My Earlobes Still Feel Fat

This afternoon, while coming home from coffee with a friend, I decided to stop for an ice cream bar.  Now, I rarely eat ice cream unless it's something special, like handmade gelato, because it makes me sick very fast (meaning I get little mileage out of it) and I don't actually like it enough to suffer for it most days, so I haven't had a mass-produced ice cream in probably ten months, maybe a year.  But today was the first really warm sunny day since I've been back in the UK, and I've had an inordinately stressful couple of months (for reasons that, if you can believe it of me, are too personal to explain), and I was wearing a cute sundress and felt like having an ice cream bar.  So I bought a Magnum in the little shop at the end of my road and proceeded to eat it on my way home. Not two bites in, I passed a middle-aged man, fiddling with something homewares-related on his front stoop, his pit bull watching nearby.  He looked up and caught my eye as I went past,...

Something weird has been happening… through the publicity process, through all the interview questions I’ve been answering and short-form pieces I’ve been writing and conversations I’ve been having with strangers who have read my book, I’ve come to understand myself a little better, and maybe cut myself some slack.   It’s been a long time since I’ve had a body meltdown – for the past six+ months my nerves have been too overloaded with book stuff and work to even consider making room for self-image – and I’ve even begun to realize that a lot of the things I talk about aiming for in the book are already beginning to happen, some in more pronounced ways than others.   Most notable: I think I’m starting to have a normal relationship with food. Now, of course, the first thing we have to do is define our terms, right?   By a ‘normal’ relationship with food, I mean that I’m not obsessed with it, and it doesn’t control me.   The GB has done its job ...

This post is just a quickie as I'm dying from a chest cold and swamped with admin stuff, but I had to share this super weird tidbit with you guys: according to The Independent , the inventor of the Segway has applied for a patent for a new invention that essentially sucks food out of your stomach after you've eaten it, before you can digest it.  The article claims this is an alternative to gastric bypass, to which I say: not only is it GROSS but it's totally opposite the point of weight loss surgery!  It basically encourages people to stuff their faces without consequence, while the point of GB and its ilk is to impose harsh consequences on the patient, thereby (at least theoretically) changing his/her behavior through conditioning.  Ugh.  Gross.  And how very dehumanizing of fat people to think this is what we need.

Last night, after I posted about the BBC Horizons program on obesity, I got an email from a reader who needed help understanding the gastric bypass surgery and what it might be able to do for her.  She had been emotionally overeating for thirteen years, since suffering a devastating loss, and she wanted to know if the GB could really change her desires for junk food, as the BBC program suggested.  In case anyone else wants a more detailed response on this, I've posted my response here: Hi, I've found that the gastric bypass has altered my desire for crap food, but I would say it mostly has to do with behavioral conditioning – every time I eat something very rich or sweet, I get really sick, and after a while I started feeling sick just smelling certain things.  Kind of like when someone gets really drunk on rum and never touches it again.  So it's effective, but not very nice, and I have to admit there are always going to be times when your desire for a fo...

It’s not exactly the perfect end to a perfect meal at one of New York’s best restaurants, on my knees in a beautiful, dark wood paneled bathroom,* throwing up house-made raspberry truffles into a once pristine toilet, while cool lounge music plays softly in the background.  I’m just praying nobody can hear me, and also that the auto-flush won’t go off in my face. Sometimes I wish I could turn the GB off.  Not so I can binge on Ben & Jerry’s, or stuff my face with ballpark hotdogs, but for special meals like Per Se in New York or Ristorante Semplice in London.  It would be nice to be able to have a set menu at a Michelin-starred restaurant without spending the rest of the evening either curled on my side (best-case) or throwing up (worst-case).  But it would be worse to miss out on all the amazing food on offer! And drink.  Wine takes up a surprising amount of space in my stomach, especially rich reds like the delicious Barolos my bf likes to order (and I...

    Yesterday, I wrote a piece for class about my childhood in Manhattan Beach, and more specifically about how my brother and I used to sneak out to the mini mart down the road and buy candy behind my mom’s back.  I tried to make the piece funny, but I think it just turned out uncomfortable, because that’s exactly how I felt writing it, like I was peeling back my skin and showing the world my big gaping flaw: I like sweets.  In fact, as a kid I was mildly obsessed with them, but even now I’m a huge fan (as evidenced by my baking blog ).  And I hate that my sweet tooth makes me feel like I’ve done something wrong, because to me it’s the strongest evidence the prosecution could cite in the case against the fatty– clearly I wasn’t fat because I ate too much asparagus.     And it doesn’t matter that I love asparagus now, or that I’ll often pass up a rich chocolate cake for a plate of grilled zucchini, because the fact remains that I also stil...

I woke up this morning, nose running, lungs itchy and swollen, and generally just feeling like shit on a stick. I got out of bed, topless, and turned to put on my robe, and there was my boyfriend, staring at me appreciatively. I was not in the mood, but all he said was “you’ve lost a lot of weight.” Of course, being the bitchy, complicated female that I am, I replied: “I don’t know how to take that,” and walked off to the bathroom, covering up on my way. He meant it as a compliment to how I look now, rather than an insult to how I looked before, and in his defense he’s never once in 3 1/2 years said anything but kind words about my body. But that doesn’t mean I don’t hear the unkind ones he doesn’t say. Those are delightfully provided by my own fucked-up psyche. But the point here isn’t that I’m screwed up, because everybody already knows that. The point is, when he said that about my weight, I realized with a jolt that these past few days I’ve been so focused on hacking up my al...

I stopped using the calorie counter when we left for our vacation in Italy (Bologna, Umbria , Arezzo , and Cinque Terre ), figuring I didn't want to ruin the delicious food I was planning on stuffing my face with, and relying on the fact that I always lose weight on vacation (my theory is that I'm too busy walking around to snack). And we were really active on vacay , especially when scrambling up and down mountains to nude beaches in Cinque Terre , so I really wasn't too worried about all the gelato and pasta I was consuming (YUM). But I was planning on getting back into the counting when I came back to London... That was the plan , anyway. But then we only had 2 days before we moved into the new flat, after which life was (still is) a blur of unpacking, buying secondhand furniture, and entertaining the friends who so wonderfully came to visit me but whom I so unwittingly told the first week of September would be fine ( gah ). So long story short, I'm still not c...

Well, I’m a Londoner now! I moved two weeks ago, to make another go of it with the boyfriend and to study for my MA in Creative Nonfiction. And while I thought I would drop the calorie-counting act the minute I landed, I’ve actually kept it up pretty well. And given how much I walk here (let me just say, my poor feet have been BEGGING me to drop 25 quid on a pedicure, but I’m too cheap), I’ve actually ended up well below my allowance most days. But I don’t have a scale, and I refuse to pay for a new one, and my boyfriend refuses to help me procure one, so I have no idea whether I’ve continued to lose weight or not. And I can’t decide whether that’s healthy or not. Because I feel like I would be so happy to see that I am losing weight, and it would make me feel more comfortable putting down the calorie counter, but I know that if it turned out I had stopped losing, or worse, I was gaining, I would feel miserable. So I guess for now it’s good to be without. But I do feel bereft. Bu...

That old Upper East Side adage has been running through my mind all week. Ever since I got my visa to go back to London and started counting down the days I had left of fresh, delicious California cuisine. I recently got to within a couple pounds of my goal (well, not my goal weight, but my goal of getting below a certain hated number), and now I’m struggling with a very difficult decision: to eat or not to eat? I have an opportunity here. I could be below the dreaded number by the time I leave for London, if I’m willing to give up all badness and only eat healthy, low-calorie foods like vegetables sans olive oil and salads with no cheese or nuts. But then I would be sacrificing my last week of yumtastic treats like Trader Joes Mini Peanut Butter Cups and delicious grilled asparagus with olive oil and steak, glorious steak! Maybe the choice would be easier if I had a point of reference, but I’ve never been thin, so I have no idea how it feels. What I do know is that a lot of thing...

Oh my god I am SO pathetic. I think I might be in worse shape than I was when I was heavy. Four minutes into my first attempt at what is admittedly a tough workout video (but not this tough) my arms felt like they were going to fall off. Another ten minutes and we were into squats. Well, they were. I was “marching it out” because my thighs were having seizures as a result of the few squats I managed. Luckily they recovered for plie time, but still! I have no idea how this happened. Probably the car my parents gave me for my 22nd bday, mixed with moving to the flat land of London. Yeah, I’m thinking that’s the combo. When I’m here I walk all the time, but it’s flat. When I’m home in SF it’s hilly and I try to walk a good bit but it’s nothing compared to when I used to have to take the bus/ walk everywhere. Gah! Anyway, day one is over, and although I dread the pain of tomorrow I’m also looking forward to feeling buff again. Stupid maintenance-requiring muscles. In case I ...