into the unknown, you’d engage in some sort of symbolic, meaningful activity, wouldn’t you? So how did I spend the day before my gastric bypass, the day before I would undergo life-changing surgery?
On the toilet.
Gastric bypass, of course, involves the gastrointestinal tract, and so to avoid infection (not to mention grossness for the poor OR team!), said tract needs to be cleaned out. There are two approaches surgeons take to accomplish this: some surgeons require their patients to go on a “liquids only” diet for one-two weeks; some require their patients to do a “cleanse” the day before with the help of oral enema and laxatives. Neither sounds particularly pleasant: starve for two weeks or poop all day. As unpleasant as it was, I think I’m glad I was instructed to poop. As you’ve seen from my pre-op behaviour, I don’t think I could have gone liquid only pre-op.
I guess in a way the bowel cleanse was my final rite of passage. Here, in a nutshell, is how it works: at noon, you drink the first “dose.” I used two products: Fleet and Citro-mag. Because it has been almost eight years, I cannot remember which came first. But I will NEVER forget the results.
If you recall, I was not at home, but rather cooped up in a cheap motel in Victoria. But I guess if there was ever a day you wanted to be alone, this is the one. If you further recall, I had spent the days before engaging in an orgy of “one last times,” eating anything and everything. I would pay the price for this behaviour.
So I took that first dose at noon. If it was the Fleet, it was the most disgusting substance I’d ever tasted. (At this point, I hadn’t tried liquid iron yet! Or the myriad of disgusting protein powders that would end up being projectile spat across my kitchen. Or clam chowder. Blech!) And I waited. I really didn’t know what to expect, beyond some ominous advice: when you feel you need to go to the bathroom, get to the bathroom. STAT!
So I propped myself up on the uncomfortable motel bed with the 70’s bedspread and grabbed a book. It took not long, maybe half an hour, and I started to rumble. While disturbing, in a black comedy kind of way, I found it funny. My intestinal tract was alive!
Heeding my friend’s advice, I scooted right quick to the toilet. And it began. I shall spare you the gross-out details, but let’s just say I’d had a similar experience once in Mexico.
Along with the laxative, you are also instructed to drink four glasses of water in an hour to help “flush” things along. And throughout the day you are only allowed clear liquids and Jell-o. Because I planned this day with my pre-op brain, I had plenty to get my through the day: apple juice, ginger ale, chicken broth, and a rainbow of Jell-o cups. If I’d known then what I know now, I’d have bought less.
The afternoon progressed something like this: read a few pages, get up (quickly!), spend some time on the john, return to the bed, get up (quickly!) again, and so on and so on and so on. Sadly, as this was eight years ago, this was long before the days of ubiquitous laptop ownership and wi-fi in the hotel. That would have made the day better. Then again, maybe that isn’t the experience you wanna share on Facebook! lol
Fortunately, I was provided with a great distraction: the TV cabinet was placed just in the right place so that if I turned the set just right, I could see it from the toilet. This was early March; Canadian sports fans know what that means: the Brier! For those poor souls who don’t know what that means, it is the Canadian Men’s Curling Championship. It may be dorky, but curling is my second favourite sport to watch (after baseball, which in Canada, may be considered MORE dorky than watching curling). So there I sat, “cleansing” my intestinal tract and watching curling at a funny angle in a sketchy motel room. Hardly the auspicious “day before my life changed” celebration I would have asked for…
A couple hours later (like I said, it was eight years ago, so my memory of the nitpicky details is fuzzy—could have been two hours, could have been three or four), I took dose number two. If the Fleet tasted disgusting, the Citro-mag actually managed to be a worse experience. First of all, the Fleet was a small bottle. The Citro-mag was the size of a can of pop (soda for my American readers ). And the texture can best be described as disturbing. It wasn’t entirely liquid. It was viscous. Ick! But I got it down. And the rumbling continued.
After a certain point, I actually started to regret all that eating I’d done the previous two days. I have friends who actually managed to get some control of their eating pre-op; some even managed to lose some weight. I am betting they had a significantly less horrible bowel cleansing experience than did I. (I can just see that as customer feedback card from the manufacturers of Fleet: Did you enjoy your bowel cleansing experience with us today?) I even stopped eating the Jell-o. After all, what goes in, must come out.
One piece of advice I would offer to anyone who has to undergo this “experience”: Get yourself some Penaten diaper cream. To relieve the burning. ‘Nuff said. Anyhow, I didn’t have any diaper cream, and I was getting pretty sick of the whole thing. So I stopped putting anything into my system. I’d had quite enough “flushing,” thank you very much.
That afternoon Mom and Dad arrived in Victoria. They would be, as usual, my support. My ride to the hospital. My cheerleaders. My babysitters for the voyage home. They checked into their room and popped by for a visit. I chatted briefly at the door, wondering how much time I had before the next round. I didn’t dare invite them in. Who wants company during that experience, even your parents?! I bid them farewell until the morning, not even thinking about how lucky they were that they got to go out somewhere for dinner. I didn’t even want to put Jell-o into my body!
As afternoon turned into evening, I started to wonder if I was going to be able to get some sleep. Would it ever stop?! Damn that 11:55PM pizza and donut that I just couldn’t say no to. Boy was I paying the price for my gluttony.
I am pleased to report that my last visit to the throne was approximately 9:00PM. After that I lay on the bed, feeling more optimistic with each minute that passed that I was done. I picked up my book, the curling long over, and tried not to think about tomorrow. Although the intestinal rumblings were finally over, as you may well imagine, I didn’t sleep much that night.
As I sit at home sick with my best friend (my MacBook pro), I am enjoying reading the coverage of this morning’s Oscar nominations. As I revealed in my “Kathy Bates” entry a couple weeks ago, I love movies. Good movies. So the Oscars are a big deal. The one day of the year when we pretentious film snobs get to thumb our noses at those of you who pay to see all those dumb superhero movies and relentless sequels. Can you say “unoriginal drivel”?
Of course the big news is always “who got nominated when they didn’t deserve to get nominated” (Hello, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close! It doesn’t even have a passing score on Rotten Tomatoes. EW.com calls it “treacly pablum.” But it stars two of the most likable people in Hollywood and it’s serious and about 9/11, so we better pretend it’s good…) and who got truly snubbed (Hello, Trent Reznor!).
So I click to the “snubs and surprises” slideshow, and whose is the first picture I see? Melissa McCarthy. She is surprise #1. Now as a film fan, I know that a big part of the surprise is that she appeared in a comedy. And comedies rarely get them some Oscar love. However, the exception is generally in the supporting roles. That is the one place the Oscars seem to feel comfortable rewarding comedic performances: Whoopi Goldberg in Ghost, Marissa Tomei in My Cousin Vinny, Cuba Gooding, Jr. in Jerry Maguire. Lots of precedent there. So while I guess it should come as no surprise that Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close got nominated in the BIG category instead of the decidedly low-brow Bridesmaids, it should surprise no one that Melissa McCarthy was nominated for her supporting performance.
She was brilliant. She stole the movie despite her supporting role status (something she has in common with past winners Goldberg, Tomei and Gooding). Any review or article you read about Bridesmaids singled her out. She rocked that movie! The reason she is such a standout in that film is something she shares with Rooney Mara, who was my favourite “surprise nominee” for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo: She completely let herself give into the role for the sake of the movie. No inhibitions. No holding back. No typical Hollywood preoccupation with being beautiful on the big screen. Hell, if the Academy rewarded Nicole Kidman for being “brave” enough to don a prosthetic nose, they ought to shower McCarthy and Mara with trophies! Forget a mere rubber nose—remember that outfit McCarthy wore on the plane with that stupid hat? Those too-short pants that aren’t quite capris, with those sandals? No makeup throughout the movie? Those facial expressions? Talk about glamming down! I put her in the same “BRAVE, BRAVE, BRAVE” category as Kathy Bates for that nude hot tub scene. McCarthy has the self-confidence to completely let her guard down in order to entertain us. She took a poop in the sink, people! I bet Nicole Kidman would NEVER do that.
Unfortunately, a large part of me thinks the “surprise” comes from the fact that Melissa is an obese actress. (Of course it’s sadly surprising that she even has a career in the first place…) Hollywood likes beautiful people. And only skinny people are beautiful. That’s why all the fuss over Nicole Kidman as Virginia Woolf: a beautiful (skinny) woman was willing to make herself unattractive for two hours. Give that woman an Oscar! But really, Nicole Kidman with a fake big nose is still Nicole Kidman. The nose was only temporary. When she showed up on the red carpet, she was still her usual stunning, elegant (skinny) self.
(It must’ve been a tough decision for the Oscar voters that year: Salma Hayek was also nominated for her performance as Frida Kahlo—a gorgeous woman was willing to don a giant bushy unibrow! Nominate her! Actually, in this case I should be nicer. I adore Salma Hayek, thought her performance was awesome and brave, and give her props for her status as a success in Hollywood without being a stick. But we all know Julianne Moore should’ve won that year for Far From Heaven. Sadly, she could not compete with Nicole Kidman’s nose.)
But Melissa McCarthy? It’s one thing for her to be fat in the movie. After all, it’s a comedy and fat people are supposed to make us laugh. No, I suspect the real fear is that an obese woman is crashing the red carpet glam party. Nicole Kidman’s nose was left behind in the garbage (or whatever happens to fake body parts after a movie wraps) and her pert little nose is what showed up at the Oscars. Melissa McCarthy is still obese and will still be obese on Oscar night. And morbidly obese at that! So much of the Oscars has shifted from the recognition of good films to “what’s she wearing?!” that the red carpet is its own entity. There’s more hype before about who will be there and what they will wear, and more attention afterwards to who looked best and who looked worst, than attention for the actual awards. It’s an industry unto itself. And it’s about beauty. No one will admit it (I guess that’s progress), but you know damn well the networks and the fashionistas and the Academy itself don’t want obese people on the red carpet. No one cares what they’re wearing. Obese isn’t part of the Hollywood dream. No one buys dresses seen on fat people.
What perplexes me is that none of this makes business sense. People aren’t buying dresses seen on fat people because there are no dresses seen on fat people. But you know, there are a lot of obese women out there who might see Melissa McCarthy on the red carpet and say, “You know, I like that dress. I wonder if I could get that for cousin Gloria’s upcoming wedding?” More than 30% of American women are obese. That’s a huge (no pun intended) untapped market. If the red carpet is about marketing fashion trends, somebody’s REALLY missing a money-making boat.
(I’m in no way one of those people who says we should “celebrate” obesity. It is not healthy to be obese and we should all strive to be healthy. Likewise, anorexic is unhealthy and should not be celebrated. We should all strive to be healthy. However, we should also not discriminate. If someone is talented, their size should not be a barrier to a career or to recognition.)
The other reason the powers that be don’t want fat people on the red carpet is that Hollywood is in the business of selling dreams. But you know, people also get tired of being sold a load of garbage. Who the hell dreams about being dangerously thin?! I myself was too distracted by thoughts of “God, somebody please get Keira Knightley a sandwich!” to fully appreciate Atonement, an otherwise great movie. Ask the man in your life who’s more attractive: the Olsen sisters or Salma Hayek? Look how much money Tyler Perry movies make. They’re not particularly good movies, but they’re among the only movies featuring more than one token African-American actor. People like to see themselves represented. And you know what, Hollywood? There are a lot of fat people out there. Fat people with money to spend on movies. I’m not saying I want obesity to be the new anorexic, but it would be nice, at the very least, to believe that obesity isn’t the obvious obstacle to success that it is now. There is no way, in a country where more than 60% of the population is overweight, there are only a handful of fat people with enough talent to make it in the movies.
So on Oscar night, you know I’ll be watching the Oscars. And I’ll also be watching the red carpet to see what everyone’s wearing. First off, let’s be honest, I wanna ogle George Clooney in his tux. 
Secondly, I appreciate a little fantasy, dreaming about what it must be like to wear outfits that cost more than we public schoolteachers make in a month. But I look forward to seeing what everyone wears, not just the anorexic young white women. I wanna see what Meryl Streep is wearing. I wanna see what Viola Davis is wearing. And I wanna see what Melissa McCarthy is wearing. And I wanna see her proud smiling face and her self-confident morbidly obese self working that red carpet. And when the awards are announced, I’ll be rooting for Melissa McCarthy. Not because the obese girl in me wants to see the obese girl get some Oscar lovin’, but because this year, she gave the best performance by a supporting actress. And at the end of the day, isn’t that what we want: people judged for their merit?
Readers, I have just been through hell. Life has sucked, I’ve had headaches, and I’m sure my grouchiness has alienated all who know me. These past couple weeks your normally jovial blogger turned into a short-tempered monster with a hair-trigger temper. I’m certain I have recently spent so much time scowling that I have new permanent wrinkles on my already ageing face. I was misery personified, and if you’d looked at me wrong, I may very well have been capable of grievous violence.
Yes, readers, I have just gone through carb detox. And it was a nightmare.
Faced with some seasonal weight gain (a clever euphemism for “I ate too much crap in December”), on top of a particularly stressful fall (which makes me run to the comforts of food), I found myself among the many as January started: I needed to lose some weight. Of course my normal practice as a conscientious post-op is to be mindful of when my jeans are getting a little tight and when my habits are getting a little dubious and correct matters. But this time the matter is more pressing. My darling boyfriend surprised me this Christmas with a trip to Hawaii in Spring Break. After the OMG! euphoria wore off, however, reality hit. Hawaii means summer clothes, and right now, I definitely have a “winter clothes” body—one that benefits from layers and baggy sweaters. I did some quick math and figured out I had a little over two months to get rid of about 10-15 pounds of re-acquired blubber. Not a huge dilemma; I know how to do it. Problem is, the first week is all kinds of horrible.
My regular readers will already know that I believe the road to hell is paved with refined carbs. (Note: The body needs carbs; in fact, around half your calories should come from carbs. But they should be from fruits, vegetables, dairy, nuts and seeds. When I use the term “carbs” in this blog, I am referring to the processed grains that wreak havoc on our blood sugar.) It is carbs that will derail our success. They are insidious, evil and destructive—but oh so yummy! It all starts out quite innocently: a whole wheat tortilla here, a piece of toast there, maybe a raspberry muffin from Tim Hortons… Then before you know it, there are bagels in your shopping cart. That is the sign that my eating patterns have gone off the rails: bagels. And I don’t even buy the smaller ones. Or even the whole grain ones. Nope. I buy big-ass “everything” bagels—white flour seasoned with onions and garlic and sprinkled with poppy seeds. Great big balls of gloriously unhealthy refined carbs. (Though truth be told, I don’t really think we’re much better off with the whole wheat ones. They’re only marginally better on the GI index. They turn to sugar in our blood almost as alarmingly fast as the white ones. Wheat is really the worst grain product we eat.) The more work that has been done to a food product before you put it into your body, the less work your body has to do to process it. So it becomes glycogen (blood sugar) quite quickly, and is burned off quite quickly, and you are hungry again quite quickly. And fatter more quickly.
That is why refined carbs are evil. In and of themselves, they aren’t high in calories. In fact, of the macro-nutrients (fat, protein and carbs—the part of our food where calories exist), fat is highest in calories. But fat isn’t what’s making us fat, because fat is more slowly absorbed and will keep us full longer. (Unless of course you eat a lot of it. Then because it’s so much more calorie-dense, you will become so much more dense. So easy on the bacon. Plus too much saturated fat is bad for your heart and arteries.)
Take for example those popular “100 calorie snack packs.” A 100 calorie pack of crackers and a 100 calorie pack of almonds are not the same thing—no matter what the marketing dweebs want you to think: Try it! It’s only 100 calories. Go on—indulge! If they sound like drug pushers, it’s because they are. That 100 calorie pack of crackers may take the edge off, but before long you will be looking around for another hit because your body burned through those crackers like a match to tissue paper. Most crackers actually have a higher GI rating than actual table sugar. This means crackers will be turned into sugar in your blood faster than sugar. This is because, as I said, your body needs to do so very little work to process them. They’ve already had the stuffing processed out of them. On the other hand, the 100 calorie pack of almonds are high in fibre and their calories come from protein and (healthy) fat. Plus they haven’t been processed by the outside world. Consequently, they take a lot longer to be processed inside you. So they make you feel full longer. And keep you regular.
Eight years ago, as a pre-op, I hadn’t even heard of a macro-nutrient. I knew not of glycogen. I was blissfully ignorant of what I was putting into my body and what it really needed instead. And I was dying because of it. Along my bariatric journey, however, experience has taught me a lot. First of all, in those early days when you only eat 600-900 calories a day, you need to make those calories count, so you learn to appreciate nutrient-dense food and you pay attention to what is in your food. How can I get enough protein? Which foods are a good source of calcium? Furthermore, when constipation is a daily concern, you learn the true value of fibre, fibre, fibre. And best of all, when your re-wired digestive tract leaves you hyper-vulnerable to the fluctuations of blood sugar, you learn the real meaning of the glycemic index. We metabolize food quicker, leaving us vulnerable to hypoglycemia. If a food is quickly absorbed in a regular person, it is more quickly absorbed in us. For this reason, our blood sugar can plummet easily—all the more reason to eat more protein (the macro-nutrient that takes the longest to break down) and to eat regularly. If we eat too much processed food or don’t eat often enough, we easily find ourselves fuzzy and light-headed. I don’t even need to look foods up on the GI index; my body tells me what has a high score. (High score = bad) I know what foods to avoid if I don’t want to be dizzy, pale and desperate for orange juice an hour and a half later. (Ok, I’m pale no matter what I eat… But you get the point. I get paler. Yes, it’s possible.)
A few years ago I faced my first weight re-gain since surgery. I felt miserable and engaged in considerable self-flagellation (figurative self-flagellation, of course). I was a failure! And I’d been so sure I’d never have to diet again. Stupid hubris. But then I had an epiphany. (Ooh—epiphany and hubris in the same paragraph. I even blog like an English teacher…) It was so easy to follow my eating plan the first couple years post-op. So what was the difference? Why was I eating so much and gaining weight now? Stupid me had figured I was cured and bought into that “everything in moderation” bullshit, and I’d let carbs back into my life. And they took over. And I gained weight. And it sucked. So, I reasoned, if I wanted to get back in control again and lose weight, all I had to do was eat like I ate in the honeymoon phase. If it worked once, it would work again. And it did. I ate well. The pounds fell off. And the cravings went away—even that pesky desire to eat myself silly in the evening. In the end it was quite efficient and I was proud of myself, having been an abject failure at diets my whole life. But—and this is important— to get to “easy” and pounds falling off, you have to first make it through that initial week. And it almost damn near killed me. (Not killed me as in “death,” but killed me as in “I could kill you for eating pretzels in front of me.”)
Thus began January. (I actually began the second week of January. The first week I had a couple important social commitments as well as the first week back at school from vacation and felt it best that I not face these as a short-tempered shrew a breath away from homicide.) So thus began the second week of January.
Monday started with a glass of “Smurf juice”—bright blue Nectar crystal sky protein powder in a glass of cold water. (Start the day with protein and you’ll eat less the rest of the day. Start with Cheerios and you’ll end up eating yourself silly. Almost all cereal, including the so-called healthy ones, are “red lights” on the GI index. Cheerios are a bowl of sugar.) Tasted pretty good and filled me up physically. But my body wondered when it might be getting a muffin. So it sent me a headache to nag me a little. But I was strong and took the first of many doses of Tylenol. (Advil is more effective, but it can be hell on the stomach. And I knew since I was giving up carbs, I was definitely going to need my other drug: coffee. So I had to be kind to my fussy little ulcer-prone pouch.) Later in the morning I gave my body some carbs, but I ate it in fruit form. All that pesky fibre slows down the absorption. This is a good thing for your health, but a bad thing for a body tweaking for carbs. Where was the quick rush?!
When the lunch bell rang, my body, like Pavlov’s dog, perked up at the thought of a sandwich. Bread! it demanded. I ignored it and gave it turkey pepperoni, walnuts and crudités (pretentious French way of saying celery, carrots and broccoli). I think at this point my pride in my ability to say “Screw you!” to my cravings actually improved my mood. I wasn’t biting anyone’s head off yet.
Then I screwed up.
Some kids in my afternoon class were enjoying a nice snack: they had a brick of cheese, a package of crackers and some grapes. Knowing I keep a supply of plastic utensils in the class, they asked to borrow a knife to cut the cheese. (lol) Without thinking, I answered as I normally do, “As long as I get a piece.” (I think nothing of walking by a student and bumming a bite of whatever they’re snacking on. It’s a fair trade-off for the fact that I let them eat in class, I figure.) Of course a piece of cheese would have been no big deal. However, sweet as these young ladies were, they put it on a cracker for me. Poor naïve children thought they were being nice. In reality, they fucked me up. Without giving it a thought, I popped the cracker in my mouth. Within a nanosecond of swallowing it, the full extent of the error hit me. With one cracker I had just undone all the progress I’d made that day. I might as well have had a muffin for breakfast. I might as well have had a sandwich for lunch instead of my snobby French veggies. That one cracker would prolong my misery another day. The carbs were back in my system. Damn children. Why did they have to be so nice?! Why can’t I teach thoughtless, rotten children like everybody else?!
That night it took every ounce of willpower I had not to make a quesadilla for dinner. I wanted it soooooooo bad. In typical addict fashion, I started “reasoning” with myself:
You’ve already blown it. You might as well give in and have a tortilla and start again tomorrow. Besides, the tortilla is whole wheat—WAY better than that evil white Premium Plus you gave into this afternoon. If you already sinned REALLY badly, what’s a slightly lesser sin? We promise to make the headache go away if you have a tortilla. Think how good it’ll feel. You know you want it.
I did want it. Bad. But that’s precisely why I didn’t have it. I knew that if I had a quesadilla for dinner that night, I was back on the carb bandwagon. Back out of control. Back gaining weight instead of losing it. So I had a beef and tomato and onion stir-fry instead. With a side of Tylenol.
I woke up the next day determined to do better. I would not fall victim to any more kind offerings of saltines. I loaded my lunch bag with plenty of food to hopefully quell the carb-hungry beast inside of me: protein powder, a banana, cheese, walnuts, leftover beef and tomatoes, an orange, an apple, a container of yogurt and sunflower kernels. Part of the trick those first few days is to not worry about amount. Portion control eventually sorts itself out, but your body is so resolutely working against you, desperate for a fix, that you have to have lots to eat. It’s like how a junkie in withdrawal will have lots of sugar.
I made it through that day, but I was miserable. I had the shakes. I had yet another headache. I felt dizzy. And I was grumpy, grumpy, grumpy. A high school teacher with a short fuse is never a good thing. But I’m sure if I was unreasonably snappy with a student, they’d done something at some time to deserve it. Fortunately I can hide grumpy behind my normal “playful nastiness.” I’m so sarcastic that when I get grumpy and say nasty things, people just assume it’s sarcasm. Little do they know I’m meaning it this time…
I think if someone that first week had eaten a donut in front of me I very well might have snapped and killed them. Not even kidding. I purposely stayed away from Tim Hortons, denying myself the best coffee in the world because I just couldn’t face the row upon row of delicious deep fried refined carbs.
There were times I thought the whole world was against me. I invited myself to my parents’ house for dinner. (Tacky, but true.) I e-mailed Dad and said, “Wouldn’t a meatloaf taste great about now?” He knows to use extra-lean sirloin, and I was even forward enough to suggest what vegetables he might make. (He’s my dad; he has to love me. Impertinent warts and all.) He asked how I wanted my potatoes. I said I didn’t want potatoes—too high on the GI index. But I wasn’t worried about the temptation. I can live without potatoes; they don’t rock my world. But when I got there, what was staring at me from the middle of the dinner table, but a basket of fresh white buns. Damn it! It seems my sister and brother piggybacked on my meatloaf and invited themselves over for dinner. So Mom and Dad felt the need to set a proper table—including fresh buns. I admit I had to eat some extra meatloaf to quell the beast begging for just a taste of one of those buns. But an extra 100 calories of meatloaf is worth it to keep those damned refined carbs out of my system.
The other tough night was dinner out with my so-called friends. We have a regular restaurant that we love because it’s quirky (old-school diner), cheap and delicious—and conveniently located next to the movie theatre. But the food is what you’d expect at a diner. They have massive (cheap) homemade desserts. A grilled cheese sandwich that will bring tears to your eyes. And these giant homemade herb biscuits that come with the soup that are quite possibly the most delicious treat I’ve ever had outside of a donut shop. I made suggestions for other places that we might eat instead, but to no avail. The diner it was. I ordered the broccoli soup. And gave my biscuit away. I tear up just thinking about how hard that was. Watching someone else eat my biscuit. While I had a lousy, stinking bowl of broccoli soup. (It was actually quite good broccoli soup, but you know what I mean.)
Such went the week: headaches, grumpiness and a constant struggle with my body to convince it that no, in fact it would not perish right this very minute if it didn’t get some pasta/bread/crackers. It’s funny how similar my body is to spoiled child.
I am happy to report that I am now happily detoxed. How do I know?
The headaches have stopped.
I smiled at the students yesterday.
And last night at dinnertime, as I looked at the tortillas on the counter (the cheap person inside me refuses to throw out good food—my boyfriend will eat them next week), I was only momentarily tempted to make a quesadilla. While my quesadillas may be a work of art and all kinds of yummy, it was unappealing. Why? Because just looking at the tortillas, all I could think about was the detox I’d just been through. How crappy I’d felt. And the tortillas would make me feel crappy again. So I had my version of a taco salad: a bowl of lettuce with a cut up chicken breast, four or five tablespoons of fresh salsa, and a couple spoons of sour cream. Bon appetit! ¡Buen apetito!
(For those who doubt the effectiveness of eliminating refined carbs, after only 11 days I could already notice a difference in how my jeans fit. And that’s with the extra helping of meatloaf.)
To re-fresh your memory, feel free to re-read part one (just scroll down to find it). Or if you’re new to my blogosphere, read it for the first time.
So there I was all alone in Victoria. That makes it sound negative, but as I said before, I really enjoy spending time on my own and I was looking forward to it. Sunday was not going to be a fun day, but more on that later. That left me Friday and Saturday to really live.
And by live, I mean eat junk food. I think it is safe to say not one bite of healthy food passed my lips those last four days. I had a whole lifetime of healthy food ahead of me. So I was gonna make the best at my last chance to be a gluttonous eating machine.
Thursday night after I arrived and checked myself in at the Flea-bitten Econo-Inn (not its actual name, but might as well have been), I hopped into my car (a stylish purple Dodge Stratus—my best option in the “low on the pay scale teacher with a huge ass” price category) and set out in search of a KFC. I had a checklist of things I had to eat “one last time,” and KFC was right at the top. Now, why is it that when you don’t give a rat’s behind, you seem to see things everywhere, but when you really want one, they’re no where to be found? That was the case with KFC that night. I had headed to the main drag and turned right. And proceeded to drive around aimlessly for 45 minutes. Not a KFC in sight. The frustration grew along with my hunger pains (the ferry hot dog having long since worn off). I saw McDonald’s. I saw Burger King. I saw Taco Time. I saw every single fast food outlet in the western hemisphere except freakin’ KFC. A healthier woman would have given up and said, “McDonald’s/ KFC: What difference does it really make?” Not me. Damn it, I had only 48 more eating hours and I was on a mission to check off my meticulously planned list of indulgences. I needed KFC. My fellow obese folks will get this; my normal acquaintances think I’m nuts. Whatever.
After circling all of Victoria three or four times, I finally found a KFC. Hallelujah! My relief was soon overpowered, however, by the realization that I was blocks away from my motel. If I had simply turned left instead of right, I would have found it immediately. Ugh!!! But I didn’t dwell on my anger; instead I let myself be soothed by the knowledge that I would soon be enjoying some of the finest unhealthy food ever fried. And that lessened the sting.
Of course in line with my weekend mindset, when I realized I couldn’t decide what I wanted to eat at KFC, I arrived at the only logical conclusion: Why choose?! Once again, I figured I had a lifetime of limiting my indulgences ahead of me. So I had a Pepsi big enough to swim in, a Big Crunch sandwich (possibly the least healthy thing ever labeled a “sandwich”), popcorn chicken, and an extra big (can’t recall what the KFC equivalent of “Super Size” is) side of fries—with gravy. Oh yeah—and a macaroni salad (probably the least healthy thing ever labeled a “salad”). Burp!
For breakfast Friday and Saturday I had the same thing both days. While I did toy with the idea of going for a last “bacon and egg hurrah,” I ultimately gave in to my number one weakness: Tim Hortons, purveyors of all that is delicious. (For my American readers unfortunate enough to live in a region without any Tims: think Dunkin’ Donuts with a patriotic edge. You guys have apple pie and baseball; we have hockey and Tim Hortons.) I figured I would still be able to enjoy their fine coffee and steeped tea after my surgery. But it was terrifying thinking about a future devoid of maple dips. And the occasional sour cream glazed. (FYI: If you buy a sour cream glazed donut, put it in the fridge for half an hour before eating it. You’ll thank me.) So in a “I’ll never be able to have these again” frenzy, I ate as many of them as possible that last week. Like somehow the extr dozen would satiate the desire three months down the road… Hey, I never claimed any of this was logical.
My second-to-last pre-op lunch could only take place in one spot: a movie theatre! lmao There is absolutely no reason why it didn’t make perfect logical sense to have movie snacks for lunch. It’s not like my meals were any screamin’ hell in the health department! So I had a Pepsi big enough to swim in (again), and a humungous bag of popcorn. And a refill. So vivid is this weekend, I even remember the movie: Hidalgo with Viggo Mortensen. It was ok; the popcorn was spectacular!
Friday night was my big night. For those of you outside the WLS community, those of us undergoing bariatric surgery often have a get-together in a restaurant with our family, friends and support group peers just before the day of reckoning. We call it the “last supper.” (How many Biblical allusions can fit into one paragraph?) Kind of morbid, I suppose, given that one is about to undergo surgery in which—while slight—there is the potential for death. However, that’s not why the name. The name reflects our last big huge “I don’t give a rat’s ass what I eat” feast among friends before that option disappears forever. There are some within the community who argue it’s an unhealthy phenomenon and shun the concept. To each his or her own. I for one love a good last supper: It’s a celebration really of the life ahead for the patient. And as I’ve said here before numerous times, food is culture. Every single social gathering revolves around food. And to deny that is to deny yourself participation in life. There are some occasions where I have skipped a social gathering because I was in one of my phases where I’m really watching what I eat and didn’t want to expose myself to the temptation. But for the most part I have accepted that we celebrate with food. You can’t escape that. So to those who argue the last supper is an unhealthy, hypocritical way to usher in a bariatric surgery, I say, “Uh uh.” (Waiting for something more eloquent, were you?) The patient is about to undergo a monumental change. The “last supper” is a symbolic meal; it is a last hurrah, a farewell to an unhealthy lifestyle. We call it “last” for a reason: Never again shall we eat like this. And it’s empowering.
Obviously, it is the patient who chooses where the last supper will be. For me, this was another item checked off my list: Italian. Mine would be a shared last supper, between me and my “surgery twin,” the other patient having surgery the same day. I’m thankful she agreed on Italian, or I may have had to kill her. (JK) Because I was all alone over in Victoria (ie: away from my greater Vancouver support peeps), I actually had two last suppers: one the previous week in Vancouver, and the “official last supper” in Victoria. Both were at Italian restaurants. I joked that I was such a compulsive overeater that one last supper simply wouldn’t cut it. Someone with my appetite needed two! But the truth is I’d been fortunate I to get to know a number of fellow WLSers in Victoria (mainly through online support groups and visits while over for appointments) and they wanted to partake in a last supper with me. Nice to have found so many friends. The picture in the top left corner of this blog was taken that night. I look pretty happy. Must have been the company. And the food. And the fact that my life was about to get SO much better.
Speaking of the food, of course I know exactly what I had: I started with a Caesar salad. I know a lot of people (both WLS patients and normal people) who order a Caesar salad in the belief that they’re doing themselves a favour. Not so much, people. Earlier I said KFC macaroni salad was the least healthy food ever labeled a “salad.” Well, maybe not. Despite the fact that it is green, Caesar salad is not health food. It is high in calories and high in fat. Yes, there’s lettuce. But there are way better ways to get your leafy greens. So I did not order the Caesar salad as some kind of bullshit way of looking like I cared about what I ate. No. This was my night to indulge and I was not looking to impress my WLS friends with my good sense. There would be plenty of time for that later. (Bariatric patients can be some of the most annoying people to eat with. I’ll write about that some day.) I ordered the Caesar salad as part of my “lasts.” I knew it was unhealthy and that it should be a thing of the past. (It didn’t work out that way; I was a little on the naïve side.) I then had chicken parmesan, smothered in cheese with a generous side of fettuccini alfredo. (That has, thankfully, turned out to be a thing of the past. Alfredo sauce is no longer part of my life.) Of course I had room for dessert: a massive chunk of chocolate cake.
And a couple more donuts on the way home.
Saturday’s lunch was my farewell to Taco Bell. I love real Mexican food (and have found many healthy options), but I also love the cheap, greasy stuff too. So I needed one final fiesta feast there as well. Like KFC, I couldn’t figure out what to order, so I had everything: a beef chalupa supreme, two chicken soft taco supremes (since they’re small and on the healthy side), a side of nachos with “cheese,” and, you guessed it, another Pepsi big enough to swim in.
After the formal, social feast Friday, Saturday was to be a solitary meal. The real last supper. Like a prisoner on death row, alone in his cell. My last pre-op meal. And I needed to be alone. I figured it would be emotionally overwhelming, and I was right. So I wanted to say goodbye to food—my trusted best friend for 30 years—on my own. My last meal? What else could it be, but the number one, “everyone loves it” junk food: pizza. There was a Romeo’s Pizza across the street from my motel. I had fond memories of Romeo’s as a kid. It is a Vancouver Island chain and we lived there for three years, from when I was six until I was nine. So it seemed appropriate that this added touch of nostalgia should be added to this milestone meal. It was a medium ham and pineapple. And I ate the whole thing, minus one piece. I felt kind of defeated, having eaten entire large pizzas in my time. But I guess I’d had an awful lot of food that day, and even I had my limits.
After dinner I went for one last treat. It had to be Tims. I had a coffee and bought two maple dip donuts, despite being full from the pizza. I drank the coffee and ate one donut. That’s the best I could do. The other ended up in the box with the last piece of pizza. Sunday I was to undergo my bowel cleanse, and I was under strict orders: no food after midnight.
Knowing me as you now do, I bet you guessed how it all ended. At 11:50 PM, I opened up that box and ate that last piece of pizza, and then the donut. It was important that the last morsel of food I eat be a Tim Hortons maple dip donut. I finished at 11:58. I was eating right up to the last minute.
Typing this has brought a few tears to my eyes. Is it the emotions involved in the ceremonial goodbye to the food? Is it the realization of how diseased I am, that I would be eating right to the very last moment? Or is it that I want to do it again?
Did you see About Schmidt? If not you should; Alexander Payne makes great movies. He is a true genius. But I digress… I am not a film reviewer. Well, officially anyhow. I love movies. I love to talk about movies. And I love to talk down to people about their taste in movies! lol I’m a bit of a snob. Heck, I can figure out if I want to be friends with you simply by asking you one question: Did you like Erin Brokovich?
Back to About Schmidt. It’s about a recent retiree/widower played by Jack Nicholson who tries to find… something. One of the people he meets on his journey to discovery is the eccentric mother of his daughter’s mulleted fiancé. Roberta Hertzel is completely open and unabashed and she is played to perfection by Kathy Bates. In one pivotal scene, she takes off her robe and gets into the hot tub—no bathing suit. Normally on the silver screen we expect to see the titillating (shameless pun, Erin!) nakedness of nubile young starlets. Kathy Bates was in her mid-fifties—and obese. Unlike every other film out there where we shouldn’t see that person naked, there is no strategic placing of items on the set to obscure her nakedness. And it’s not just a flash. She sits there, letting it all hang out.
Good lord! So much comes to my mind…
- How much did they pay her?!
- Holy crap! Did I just see what I thought I saw?! You never see that in the movies!!!
- How did Alexander Payne get that by the executives at the film studio?! You just know that they gave him hell for that one. I can imagine the conversation:
Alexander Payne: So, did you like the final cut of my film?
Soulless film executives who know nothing of art and want only to make money: Well, there was this one scene…
Alexander Payne: Oh? I would imagine it’s the scene where Warren is peeing?
Soulless film executives who know nothing of art and want only to make money: No, we’re ok with that. Our numbers tell us that Middle America is ok with potty humour.
Alexander Payne: Oh? Then I imagine it’s the scene where Warren battles the waterbed. People maybe don’t want to watch an older man in pain?
Soulless film executives who know nothing of art and want only to make money: No, we’re fairly confident Middle America won’t object to a retired gentleman in pain.
Alexander Payne: Oh? Then it must be that shouting match with all the profanity. Too many bad words?
Soulless film executives who know nothing of art and want only to make money: No, we’re fairly certain Middle America will accept some profanity. No, what concerns us is the hot tub scene. Kathy Bates is naked.
Alexander Payne: Oh, I see. You don’t think Middle America will accept a movie with nudity.
Soulless film executives who know nothing of art and want only to make money: No, they won’t accept a movie with old fat woman nudity.
Sad but true. When About Schmidt hit the theatres, a lot of the buzz was about “the scene.” None of it flattering. Nine years later, it finds itself on Alternative Reel’s list of the “Top 10 Most Disgusting Scenes in American Cinema,” along with Nicolas Cage eating a cockroach, Ray Liotta eating his own brain, and Linda Blair puking green slime. Disgusting.
There are untold hours of nudity in American cinema every year, and no one cares. Until it’s a fat woman naked.
I say kudos to Alexander Payne. Not only did he flip a cinematic bird at the fat-phobic movie audience with the inclusion of the scene, but he was brave enough to include the scene because it belonged there for the sake of the narrative. That scene is the essence of the character of Roberta Hertzel. She’s who she is and she doesn’t give a rat’s ass for anyone else’s sensibilities. And I’m betting he really did take some heat from the executives.
But more important than giving credit to Alexander Payne is giving credit to Kathy Bates. OH. MY. GOD. WOMAN. You are amazing.
I am not a shy person. When my gastric bypass story appeared in The Vancouver Sun I gladly supplied them with my pre-op bathing suit photo. When it was published, my mother was shocked that I’d chosen THAT picture. It was so unflattering. It was so revealing. I was so openly obese. But it didn’t bother me at all. But that’s because I was post-op. I was 200 pounds lighter. I wasn’t that fat woman in the bathing suit anymore.
I am quite certain there’s no way on God’s green earth that picture was seeing the light of day as long as I was still fat. Fortunately that picture was taken seven days before my surgery, so that was a non-issue.
Sharing my mere bathing suit picture in a black and white photo in a regional Canadian newspaper years after losing weight is NOTHING compared to the jaw-dropping, blow-me-away, OMFG! bravery of Kathy Bates naked in colour for the cinema-going world to ogle at on a 30 X 70 foot movie screen. To make yourself vulnerable like that… She had to know what people were going to say. She had to know how much people hate fat women. She had to know the nasty things that would get printed. About her body.
But she still did it. Whether she did it simply for the integrity of the film or to say to hell with all those fat haters out there, I don’t know. But I am in awe of her courage.
I didn’t even like to leave the house fully dressed some days.
*A note from Erin’s sarcastic inner critic: Nice to see you staying topical with your blog. About Schmidt?! Really?! A movie from 2002?!
One week before surgery: 371 pounds
Predictably, one of the top internet “trending now” topics is “Weight loss plans.” It’s the beginning of January and people’s thoughts automatically turn to weight loss. Because we’ve spent December overindulging. Because a new year seems like a good time to start working on a new body. And mostly because we’re a fat bunch, we of the western world. Collectively, we need to lose a whole freakin’ bunch of weight. So we make yet another resolution. But given how many times we’ve failed in the past, we figure we need advice. We figure somewhere out there is the advice that will make this time successful when those other 86 diet attempts have failed. We figure success is simply a matter of finding the right diet. Surely the answer lies on the internet! Because all truth can be found on the internet. There’s no quackery on the internet. There are no scoundrels looking to take advantage of the vulnerable on the internet. The internet— provider of all answers— will save me!
Well, if any hack with a word processor and a browser can post diet advice on the internet, why not me? After all, people ask me for weight loss advice all the time. They figure I am some kind of a weight loss guru. Truth be told, I like being a guru. And I like thinking I have all the answers. But I don’t. When it comes to weight loss, there are no answers. And it might be my ability to accept this truth that ultimately makes me the best person to give you advice. I suppose in my years and years and years of weight loss practice, I have learned a thing or two. However, people don’t generally want the kind of advice I have to give; they want easy answers. Oh well, let them search out their easy answers, delude themselves for a week, give up on the eight day, grab a Snickers bar and remain stuck in the same weight gain loop for another year.
If it sounds easy, it won’t work. If it sounds like magic, it won’t work. If it makes promises, it won’t work.
Real long-term weight loss strategies are not what people want to hear. They aren’t easy. They aren’t magic. And they make no promises. So I guess that’s why no one’s beating down my door looking to pay me to be the latest weight loss guru: I don’t come bearing good news. Losing weight is the hardest thing you will ever do, and chance are, you will fail. That’ll be 25 bucks, please!
But I do know a thing or two about weight loss, so for whatever it’s worth, here is Auntie Erin’s weight loss advice:
Rule #1: You know all those promises made by all the big diet companies? “I ate all this wonderful food, and I still lost weight!” “I didn’t need to give up the foods I love in order to lose weight!” “I could have chocolate chip cookies and still lose weight!” Forget it. It’s BS. You cannot eat all that wonderful food and lose weight. You cannot lose weight without giving up the foods you love. And there is no way in hell you can eat cookies and lose weight. Maybe those annoying turds who only need to lose 10 pounds can. But for those of you out there who need to lose some real weight, and those of you out there who want to keep it off, this advice is garbage. Garbage designed to separate you from your money. If you want to lose weight, and if you want to keep it off, you need to ignore a lot of wonderful food. You need to give up a lot of the foods you love. And you need to stay the fuck away from cookies.
Rule #2: The reason those foods will sabotage you in the long run is they’re mostly refined carbs. It fits the “diet lifestyle” because it’s a small portion. But that small portion will bite you in your oversized ass down the road. I don’t care how small the portion is, you should not eat refined carbs. Hunger is a hormonal cycle and they key to weight loss and management is balance. Eat refined carbs, and you throw off this balance. The good news is, if you buy into this and survive the three days of detox, you can stick to it. The bad news is, very few people are willing to buy into it. They fall into the “I’ll just have a muffin this once for breakfast,” or the “one bowl of Cheerios won’t kill me” thinking. Thing is, it won’t kill you, but it will throw off that balance necessary to lose weight. I realize I mention this all the time, but if you really want to understand what’s going on, get yourself a copy of The GI Diet by Rick Gallop. (No, I’m not getting any kickbacks! lol I just really think everyone who has ever struggled to control their eating needs to read this.) He explains in pretty easy to understand terms the hormonal voodoo playing out in your body and why you can’t, despite the desire and the commitment, stop eating.
Can you imagine any diet company trying to make money giving you this advice?
Auntie Erin’s imagined diet program commercial: On our plan, you can’t eat any bread! On our plan, you can’t eat any pasta! On our plan you can’t eat any crackers, rice or cereal. Believe it or not, on our new diet plan, you can’t even eat any cookies. Really. No—not even the small ones.
I can’t imagine that’s a commercial that would sell. Sad. Because it’s the one that would actually help people lose weight. But I don’t think Jenny Craig and Weight Watchers want you to lose weight. They have a financial interest in people staying fat.
Rule #3: Exercise. Once again, Auntie Erin is offering advice no one wants to hear. People want something for nothing. But it doesn’t work that way. The list of the health benefits of exercise is looooooooong. And it includes helping you lose weight. Not only does it help burn unwanted calories, but building muscle makes your own body a more efficient calorie-burning machine. You burn more calories just existing. Plus the toning you get from regular exercise makes you look even better. (While I know publicly we all say we want to lose weight and be in shape for the sake of our health, deep down the desire to look good is probably just as strong. We’re just trained not to be honest enough to admit it.) And while I have no evidence whatsoever to back me up, I think that we eat better when we’re active. It’s probably more or that hormonal voodoo!
Bonus! Assorted small helpful tips:
- Don’t have anything in your house that you shouldn’t eat. Purge your house of all temptation. If you’re as lazy as I am, you won’t venture out in the cold to satisfy a craving. You will make do with what’s there. Look at that—I’ve actually found an upside of laziness.
- If you’re “hungry” when it’s not your scheduled feeding time, try drinking a warm beverage. For some reason it makes me feel more satisfied than a cold drink. Once again, I have no science to back that up. It’s just an observation. Yet another reason why no one’s paying me for this advice!
- Write down everything you eat. When it’s staring you in the face, you may be stunned by how much you’re actually consuming. Conversely, if you’re doing well, seeing it in black and white will give you a bit of a “yay me!” high.
- Ditto exercise; write it down. It may be just a 45 minute walk. But when it becomes a whole page of 45 minute walks, it’s something to be proud of. And pride turns to “Wahoo—I’m freakin’ awesome!” when that exercise starts to increase in either intensity or length.
- Keep easy foods on hand so you don’t get tempted to cheat simply because you’re tired or busy. I recommend individual serving size packages of almonds, turkey pepperoni, individual serving size cheese, fruit, and individual containers of yogurt. If you can grab it, you’ll eat it. That’s why Snickers are so insidious. Not only are they yummy, but they’re easy to grab and eat.
- After you’ve eaten a reasonably portioned meal, stick a piece of gum in your mouth or brush your teeth. Even at my most impulsively gluttonous, I don’t want to eat when I have a minty mouth.
- Plan ahead. I suck at planning, but when I do it, I accomplish a couple important things: a) I spend less money at the grocery store; b) I’m less impulsive at the grocery store, meaning crap is less likely to find its way into my basket; and c) I’m more likely to make healthy meals.
- If there are unhealthy foods you’re craving, try and come up with a healthier version. Denial of your favourite foods can be a bad thing; you may wind up binging. So mess around with some foods and see what you can come up with. For example, I love Italian food and was really missing it during my honeymoon period. So I came up with my own concoction: I put a can of low-fat pasta sauce in the slow cooker and cut a couple chicken breasts into cubes and added carrots and broccoli. I’m not a cook by any stretch of the imagination (understatement of Biblical proportions!), but it’s kinda tasty. If I can experiment and come up with healthy stuff that’s edible, so can you!
That’s all I’ve got for now. If you really want to lose some weight, try the advice. If it sounds like it’s hard and more than you’re willing to do, enjoy your Snickers.
*Why “Auntie Erin”? I figure for an advice column, I should sound like someone you trust. Someone cozy and loving. And who doesn’t love their auntie? Whose auntie would lead them astray?
Did I wake up Jan. 1 with a new attitude? A new resolve to kick obesity’s butt? A new desire to re-commit to living the ideal bariatric lifestyle? A new focus on being the best that I can be? No. I woke up needing to pee. I woke up craving coffee. I woke up the same person I was when I fell asleep. So we’ve taken another trip around the sun– so what? Why should that change anything? The New Year offers many possible blog topics, all of them trite. Do I reflect on the year gone by, summarize my weight battle of 2011? Do I talk about resolutions and fresh starts for 2012? Do I make promises I may or may not keep?
None of the above. Too predictable. I’m thinking…random thoughts! A little bit of everything (and probably a lot of nothing!).
Topic #1: I really freakin’ hate obesity. That may not seem like the most original of thoughts. But it’s amazing how often I think about it. Of all the things that had to be wrong with me, why this?! Why couldn’t I have been born with 11 toes instead?! I guess I’m feeling sorry for myself. You may have noticed by now that I have a very vocal inner child. Intellectually I know how many people in this world are way worse off than I am. Nonetheless, I can’t help wallowing in self-pity. For some reason (hubris?), I figure that any problem other than obesity would be easier to deal with. Or at least my struggles would be less visible. I could easily hide my 11th toe. Isn’t that always the way? The grass is always greener on the thinner side. I’m not entirely sure which problem I would be willing to take on in exchange for ditching my diseased eating habits. But how could things be worse? I figure even alcoholics have it easier. You can live without alcohol. You can’t live without food. You can avoid places where alcohol is being consumed. You can’t avoid food. You can permanently detox from alcohol. You can’t permanently detox from food. You’d die. You know what? I think this line of thinking demonstrates just how messed up I am. Here I am envying the plight of the alcoholic! Good grief, Erin. How embarrassing…and I just shared it with the world…
Topic #2: I suppose I ought to redeem myself here. Almost as often as I get frustrated with my plight, I muse on how much better my life is now. I may have been saddled with a horrible, frustrating, deadly, sucky problem (ok, clearly the self-pitying of that last paragraph was not enough to purge the whining from my system!), but things sure are better now than they were eight years ago. There is the obvious: I’m not dying anymore. That’s a good thing. There is the pragmatic: I’m working full-time again. Well, the working part sucks; I’d much prefer to be independently wealthy and able to live a carefree life of luxury. But as I don’t see that happening anytime soon, I’ll have to be grateful for full-time employment that affords me a pretty comfortable living. Plus there’s the added bonus of the self-esteem that comes from providing for yourself. Not that one couldn’t have self-esteem living the life of a wealthy gadabout…lol There is the emotional: I am a happier person. And I have love in my life. I didn’t have the self-confidence as an obese person to allow myself to even look for love. But as a normal-sized person, I sure got lucky. Altogether now: aaawww! Enough mushy stuff; even I can taste the bile… Let’s just say life is better now. I may constantly struggle with the obesity demons, but at least I’m in the game. Eight years ago they were killing me. Now I have enough life and energy to fight back! Take that, obesity!
Topic #3: The world hates fat people. Once again, a stunning revelation, to be sure. I think I was aware of how much I was reviled when I was obese, but we obese are always building up psychologically protective barriers. So I blocked the reactions of others out as long as it was my own reality. Not denial as much as survival. But as my perspective changed (ie: as my body shrank), that reality began to change; cracks of truth revealed themselves to me. The first thing I noticed was that people were nicer, friendlier. If I was standing in line at the grocery store, others in line would talk to me. They never talked to fat Erin. If I walked into a store, the clerks would happily greet me on entry. They never happily greeted fat Erin. If I was at a social gathering, people would openly talk with me. They never seemed to want to socialize with fat Erin. No wonder I stayed home a lot.
As revealing as my own experiences were, the fat-phobic nature of society became all the clearer when I spent time with my obese friends. Since I’d shed my weight, I guess I also shed my protective blinders, and I could see how other people were looking—nay, staring—at my friends. And I could hear how they were whispering—nay, talking—about my friends. That right there says it all: people aren’t even embarrassed enough by their behaviour to try to hide it. They see nothing wrong with staring and commenting openly. Why does the world hate us so much?! I could rant on and on about how fat people are treated both by individuals and in the media. So I will! We’re only on TV to be gawked at in news stories—where of course we never have faces. Despite the fact that we are the majority, among celebrities, we are a desperately slim (pun intended) minority. Heaven forbid a normally thin celebrity should gain some weight: he or she can expect to be vilified. The media is more accepting of infidelity and drug abuse than they are of weight gain. And we are no where to be seen in advertising. Ads are fantasies. Drink this beer—get these babes! Use this mascara—look like a supermodel! Use this cleanser, live in this immaculate dream house! Obese people don’t figure in people’s fantasies. At least not any I want to think about! 
Topic #4: Have you noticed how I write about obese people in the first person? I still use “we” rather than “they,” even though I haven’t been obese in over seven years. Since I’m not royalty (that would allow me that whole wealthy gadabout lifestyle I aspire to!), there must be another explanation. It turns out that’s how deeply ingrained obesity is in the psyche. It also goes to show how gastric bypass isn’t a cure. What was wrong with me eight years ago is still wrong with me. Plus I have empathy. I see an obese person struggling up a flight of stairs, and I know how they feel. I see an obese person being ridiculed, and I know how they feel. I see an obese person uncomfortably crammed into a restaurant booth, and I know how they feel. The world sees a normal-sized person, but I will always see the world through obese eyes.
Topic #5: Despite my best intentions to avoid trite BS, I suppose I should set a goal for the next trip around the sun. Thanks to my December gluttony, I need to recommit to looking after my health. Plus I’m going to Hawaii in March, so there is probably a public bathing suit outing or two in my future. And I want to engage in some physical activity while there, so it would behoove me to hit the gym again regularly. (I am secretly delighted by the way behoove looks on the page. I guess if I comment, it’s not so secret anymore. lol) There’s not much that can be done for my hideous thighs, but at least the rest of me can look good! So over the next week I shall re-introduce back into my life:
- protein drinks for breakfast
- regular gym visits
- meals free of refined carbs
- healthy snacks– no more chocolate
Topic #6: There is a lot of fabulous, yummy food in this world. No wonder we’re addicted to it! If you’ve been reading the past few days, you know I’ve been engaging in some December gluttony. So I’ve had some great food. Turkey dinner with gravy. Chocolate chip cookies. Prime rib with garlic mashed potatoes. Crème brûlée. Snowballs. M&M’s. Sausage rolls. Movie popcorn. Rice pudding. Candy canes. Almond Roca bars. The list could go on, but I think that’ll do the trick. I don’t really have a point to make here. I just wanted to talk about food. Guess that says it all.
