The Road To Hell...

Ah, yes, good intentions. As every fat person knows, there is no shortage of people out there who are trying to help us with their good intentions.

This situation revisited me last week as I had lunch with an old family friend. She is old enough to be my mother and I love her dearly. When I brought up the topic of being on a weight-loss mission, my friend immediately chimed in. First of all, there was the uncomfortable pause in the conversation as the look on her face betrayed her intial thought: "Does she know just how fat she really is?" Yes, I am aware, thank you very much. I'm all over it like a cheap suit. It's not like having a piece of spinach stuck in your teeth, you know. Even without benefit of a mirror, I am onto the fact that I need to lose weight. I'd have to be on life support to NOT know.

Then there was the very sincere but oh so humiliating helpful hints. "Have you tried Weight Watchers or Jenny Craig?" "Do you belong to a gym?" Again, thanks for the heads up but I get the whole diet and exercise connection and I don't need to have it pointed out to moi by vous, my little size six friend. I know how it works...I have just chosen to ignore it up to this point because it is h-a-r-d work. And I'm not always a fan of hard work - especially when I've wrapped up so much of my reward system in the exact thing I need to curtail. Now do you understand my dilemma?

And then I had to curl myself up into the fetal position as I anticipated the very predictable final blow: "You know, you have such a pretty face." Go ahead, finish out your thought. I DARE you! Such a pretty face and .....? Such a fat ass....right? I know, I know. But that doesn't make me a bad person. Never did, never will. You know, I have a skinnier sister (altho the old menopausal metabolism slow-down is hitting her like a bag 'o bricks - yippee!) who has the most vicious temper of anyone I've ever known and yet I don't know of anyone, friend or foe, who has ever implied that she get the kind of help she needs like they are way so enthusiastic about offering to me. She is a bad person and yet no one ever calls her on it. I am a very respectful - but fat - person and yet I'm the one getting all the "useful" advice. Go figure.

Usually the people giving advice have never been in my position, which is why they don't understand how hurtful their "helpful" comments can be. I know for the most part, it's out of love and concern. But as with any personal problem, it is something that must come from within, never without. My problem in the past with losing weight was that my focus was always from without - getting slim for a reunion, a wedding, the summer, to make a bitchy relative jealous, to get a cute guy's attention - and it never worked because it never got to the root of the problem: what was inside of me.

The good news is that I have done more "inside" work than ever before and it is having positive effects. It is going so slowly because there are some things - like my CoffeeBomb (20 oz. of coffee, oozing with Coffeemate) in the morning, that I refuse to give up. I know if I give that up, I will slip into the whole "deprivation" mentality and my efforts will spiral out of control. So for now, it will be slow but steady and it will work as long as I keep doing it a day at a time. Baby steps on the Road to Hell.