I have been trying to lose five pounds for the last five years. I've gained ten instead.
Now, to be fair I was super duper thin ten pounds ago. I was a size two and weighed 118 pounds. I'm 5'6". I wanted to lose five pounds back then cause I had been even thinner the year before (size 0, 108 lbs) and I was growing out of the clothes that I had been wearing over the last two years. I suppose I wish I'd just been happy with what I had, cause I can tell you, I've since grown out of the next stage of clothing and am about to move on into a size six. This is not going to make me happy.
I know...cry me a river. A size six is still considered "small" in our society as a whole, but you have to remember, I live in Hollywood. This isn't "society as a whole". This is another planet. On this planet, self indulgence and self denial are the only two modes of operation...indulge the ego, deny the self. Welcome to my world.
I've tried loving my body. I really have. I tried for like a whole five minutes once. I couldn't do it. I LIKE my body. I wouldn't really want somebody else's, but at the same time, I can't really be happy with mine until I see that it's living up to it's full potential. And it's just not. For being a relatively small person I have REALLY BAD cellulite. I mean, like...horrendous! Even when I was 108 pounds I had it, but at least my muffin top wasn't spilling over my low rise jeans and I didn't have to unbutton my pants after every meal. Nowadays not only do I have cellulite, but my arms are back to jiggling when I wave...actually my arms WAVE when I wave, and I swear, they are getting bigger every single day. In addition to that, I'm back to having handfulls of back fat, and my calves have gotten so big that when I was in a ballet class two years ago I couldn't just point my toe and then bring my leg back to first position in one straight line move (as is required), I actually had to drag one leg AROUND the other to get around the meat. Ugh. And don't get me started on my three stomach rolls. I tell you what, they were adorable when I was a baby, but as an adult, it's just gross. Last but not least, my inner thighs. As if it weren't insulting enough to have mounds of cellulite on the outside of my legs, on the inside is a nice chunk of padding that's really good for messing up the lines of jeans and rubbing together and being all sweaty and disgusting in the summer. Calgon, take me away.
Why did I gain all of that freaking weight back???? I was HAPPY as a size 0. I didn't even have to try clothes on when I was that size. They are all designed for rails and that's what I was and so of course everything looked good. Any trend, whatever the models and starlets were wearing, it was mine for the taking. And I have to say, that feels great. I'm not gonna lie. Now I have to work around certain new trends, find ways to either make them work, or work around and do without them all together. And being left out is no fun. No fun at all.
How did I get so thin in the first place? Well, I'm glad you asked...I worked out for 2 hours a day...almost every day, and I drank about a six pack of diet coke per day and smoked cigarettes. I ate, but not much. Breakfast? Check. (1/2 banana before the gym). Lunch? Check. (No sugar added ice blended from Coffee Bean). Dinner? Check. (3-4 Diet Roy Rogers'). I know I ate other stuff too. I was always mooching food from my brother cause he ate yummy naughty foods that I wasn't used to, I baked and ate a lot of cupcakes, I ate 5 donuts once at a family gathering, I was vegan at one point and there was a lot of soy chicken nugget eating, a lot of vegan mac n cheese and then when I wasn't being vegan there was a lot of no carb munchin' going on as well. So, believe me...I ate. I even had a boyfriend for a few months and we ate all of the time.
What had happened was, I started by eating lower carbs and working out more than usual. I went to the Y first thing every morning and did one hour of cardio and then I would take my dog to Runyon Canyon. When I got my commercial agent and started auditioning, sometimes I would skip a meal depending on what I had to wear for the audition (most of the time it was a bikini or some other revealing outfit) and after a while, your body just gets used to running on empty...actually prefers it. It's a strange shift. Where I'm completely obsessed with food right now because I feel it is my enemy, at that time, I sometimes had to force myself to eat because I knew I wasn't getting enough, but sometimes I just wasn't in the mood. Something about being really thin gives you a sort of energy...especially when you're drinking as much caffeine as I was at the time. I dunno. The whole thing is weird. It's kind of like how the rich get richer, the thinner I was, the easier it was to get even thinner. Was I kind of anorexic? I really don't know. I never thought I was. I still don't think so, but...something was going on and I can't get it back whatever it was.
I've tried going back to the caffeine and cigarettes thing, but as I get older I just can't handle them. Number one, they are murder on the skin, and number two, I just don't have the tolerance. Caffeine makes me jittery and cigarettes make me feel like I have a cold all of the time. Plus, it just doesn't work unless I do the WHOLE package which as you will recall from earlier also includes working out for two hours every day.
I just want to say for the record that all of those skinny bitches that we see on T.V. are starving. Don't let any health magazine tell you any different. There are VERY VERY VERY few women who are naturally that thin, and yes, some of them are on T.V., but the majority of them just aren't eating. I can name several right now who come into my restaurant and order a chopped vegetable salad, no cheese, dressing on the side...every time they come in. You know who eats? Scarlett Johanssen. She's a ham and cheese gal, WITH fries. I don't know why Hollywood makes exceptions for some people. Scarlett and Kate Winslett get to look however they want (and yeah, they look great), but everyone else has to starve to death. I don't get it.
I grew up sort of chubby. My mom enrolled me into dance classes at the age of six cause she was worried that I was getting TOO chubby. I was very aware of my weight from a very early age because I had a slew of aunts and uncles who were all very very thin and they would make fun of me. That's a story for another post at some other time, but just a hint of background here...they were all very young, teens and pre-teens and they/we all grew up in a very disfunctional household, so...hence the making fun of the chubby little girl. No amount of therapy has ever been able to erase the damage done at that time. I still feel ashamed when I pack on a few pounds and when you mix that with what the media saturates us with, you've got amazing ingredients for a low self-esteem cocktail. I want to be thin. And that's just that.
So, I'm on this uphill battle to try and make body into something that it simply does not want to be. And now that I'm over 35, trying to win this battle gets harder and harder. My metabolism and hormones are working against me, my job is working against me (I'm surrounded by carby, fatty, yummy smelling food for seven hours straight four nights a week), and my lack of drive is against me. I just don't have it in me to workout for two hours a day.
I need to get happy with what I've got. I need to start liking healthier foods. And I need to get my ass back to the gym. But most importantly...I need to learn to love my body. I hate hearing that and I hate saying it even more. It just sounds so...I don't know...pathetic. But, I suppose it's true. I mean, I'm thankful for my health and I appreciate having all of my limbs and not being crippled or disfigured, but it has to go beyond that. It has to be above Vogue and above and beyond those television and big screen images. This love has to know better and be smarter than all of that.
And maybe if I can find it within my heart to love my body, maybe it will love me back...and surprise me...and be thin again.
Just kidding. Sorta.
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