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