Women get into relationships and then they get fat. How many of us have blamed our partner for our flab? I have. Is it the love or them cooking for us? A change in routine? Or maybe we stop taking care of ourselves, because we’re no longer on the market. It makes me think of that completely misogynistic, irreverent song “Women Lose Weight” by Morcheeba. The husband kills the wife because she’s fat. It’s her fault that he had to kill her. http://youtu.be/z_jGgZ35W5s
I have never really been thin except for those few years as a teenager when I was biking everywhere. When you bike 70 miles in one day, you can eat whatever the hell you want. But I got my driver’s license. A couple years later, I started college and packed on the freshman 50. That’s what happens when every meal is a buffet, and Pizza Hut is a few hundred feet from the dorm.
After my girlfriend died, I lost about 40 of those pounds over a 4 year span. During those years, I met quite a few vegetarians and vegans. I snubbed milk, cheese and mayonnaise. And I began to experiment with tofu, Silk milk and Ener G Egg Replacer. It’s not that I counted calories or watched fat, because I didn’t . And I wasn’t exercising either. Maybe it was stress, unhappiness or preoccupation.
When Jacks met me, I was a chunky but average size 12. She called me a hippy. Mateo called me his Tofu Lesbian. One night when I met her Lake George friends, I made dinner: a vegetable lasagna with eggplant and zucchini slices, whole wheat pasta, ricotta with herbs and other various cheeses. And don’t forget the chickpea salad with parsley and an oil/spice dressing. Unbeknownst to me, everyone else was stepping outside to fart the whole night. No one was really into the chickpea salad.
Jacks likes to bring up the incident of the flaxseed pancakes. Our friend Amber who lived across the street came over for breakfast. Flaxseed is one of those healthy ingredients that I liked to slip into foods. Omega 3s and a nutty flavor. What’s not to love? I added them to my eggless, whole wheat, soy milk pancakes. It was not long after Jacks and Amber ingested the pancakes, they were fighting over the toilet. That was at least 6 years ago. To this day Jacks always asks about the pancakes to make sure I haven’t slipped in anything extra. But I do keep some in the freezer just in case ;O)
In my size 12 days, I would eat half a sweet potato and two vegetarian sausages for breakfast. Sometimes instead of the vegetarian sausage I would have lima beans or peas with soy butter. I’m not the type of person who can eat the same thing every morning. It ruined sweet potatoes for me. Now, I’m only interested if it’s fried and accompanied by a dill aioli.
Somewhere along the line, I gained it all back. When I plug in my weight and height into the BMI calculator, it tells me I’m obese. Now I’m a chunky size 18. I could blame Jacks going to Culinary school. She would bring home loaves of fresh Baguette bread every night. I rediscovered butter, cream and red rare MEAT! The soy butter was pushed to the back of the fridge.
These days my friends & I are counting calories and trying to burn a few extra off. Measuring and weighing food. Walking the dog. Shoveling the sidewalk. Dusting off the recumbent bike. I’m down 6 pounds. It’s a start. We were all surprised at how small portions of cheese, rice and pasta have so many calories. And some fast food is completely out of the question–like Culver’s Atlantic Cod Dinner . We’re doing this http://www.myfitnesspal.com/ thing. It calculates the calories you need to create a deficit so that you can lose weight. It’s like Facebook for fatties.
Before I started to count calories, I tried the Weight Watchers points system. That lasted about a day. They have this formula based on weight, activity, age, and sex that calculates how many food points a person can have. I bought their Food Companion book, so I could look up all the food. I burned more calories flipping through that book. Instead of having all the foods in alphabetical order, they had them in categories. Basically, Weight Watchers charges a shit ton of money by assigning point values to foods rather than have a person count calories which is readily available on food packages and the internet.
Besides the cracked out point system, I have no desire to attend meetings with strangers and share my shame. Talk about the days when you used to frequent the Bistro and order 2 appetizers, entrée, and dessert. “Yeah, my name is Julie Ann, I’m a lardass.” Or maybe go undercover. “My name is Chloe, and I’m a compulsive eater.” I wonder if Weight Watcher’s in anonymous like AA. I wonder if they give out chips for pounds lost. “Hi, my name is Beatrice, I’m a binge eater. I’m 2 months sober.” “I’m Fran, I’m a foodie. I fell off the wagon today.” I’m just trying to figure out what the $60 is for. Do you get a sponsor that you can call in the middle of the night when you’re depressed and standing over a gallon of mint chip chocolate ice cream with a spoon? Do they have their very own serenity prayer, 12 steps, and bad coffee in Styrofoam cups? Isn’t AA free? And then they have all these special Weight Watcher’s foods—prepackaged and frozen deals. Because it’s easier to stick with the points system if you’re eating food from the Weight Watchers company. I live with a Chef and you want me to eat a cardboard energy bar and a TV dinner?
I mean seriously, why should I pay a company while I do all the work? Is anyone at Weight Watchers going to get on the treadmill for me? Let me dial their 1-800 #, “Um yeah, this is Sherri. How much for a mile of jogging at moderate pace? I want to eat out tonight.”
So my friends and I have begun our weight loss journey. The tofu noodles snuck back into the crisper drawer. Luna soy bars are nuzzled next the Trader Joes Freeze Dried blueberries in the cupboard. I’ll work on portion control, counting calories and exercise. But I refuse to eat low fat cheese, sugar substitutes and fake butter (aka margarine). That’s not food. Those are synthetic substitutions for food just like most of the processed foods in the snack aisle. And don’t touch my half & half, because it’s going into my coffee.
But I don’t want to be another health statistic either—not just the fat American kind—you know, the dead kind. So here’s to a sort of return to Tofu Lesbianism— a Reformed Tofu Lesbianism that includes both tofu and butter– in moderation, of course.
Postmortem Life 