A Most Unreliable Narrator Issue #115 Fat Girl Summer
Maybe one day I’ll learn.
Welcome to A Most Unreliable Narrator, the slice-of-life newsletter of GenXer around town, Lisa Rabey. I talk about anything and everything with a bit of swears. I’m glad you’re here.
Dear Internet,
Jesus fucking Christ.
So, anyway, I’m back on Weight Watchers. The counting calories weren’t working for me and watching a few friends have success on WW put me back on the WW train.
WW works like counting calories except food is assigned a point value. You’re allocated a set number of points a day and a bank of extra points to use over the week to shoulder up if you go over or want to eat something very pointy. My daily intake is 36 and my weekly bank is 27.
I started on this past Sunday (also the end of the WW week) when Karen was in town as I watched her eat all weekend WW style and not denying herself treats, she just worked it in her daily point budget.
My daily intake for Sunday was 150 points which clearly far exceeds 63 (daily plus all of my weekly). It was all junk food. And it finally smacked me in the head that you cannot fool yourself into losing weight counting calories, or points, when you continually make bad choices. Not all calories are the same. I thought I could do count calories with the junk food and be fine but turns out I cannot and I was wrong. (It was my final a-ha moment that I so desperately needed.)
I still remain staunch believer that I won’t eat diet food as I want the full fat taste. I’ll just make sure it’s worked into my daily points. I’m also not keen on not having something I like but as Karen pointed out, need to remind yourself food as fuel and not always for pure pleasure. I’ve been eating for pleasure (and boredom, and depression, and whatever else) for years and look where it got me.
Do I have an eating problem? Good question. I went to a few Overeaters Anonymous meetings some time ago and couldn’t relate to any of the women (the meetings were all filled with women), who ate trash, hid food, binged food, or did the whole finger down the throat method. I never did any of those things. I just – overate and made bad choices.
Many years ago, J caught me competing with him on food. If he ate four pieces of pizza, I ate four pieces of pizza. If he had a burger, fries, appetizer, and a pop, I had the same thing. It didn’t matter how I felt, I always ate the same thing as he did. I had to get my share no matter at the cost. We had a long discussion about it, numerous times, about this behaviour. I know where it stems from: mother was not a keen person on keeping food in the house (no idea why as we could afford it) so my brother and I were relegated to buying our own food or being fed by others. My brother and I have fought over food like wild jackals. Food became precious.
J drilled in my head that food will always be readily available, and I will not go without. So, I started eating more humanely. 90% of the time I can only eat half my meal when we go out, I drink water instead of pop, and only get an appetizer if it’s something I really want (and typically have had before).
Thus, going out to eat has been “fixed” of sorts but it’s not 100%. We go to a local hideaway place for dinner on occasion and I’ll get an appetizer, order a root beer (or two), meal (which typically gets half-eaten), and split a cream puff with J or with whomever is at the table.
It’s a lot of food in one go and yet I feel powerless every time we go there because I want the moz sticks with ranch (Midwest thing), I want my root beer (locally made), and I want my cream puff (made with local ice cream and chocolate fudge sauce). I am telling you, I’ll tell myself anything to feel that food “need.”
It’ll be a hot minute before we go back until I can get a grasp on how to handle food.
Have I ever mentioned my body dysmorphia? Maybe? I write so much I tend to forget what I write about and feel like I’m repeating myself over and over again.
My body dysmorphia stems from three views: What I think I look like, what I do look like, and what the scale says. Body neutral people (positivity, fat acceptance, whatever it is this week) argue that you’re not your scale that is your worth. Okay, that’s fine but how long will it take for me to learn that lesson? I can see that value, or that my size is not my worth, but as I’ve told Best Kate, Kristin, and others over the years, if I don’t get started on changing my relationship with food and reign in my weight, I’ll size myself out of clothing that I can find on the internet (and in stores) that will fit me. I am a solid size 24 and the fat girl stores (or stores that carry fat girl clothes) tend to top out at 28/30.
My thoughts on body neutral people (positivity, fat acceptance, whatever it is this week) can fill several novellas worth of content. There is a lot to digest from those factions and to be honest, I have a headache right now and I don’t want to get into that conversation. What I can say is that I am learning more from fat athletes such as @iamlshauntay, @the_fat_athlete, and others including scores of hashtags then most of the previously mentioned groups. Fat people CAN run marathons, triathlons, and do pistol squats. They can be healthy, and live their full lives.
And yet. And yet.
I talked with my therapist today about going back on WW and my struggle with getting Norton to pay attention to me and my questions and concerns. They said they would support me in whatever fashion I need, and I need to do to take care of myself first and foremost. There is no harm in going through the process of getting the surgery and doing WW at the same time. I can always say no to the surgery up to the day of the surgery so that is what I’m doing right now.
Dearest Friend who had their surgery last month has lost 20lbs so far and over 60lbs since January. I’m so proud of them for making it this far and doing so well. The jealousy I thought I would feel as they shrank just isn’t there. I’m so grateful for that because my world would be upended if I lost them.
P.S. Had a meeting with John from Cork, IE last week who happened to look like Matthew Goode (who is English). I was aswooned by the Irish accent (Americans are accent sluts). Professionally told, it was a very good meeting. I was dying to ask if Guinness was better in IE than in the US. (I was told from someone else that is very true. Just not from John from Cork.)
P.P.S. I’m canceling my online personal trainer and sticking with walking and yoga while my back gets un-fucked.
P.P.P.S. Before dinner tonight, J got on my case that all I think about is being fat. Well, yes. That’s the topic of conversation between many of my friends and I as we all struggle.
Things I Recently Wrote
If you read #97.5, you’ll recall I’ve ditched the We’ll Read Anything Once (Twice If We Like it) book review blog for a newsletter of the same name.
What I’m Reading
FINISH A FUCKING BOOK LISA BEFORE STARTING A NEW ONE.
The 7/12 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle An Agatha Christie-esque locked room mystery
Reputation Mean girls with Jane Austen thrown in
Dissolution Lawyer turned sleuth in Tudor England
The Widow Queen 10th C Poland. A princess used as a pawn to form alliances, but she has other plans
Keats: A Brief Life in Nine Poems and One Epitaph Biography on John Keats
A Curious History of Sex A very skim the top look but highly interesting, history of sex
These Impossible Things Three Muslim women on the precipice of graduating from college come together and fall apart navigating who they are and what they mean to each other
Glenarvon Byron’s ex-lover was so distraught about their breakup, she wrote a roman à clef about their relationship
The Brightest Star in the Sky The people who live at 66 Star St. Dublin are about to find their lives upended in the most unusual ways
Want to see what I’m reading or watching? Check out my list for 2022!
Wonderful Thing
Apple.
Yeah, yeah, I drank the Kool-Aid years ago. I have a MacBook Air, Apple Watch, iPhone, iPad, and an Apple Pencil.
Today I’m shouting out to Apple because my current MacBook Air has lasted eight years next month and it’s about time I replace it so I ordered a new one the other day. Current MacBook Air (“Cillian Murphy.” My devices are named after the quadra of men I would marry. Come to think of it, they are all European. Huh.) has had a new battery, hard drive, and keyboard installed over the years so it’s not a bad run for a laptop. I waited until Apple released the M2 chip and the body is in “Midnight.” I’ve got my stickers ready to go for decoration.
My laptop as is is worth about $50 and I may sell it on eBay (the purchaser can take off the stickers). But it can’t update to the latest OS (Monterey) or play games with Steam. It started making weird noises the other day so it was time to finally buy a new one.
Is it fall yet?
lisa x
(Fuck fascists and Nazis!)
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