My Earlobes Still Feel Fat

I just had a little breakdown over my body, the kind that's bad enough to make me cry, but not bad enough to completely incapacitate me.  And when I got up, wiped off my face, and set about bustling to take my mind off my thunder thighs, I realized it had been a pretty long time since I'd cried over my size. I don't mean that I've been particularly happy with my body lately – on the contrary, I've been far too inactive, physically, and far too lax about snacking and such, and as a result I've been feeling a bit like a blob.  But I've been too busy to dwell on it, really.  I'm working a lot , and thinking about the book process, and trying to be more social and spend more time with my boyfriend (we had a period of not seeing each other much and it was hard on our relationship), and I just haven't had time to indulge my negative thoughts much.  I mean, I've had them, a lot of them, but then something else has come up and I've had to re-focus....

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...

A friend of mine emailed me last night, suggesting I watch the latest episode of BBC 2's 'Horizon', because it dealt with the issue of Gastric Bypass.  But when I started watching it this evening, I realized that really, it deals mostly with obesity – how and why it exists, and what we should do about it – and Gastric Bypass plays a large part in the last third of the program. In all honesty, as I started watching, my immediate reaction was rage and righteous indignation.  Gabriel Weston, the thin, blond, female surgeon who hosts the show announces at the very beginning that for her entire life (including the ten years in which she's been practicing medicine) she has operated under the 'assumption [...] that I am the size I am because of my character'.  Now, not only is that a particularly smug way of putting it, there is a serious problem with the underlying message: that fat people are fat simply because they are lazy and eat too much.  They don't have ...

 If you follow me on Twitter , you'll already know how obsessed I've been recently with a show called Say Yes to the Dress, which is a reality show that follows brides-to-be who are looking for the perfect dress at Kleinfeld's bridal salon in NYC.  I got into the show when I was living with my parents in San Francisco a few years ago, and spending a lot of my free time Tivo-ing reruns of What Not to Wear and other TLC shows (like I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant – NOT recommended for anyone even slightly suggestible).  I'm already a bit dress-obsessed, in general, and I have a weakness for reality TV (the NYTimes says that's okay!), so one episode was all it took to hook me.  I love seeing the different styles of dresses, comparing how they look on different body types, gasping at the incredibly poor taste some brides have and the stunning dresses others choose.  I love tearing up when the dads start to cry and yelling at the entourages when they opine too strongl...

Happy New Year!  I've had a lot going on these past couple of months, and I'm currently getting down to business on the first big set of edits for my book, but I just had to pop in to share my thoughts on a couple of articles that have been stirring my blood lately. First, this article from the New York Times, about a new study proving that our bodies actually conspire against us to hold onto fat we desperately want to lose, and that people who have lost weight before actually burn fewer calories doing the exact same activity as they would have burned had they never been overweight (sorry if that didn't make sense, just read the article).  I read it while I was on holiday in Rome, stuffing my face and telling myself that all the walking on cobblestones would work off the carbonara and the lasagne and the fried artichokes, and I must say I found it both fascinating and seriously depressing.  The description of the lifestyle a person needs to lead just to keep off a sign...

Things have been crazy lately.   I’ve finished my MA, started looking for a full-time job, and gotten an agent and a book deal, all in quick succession.   It’s all happening really fast, and it’s almost all good news; as my friend pointed out on Facebook when I announced that I had a publisher, I’m finally profiting from my all-consuming neuroses.   They’ve always been the source of my self-deprecating humor, these nerves of mine, but they were never much good for anything else until now.   Suddenly, I have an audience for my particular brand of crazy, and everyone around me seems to be thrilled on my behalf.   I should be thrilled too, and I am , I keep insisting… well, my logical brain is thrilled. The thing is, in my heart I’m terrified.   Publishing a book about my body anxiety publicizes it, and while I’ve always been one for publicizing my issues on a conversational level, I’ve never really had to deal with a large audience before.   ...

I have something to confess: I haven't worked out in a while.   And by a while, I mean at least a couple of months.  And by worked out, I mean anything besides walking around at a leisurely pace (that includes super low-key yoga/pilates). Amazingly, I'm smaller/lighter right now than I was back in the spring, when I was much better about exercising (well, I say it's surprising, but I guess it's been the case 90% of the last ten years, so I don't know why I continue to be surprised), but nonetheless I've been feeling sluggish and soft lately, and last week I decided to get back on the horse. A friend of mine on facebook has been doing a Jillian Michaels* workout, and she's been posting a lot about how exhausted it makes her and how much it hurts – my kind of workout, when I really want to get stuck in.  I messaged her and we chatted back and forth about the video, and based on her review ("it kills, but it's only half an hour and it isn't bo...