bonus post! before picture

this is me (all headless and shit) on my wedding day, almost two years ago. i was 236 pounds. i did pretty well with keeping my flowers in front of my over-navel tummy-- what the fuck is up with THAT, by the way? it arrived around 225 pounds, and has apparently decided to stick around because it's STILL THERE at 210. not cool.-- and regret that i wore my pretty, comfortable j. crew ($250!) dress because it was not corset-compatible. also, in dancing pictures, you can totally see my lumpy ass & thighs. boo.

so, here i sit, twenty-six pounds lighter, one size smaller, and unable to find a reasonably useful photo from, oh, since my wedding. nice, becklette, really nice. note to self: buy a camera with your next bonus. for real. you need it.

it occurs to me that h might have some on his phone, but i think i've been pretty clear about only keeping pictures of me from the waist up, so he'd better not.

and if you were wondering, the shrug (SIZE MEDIUM?? i waited until it was on sale and they only had mediums & smalls left and dear god almighty, i had to have it to cover my fat arms!!) is a dark coral cashmere from ann taylor, the sash matches (also from ann taylor), as do the shoes, and the flowers are peach & coral gerbera daisies but i swear to you, i was VERY clear about my displeasure over the unapproved addition of PEACH to my wedding.

so, anyway, someday i'll post a progress pic. how about that?

part 3: the meet cute (day 5)

that summer, i met h. and we fell madly in love. we basically moved in together within the week (3 nights at his, 3 nights at mine, 1 on the phone). we didn't sleep until we were delirious with exhaustion, we ate chinese food, chubby hubby, bar fare and my best home cooking, washed down with beer, juice, snapple and soda (diet for me!) to keep ourselves awake and alert to every. little. detail. seriously, it was adorable. and i got, as they say, fat and happy, gaining another 30 pounds before we got engaged that fall. amid promises (unsolicited) that every bride loses weight without even trying, i gained 20 more while finishing college, working full time, moving us from 4 houses in 3 states to one small apartment, and planning the wedding of my mother's dreams.

through some act of god, or the patron saint of seriously fucked brides, i managed to zip up my size 14 dress. on the honeymoon, i wore size 20w jeans and xl tops. heels and skirts were officially a thing of the past. entering marriage, i realized i had already missed out on every little girl's dream; i was decidedly NOT a beautiful bride. i vowed to get my life back on track and lose weight in order to be a good wife, someday a good mother, and finally be myself again.

for three months i planned, making charts and spreadsheets and contingency plans. within 11 months i lost 21 pounds and one size, but i gained a lot of vitality. i needed less sleep, i felt less shitty in general, my eyes looked right again and i had only one chin. i also cut my smoking down to about a pack a week (from a pack and a half a day when i met h).

but in november i stalled. i've lost about 5 pounds since then, but i mostly go back and forth across a 6 or 7 pound range. i lost a lot of that vitality, too. i wasn't proud of myself. i didn't feel good about myself. in fact, i really have been hating myself. i feel weak and unlovable. and then the bells went off. this is psychological. i eat when i'm happy and when i'm sad. when i'm not controlling what i eat, i feel hopeless and eat more. so i found dr. y.

and she found the beck diet solution. and this is day 5. in a week and a half i start dieting. for now, i'm learning the behaviors that will help me keep it up. i'm going to do it this time. for serious. i've been taking my inspiration from the internet for a while now, so i decided to get in on the party. and there you have it. me: in a goddamned nutshell.

next up... why i've got to get it right this time.

part two: higher education (day 4)

well, duh. i gained weight. i went from a 12/14 to an 16/18 by christmas. but i also reinvented myself. i was loud, bawdy, proud, clever and, well, beginning to be slutty. but only just beginning. after christmas break i met a boy (there was a boy the first semester, but he's of no interest), f. a boy who could do push-ups with me sitting on his back. a boy who was a total, unbelievable asshole fuckwit. a boy whose repeated dumpings and getting-back-togethers led me to starve myself, experiment with diet pills and generally go batshit crazy in order to make him want me back. i actually think the batshit-crazy part was what kept him coming back. at least a dozen times. with no regard to how fat or thin either of us was. he left school after that semester, but we stayed in touch for more than two more years.

that summer, i poured my heart and soul into weight loss. well, actually, my heart and lungs. i started taking diet pills again and took up smoking full time. i barely ate, slept whenever i wasn't working and drank a glass of wine every night for dinner. at the end of the break i bought a red dress in a size 10-- which ALMOST fit.

shockingly, returning to a diet of beer, caf food and late-night burger kings runs, i gained back some weight. and then, oh and then. just off campus i was assaulted by a student who was apparently very popular. i discovered very quickly who my real friends were, and who i was. i hid out for a month, eating junk, drinking hard and chainsmoking. then i reported the incident to the police and the badness escalated. then i hid out for three more months.

when i left to spend the summer with friends in another state, i was easily back to my starting weight. i held steady there, unable to stick to a plan-- even diet pills-- and lose weight. when i returned to school, i made up for my meekness, my fatness and my self-hate by sleeping around. and drinking. that year passed in a whirlwind of booze, cigarettes and jeans that i should have admitted were two sizes too small.

today's tbds looks easy, but i think it might be deceptive. also, yesterday's task is AWESOME. it prevented me from eating soft serve and fresh pretzels at the farmer's market and bread and cheese while i made h's dinner. i can see why people lose weight on this program even before they start to diet. i, however, appear to be about 211 today. but i think some of that is because (note: intimate details ahead, and not in a good way) i don't poop on the weekends because i have a nervous bowel and i've developed the routine of drinking my coffee at the office and then pooping. i neither drink coffee nor go to the office most weekends. so that sucks (especially since my "official" weigh day is monday.) and my fingers are all swelled up, i think maybe from the heat? but i try not to think about those things much... i feel like i'm making excuses.

stay tuned for tomorrow's post: the meet cute (part three).

how the beck DID i get this fat? part 1 (day 3)

okay. how the beck DID i get this fat?

before i begin, i want to give this lil disclaimer: some minor details will be changed or obscured to protect, well, me.

so, we begin.

i was not fat until kindergarten. i recall thinking i was very fat in kindergarten (at the tender age of 5!) but photos show me just a bit chubby and certainly in a normal, healthy way. as i got older and learned to read, riding my bike, swimming and general exercise play was replaced with reading-- not tv or video games, but actual bound books. good-for-you things. my mother struggled with her weight, as did my grandmother, aunt and sister ("a"). i knew all about fat and diets and how important it was not not be fat and to be on a diet. when i was 8, shortly after a's first successful diet ended with a trip to the mall to get her ears pierced, i went on my first parent-supervised diet. i followed it to the letter... and a taught me where our mother kept junk food and how to hide the evidence after a trip to the corner store.

when i was 12, i send away for various diets found in the ad pages of teen magazines and supermarket tabloids. i recall a book with what was probably a very sensible diet, a set of smelly marker-things meant to deaden the appetite, an at-home detox wrap, apple cider vinegar tablets and diet patches. by the time i was 14 and a size 12, i resolved to lose weight so boys would like me. i have no idea what i weighed at the time, only that i wore a size 12 and my new! exciting! high school! friends! averaged a 4.

through high school i counted calories, poorly. i joined the ymca where i routinely ate pop tarts after my workout. i found myself playing old ladies in plays and being told i was too fat to be pretty. and i found a boy who liked me, but openly considered us both sub-par because of our fattness. (aside: i wrote this yesterday morning because this blog is shiny and new and i'm a little excited! h and i came very close to running into this boy last night-- what luck!-- and he was much thinner, but still with the goofy hair, awkward walk and funny nose. also: shorts? to the theater? gah.) much as i love camryn manheim's book wake up, i'm fat! i still believe it was the shittiest valentine's day gift EVER. we broke up before college, though our schools were in the same city. i moved away, determined to lose weight once and for all and come home in may thin and beautiful.

today i've read my tbds task, and it's going to be a bitch, i think. but, i persevere. if i don't do the work, how can i expect results?

next up is part two: higher education