Hunger Games

So the Olympics are over.   

That happened. 

And now I can go back to my "programs," my “stories.”  Those Real Housewives episodes don't watch themselves, people.

Like, well, I'm thinking, everyone with a pulse, I find the Olympics to be very inspiring. The sheer power of the human body, really, the human mind and spirit.  The ability to push yourself past that uncomfortable point, where every cell in your body is telling you that you can't. And when you do, that's where the reward is, the glory.

At least that's what I've read.  I wouldn't personally know.  Although if I had known that Badminton was going to be an Olympic sport, I coulda been a contender.  I play a mean game of Badminton.

I fancy myself a closeted athlete, and by that I mean, I have no athletic ability but I am very competitive, and appreciate most sports (even rhythmic gymnastics, ok, especially rhythmic gymnastics).  I often think that, if I wasn't such a control freak perfectionist, I'd actually be more athletic and enjoy it.  But, ever the overachiever, when I realized that I wasn't very good at sports, and that coordination and ability didn't come naturally to me, I stopped trying for fear of looking stupid or ungainly.  I'm a fast learner and I learned fast that this was going to be hard work, so I retreated to the comfy chair with my Sweet Valley High books.  The only adventures I was choosing were in my books.  Reading I was good at.  I didn't have to try or force anything.  It was a nice safe space.

And, I've pretty much kept that up ever since, shunning exercise and participating in sports.  I can pretty much outpace anyone in reading, but running the mile in PE?  That's me bringing up the rear.  No thanks.  I'd rather be first than last.

So, while elite athletes were competing for their gold, and challenging their mental and physical limits, I've been reading a self-helpish book by a very unlikely self-helpish source, Augusten Burroughs of Running with Scissors fame, called This Is How: Proven Aid in Overcoming Shyness, Molestation, Fatness, Spinsterhood, Grief, Disease, Lushery, Decrepitude & More. For Young and Old Alike.

Despite the tongue in cheek nature of this book, it's actually chock full of straightforward advice.  Witness the chapter, "How to be Fat."  In this chapter, he talks about how becoming at peace with your body and losing weight is about need.  All you need is need, he says.  How much do you really want it?  If you've allowed yourself to be at peace with food, and you're still overeating, you don't want it enough.  Somewhere within you is a voice of dissent and sabotage and until you find it and understand it and address it, you'll never be at a happy and healthy weight, whether that weight is the weight you're at now that you accept, or fatter or thinner.

So lately I've been thinking more and more about why I haven't fully tackled my struggles with weight.  I'm proud and excited to report that I have lost 50 lbs, but truth be told, it's taken a few years and, had I had, well, a little more NEED, I feel like I would have gotten there quicker.

So what's MY voice of dissent and sabotage saying?  Sure it's saying fries taste better than celery but, for me, I think it's about self-identity and how being fat is what I know how to do best.  I have been overweight most of my life, since age six, so my identity is really wrapped up in being fat -- the mental, emotional, physical reality, and the associated challenges.  I know how to be fat.  I know what a fat body feels like, how you dress it, where you shop for it.  I have all the tips and tricks down pat.  I'm good at it.

Where's my medal?

For me, being thin is totally unchartered territory.  I don't know where to shop for a thin body.  I don't know what you feed a thin body.  I don't know which bones are supposed to jut out.  I have no idea what I'd look like at a thinner weight, and, perhaps even more scary, I have no idea what I'd ACT like.  Would I be different?  Would I be me?  Would I LIKE me at that size?

Intellectually I know that I probably would be the same old me but with a little less junk in the trunk.  But emotionally, I'm not quite sure.  Maybe I'm a mean girl tamed only by my insecurity about my weight, or maybe, even worse, perhaps I'd realize that the things that are wrong in my life that I like to blame on my weight are not caused by my weight at all.

Hmmm.  Now that's unpleasant.

But this week NEED entered my life in pretty big way.  After several months of healthy eating and regular exercise, the scale wasn't budging, so I went to the endocrinologist for some answers.  I thought perhaps my thyroid problem was no longer regulated.

Turns out everything in Thyroidville was just fine but my insulin levels weren't.  I'm not diabetic, but in that lovely little appetizer before the main course of diabetes (or as Wilfred Brimley would say, diabeetus) called insulin resistance.  I know that from the interwebs, not because the doctor said it.  He wouldn't even call the medicine a diabetes medicine.  It was my hypochondriac self, having been convinced I've had diabetes before, who tuned into the fact that it's a drug that is, in fact, for diabetes.  I think he wanted to give them to me and say, "Take these, they're candy, nom nom nom" without me knowing any better.  But, as always, Dr. Google told me what the real scoop was.

My levels are JUST on the edge -- normal is 5.7 and below, mine is at 5.7.  But with a family history of diabetes and my own history of weight issues, he's concerned enough to have me start the medicine.  I don't need to take it forever, unless, well, I don't actually take this seriously and decide I'm going to keep choosing Entenmann's over eggplant.

Seriously, diabeetus medicine?  Man. I don't wanna have to be on Wilfred Brimley's home delivery service.  This seems unfair.

But, apparently, sometimes, if you've been overweight a long time, your body starts to hold onto it, and it's actually more difficult to lose weight on your own, your body essentially won't budge.

So, I guess, I'm both physically and emotionally tied to my weight.  My body likes it so much it refuses to lose it, despite the fact that it's, well, killing me, killing us.

Enter NEED, stage right, cutting a svelte figure and eating a string cheese, a low carb, high protein, approved snack.

So, even though at most times in my life I've wanted to lose weight, and tried to, sometimes harder than others, and have actually succeeded at losing weight, now I actually NEED to.

I didn't want to be up at bat, but now I am, and I'm going to crush the hell out of this ball.  It won't come naturally.  It'll go totally against the grain and out of my comfort zone, but I have to step up to the plate, of greens, if you will.

And hopefully the NEED will evolve from I NEED to do this or join a club I don't want to be a member of, to I NEED to do this to be healthier and happier for me.

And maybe, just maybe, I'll uncover a hidden jock.  As a good friend reminded me this week on what would have been the 100th birthday of Julia Child, she didn't even start cooking lessons until she was 37.

So maybe my big Olympic moment is here.  And although I won't medal, or get to stand up on any podium, that's okay.  

I'm afraid of heights anyway.