Kara & Michael’s Blog

Howdy folks. I’ve been perusing the content of the lean-plate club on washingtonpost.com, in the abstract hope that a few pointers might keep me from the extra weight and eating that usually accompanies the holidays for me.

I don’t believe my habits for eating are irreparably bad. I have a sweet tooth. I try to keep sweets out of my house. It tends to work out well, but then, as soon as sweets enter my house I go crazy and ravenous on them. So maybe it doesn’t work that well.

I’ve never been a big fan of diets, because I never lose weight on diets. If I say to myself – I should shift my eating habits, I do. I’ve significantly altered the way I eat over the past couple years. I’m much better off now than I was, but that doesn’t mean I am where I want to be.

I guess what makes me mad is when people assume the way they’re doing things is the right way. This applies to every single thing in life, it’s my own little rule – I carry it with me everywhere. It goes like this, What works for me will not work for everyone and may not work for anyone else. It keeps me from judging people for the decisions they make. It helps remind me that people in very different places have to fight different battles to get to the same place.

I carry with me, in everything I do, this acute awareness of being judged – often when I’m not being judged. Michael and I went to the gym last night and I had to fight that awareness every step of the way. I can fight it, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. That doesn’t mean I’m not terrified the whole flipping time. Not about working about, not about being fat, just about people being able to see me, in general. But add to that fear, the fact that I’m fat and out of shape and the gym or eating out or anything, is a miserable experience.

Fat people can’t just go out and get a muffin. We have to get salad or whole wheat wraps or some other crap because if we don’t everyone will be like, look at the fatty eating all that crappy food. That’s why they’re so fat. I do it, too. Some lady goes wildly skidding into Dunkin Donuts parking lot and I think, “oh, you’re a bad driver, fatty.” And so, I’ll sit at work and resist the candy or cookies sitting out because someone might see me eat them and then I’ll go home and eat a million and two graham crackers.

I guess all I mean is, we each start somewhere, and there are wildly different beginnings. And we each progress differently. So when people who try to eat well go on and on about how everyone else is eating like crap, those damn fatties, well, it makes me a little angry. Because maybe that’s my cheat day. Maybe that’s a special meal that I’ve been working out or cutting back to be able to partake in. Maybe you’re a judgmental douche, you judgmental douche.

You can tell me I’m fat, that’s a fact. You can tell me the way to lose weight is to work out and eat less, and that’s a fact, too (very simple input/output idea). But you can’t assert to know that the reason I’m fat is because I ran into you at Friendly’s and I got a bowl of icecream or an orange soda while you ate a steak with veggies or something. And you also can’t assert that if I just followed your plan, I’d be skinny, too. It doesn’t work like that.

K.