Still 157.6
Still 5'5 (I secretly hope I will grow a few inches before the age of osteo shrinkage kicks in, so that said weight becomes more tolerable. A girl can dream.)
Today I showed someone my "before" picture. It's that picture that you constantly reference when remembering just how far you've come. It acts as a reminder that you are no longer a size 14/16, as mirrors don't always do the trick. Mine certainly fool me all the time. Additionally, it's also the picture you reference when you are deciding between a banana or a pack of oreos:
Usually the banana gets the square if I have this handy.
If I had to put a visual to said "fat girl within," this would be it. And although I do not look like this anymore, not a day goes by that I don't have a "fat girl" moment. Hence why I still go to a WeightWatcher meeting every week. I need to be able to vent about my struggle and how I sometimes find myself making poor choices. I also need to share with the world that "she" sometimes controls me and leads me to do the most INSANEST things, like how I blatantly wanted to school a random stranger on the R train on the proper methods of eating an oreo. True story.
It was last week Tuesday. I was so proud of myself as I went to the gym at 9:30pm that night, after working with a client. However, it was no easy feet to get there. I was feeling tired, drained, and in desperate need of my couch and the NetFlix DVD that awaited me. Nothing like Arrested Development to make you forget how un-f*cked up your life really is :)
I had planned to make a late night visit to the gym when I was getting ready for work early that day, so I had packed and taken my workout gear with me. However, the optimistic crazy that stared at me from my mirror that morning was now a crabby yenta who could remotely feel the nook on my super soft loveseat, created by my left butt-cheek and lower torso.
Something like this. Come on. You all know EXACTLY what I am taking about.
It was 9:15pm and I was wrapping up the organizing session with my client. She and I were making plans for the next session, something about helping her organize her closets, when she stopped what she was saying to proclaim the following: "Claudia, you look great. Have you lost some weight?"
After my giggle fiasco, I thanked her and told her that I had in fact dropped some weight. That little reminder that hard work pays off (because above BEFORE picture apparently isn't enough sometimes) was the itty bitty adrenaline that I needed to get my butt to the gym at 9:30pm!
And indeed I went. I burned over 300 calories on the elliptical and did some weights. It felt so great to see that I had moved on from 10 lb weights and was now on 12.5 lb weights. Hey, I'm no body builder and for someone who had started at 5 lbs a few years ago (and had to revisit them back in July), I was uber proud of myself. I was also happy to see the wattle fat start to dissipate.
Allow me to explain. I call this wattle fat:
Not the under arm fat that we all battle in some way. I mean the bizarre bulge between the arm pit and bra cup/ strap. It reminds me of the wattle we see on our friend, the chicken:
I can't figure it out and no matter how toned my arms get, I am very aware that this obnoxious repercussion of one too many cheese fries is present.
However, that night, I noticed that the wattles were withering away! And I was thrilled!
I left the gym on a cloud like no other. I took a ten block walk to the R train, as it was now 10:30pm and the express train near the gym had stopped running. It was a lovely cool-down for my over worked muscles. The breeze was refreshing along Lexington Avenue and the mood was very much alive. I felt immortal.
The R train pulled up a few minutes after I had arrived to the station. I chose one of the yellow three-seater spots that were placed against the wall of the train. There was nobody sitting on the other two seats, nor the two-seater that's perpendicular to the trio I now sat on:
The whole section was mine. And I sat there planning the next amazing adrenaline driven task I would take on for the following day.
I was so caught up in my plan of epic endorphin proportion, that I hadn't noticed the young lady sitting on one of the perpendicular seats. She must have come on a stop or two after my arrival. The paranoid New Yorker in me instantly snapped out of my deep thought and made sure I got a good look at her. She was a young girl captivated by her book. Fair skin, straight black hair in a neat pony tail with long bangs adorning her fore head, effortlessly pretty and, without a doubt, a size 2. I breathed a little sigh of relief, thinking that my newly pumped arms, calorie burning calves, and dissipating wattles could take her down should she decide she wants to steal my gym bag.
I was about to turn away when something else caught my eye.
Freakin eyes. They ALWAYS get me in trouble.
Within her fair hands lived what appeared to be a familiar item. What appeared to be my kryptonite.
Instantly, the beads of sweat formed on my forehead. Slowly, but oh so surely, I was bumped off cloud nine and landed on familiar, yet unchartered territory. And, just to make matters worse, I decided to give Pavlou's dog some competition. My mouth started to water, and, like a classy lady of the millennium, I proceeded to drool:
It was an Oreo. A perfectly put together double stuffed oreo. I knew at this point I was staring intensely at the cookie. However, had Bangy McTwiggy decided to look up from her tantalizing novel, I suspect she would have gotten up and ran for dear life from the sweaty, drooly woman who was blatantly gawking with no plan on stopping.
I decided I was better than this. So I snapped out of my trance, took a sip of water to, not only have a "reason" to wipe the drool of the side of my lips, but to also remind my palette that water does a body good, NOT an OREO.
This of course only activated my peripheral vision and as I stared aimlessly at the "Manhattan Storage" advertisement across from me, I was admiring the f*cking cookie.
Said admiration came to a crashing halt when I realized that Bangy was still eating the same cookie I had initially noticed. It had easily been 60 seconds since my eyes first saw its double stuffed goodness. A full minute. In a full minute, I have been known to inhale, in no particular order, a croissant, cheese sandwich, a failure for a side salad at Sizzlers, or a slice of pizza, still quite hot. And yet, she was still on her FIRST oreo.
I was now intrigued. How does one maintain such control? And then I saw her method when she went for her second cookie, at least a FULL 30 seconds later. She separated the OREO ever so delicately, placing one of the parts BACK in the packaging. She then focused on the part in her hand, and instead of shoving it in her mouth, used her fingers to break a piece off and then elegantly place said piece in her mouth. She easily made 6 pieces out of that PART of the oreo. It took her 4 train stops to get through half of it.
WHAT THE HELL?!?!? It wasn't a delicate lilac that needed to be treated with exquisite grace. It was an OREO! A cookie made to take on the dangers of dunkable milk, the jaws of eager children, and the desires of PMSing women throughout the world. And this girl was treating it like a fragile crystal that carried the secret to world peace.
Rage. I was suddenly filled with rage.
May I add this was the most emotionally driven train ride I had experienced in some time? Not since taking the 7 train with a butt load of arrogant Yankee fans some months prior had I felt such homicidal anger.
It wasn't geared towards Bangy, though. I mean, sure, I wanted to grab the mutilated oreo out of her hand and show her how it was done! But the anger I was feeling was geared towards me. See, she was a healthy size 2 and I could see why. She enjoyed the cookie and wasn't treating it as a solution to her heartbreak, career stress, or family disfunction. She wasn't using it as a way to make up for not eating all day because her toosh was glued to her cubicle. She wasn't treating it as a partner in the artful dance of self sabotage.
The girl was simply enjoying the pleasures of an Oreo.
I caught a glimpse of my reflection from the "Manhattan Storage" advertisement. Endorphin Annie was not looking back. Instead, it was just me, a perplexed look on my face, a look that exemplified the mental conflict I had just had with the fat girl within.
Bangy left the train one stop before mine. By the time I exited the subway, I had cooled off and even laughed off the sitcom that just played in my head. It was funny. I was about to commit a felony over a cookie.
Yet it was also a reminder that "she" is still very much inside of me and that, no matter what, I can't deny it. I just have to face it, rather, "her" head on. For while I can break down and dissolve the waddle with time, I can not dissolve the fat girl within. I can, however, tame her, and, occasionally throw her a bone every once in a while.
Even if said bone comes in the form of a beautifully put together cookie with frosting that marries two chocolate disks of heaven.
(ok, I didn't write that last line. "She" did.)
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