The Amazing Adventures of Dietgirl

by Shauna Reid

  And of course it was my duty as an Australian to introduce my Scottish husband to as many local delights as possible. He’s now seen the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Great Ocean Road, but somehow it meant more to me to watch him scoff his first fresh oyster, his first steaming bowl of Vietnamese pho, and his first juicy kangaroo steak. It’s nice to feel stuffed with happy memories, instead of stuffed with remorse.

  WEEK 250

  October 24

  I stood at the top of the makeshift aisle, clutching a bouquet of irises from Nanny’s garden. I’d only needed about ten minutes to get ready for Wedding Part III, as I finally had the routine down pat. Hair, makeup, squishy undies. And magically, the frock fit perfectly. I could even zip it up all by myself!

  We’d decided to conduct a mock wedding ceremony to give things a sense of occasion, kind of like those dramatic reconstructions on Crimewatch. Mum had found a lovely café for the party with a great courtyard and garden, perfect for a pretend wedding.

  I was overcome by mushiness as I surveyed the scene. The Mothership was about to pretend to give me away, looking dazzling in her new size 16 suit. Gareth looked handsome and golden after three weeks under the Australian sun. Beside him was my friend Belinda, looking stunning in her role as Gareth’s Best Girl. The finishing touch was my friend Matt playing the part of minister.

  Jenny took her role as imaginary bridesmaid very seriously. She spontaneously bellowed the Wedding March as she led the way down the aisle, “Dun dun dun-duuuun!”

  I followed her as daintily as I could manage in my flimsy gold flip-flops. I surveyed the guests—my aunties with their golf-ball perms, my gorgeous friends with their assortment of partners and babies. I’d vowed to look dignified and classy because we’d hired a photographer, but I couldn’t stop grinning.

  The Mothership took my hand and squeezed it tight. Matt cleared his throat and pulled a priest’s collar out of his pocket and plopped it over his head.

  “We are gathered here today to celebrate the marriage of Shauna and Gareth. Marriage is a sacred institution, one that is not to be entered into lightly. Therefore, as today is Shauna and Gareth’s fourth wedding this year, we can all be safe in the knowledge that they are pretty serious about it by now.

  “So, who takes this woman away from this man, and then gives her back again?”

  “I do! I do!” said Mum.

  “Excellent.” He turned to Gareth. “Gareth David Reid, do you promise to keep on loving Shauna, in sickness and in health, for richer and for poorer; even though she always leaves bits of food on the plates when she does the dishes?”

  “I do.”

  “Excellent. Now Shauna Lee Reid, do you promise to keep on loving Gareth, in sickness and in health, for richer and for poorer; even though you still can’t always understand his Scottish accent?”

  “I do!”

  “Do we have the wedding rings?”

  Jenny and Belinda dutifully coughed up the bling.

  “Gareth,” said Reverend Matt, “please take your wife’s hand and repeat after me. With this ring, I re-wed.”

  “With this ring, I re-wed.”

  Matt smiled. “Shauna, take that Scotsman by the hand and repeat after me. With this ring, I re-wed.”

  “With this ring, I re-wed.”

  “I now pronounce you, once again, husband and wife,” Matt said triumphantly. “You may kiss the bride!”

  I’d forgotten that some of the guests hadn’t seen me for years. The reactions ranged from, “Oh my God, look at you>! You’re so skinny!” to simple demands to know my weight loss secrets.

  “You’re looking great, you know,” said one aunt. “Really, really, really great!” Which perhaps was a polite way of saying: holy CRAP, you were fat before. I didn’t want to say anything at the time but I was worried you might explode! So what a relief to see you somewhat deflated!

  The afternoon passed in a glorious blur, fueled by champagne and mild sunburn. I recall explaining to my aunties numerous times that, no, Matthew wasn’t a real priest, he was just pretending. Sometimes I just stood back for a while and watched, trying to soak up every detail. My old friends immersed in conversation, my aunty’s startled expression as she took her first ever bite of sushi, the curious sight of Gareth in sunglasses, and the Mothership’s slightly sozzled laughter. I never was one of those chicks who fantasized about their wedding day, but somehow this tricontinental spectacle turned out to be more incredible than anything I could have ever dreamed up.

  Later on all the Cowra High School clan gathered at the bowling club for Steak Diane and chicken schnitzels. Gareth ordered fish and chips for the fifteenth time on our trip, vowing to resume his vegetarian lifestyle as soon as we got home.

  It’s been 10 years since we left school. It was incredible to see the different paths my friends had taken while still retaining all the wit and charm that carried me through my high school days.

  “So what have you been up to since I last saw you, Shauna?” asked Sharon. “Aside from all your weddings?”

  Damn. I’d been dreading that question. “I’m still a secretary,” I said with a self-deprecating laugh. “Putting that journalism degree to great use!”

  “Hang on,” Jenny piped up. “What about your writing? Shauna was in a book!”

  “Oh yeah,” I mumbled. “That.”

  “You were in a book? Wow!”

  “Yeah.”

  “So what was it about?”

  And that was when I realized most of my friends still had no idea about my Incredible Transformation. I quietly slipped off the radar after the glut of twenty-first birthday parties, determined not to let them see me at my worst.

  Gareth leaned over and whispered, “Be proud, Diet Lady!”

  I took a deep breath. “Well … it’s a bit complicated, really. Basically after we left school I got grossly overweight and severely depressed. And then I lost a load of lard. I wrote about it on the Internet and then I wrote about it for a book!”

  So there it was, ten years in my life wrapped up in a sentence. “Umm, that’s about it, really.”

  “Shauna, are you crazy?” said Jenny. “That’s bloody fantastic!”

  “Yeah!” chimed in Sharon. “I always loved your writing.”

  “Ahh, thanks.”

  “You should be proud. We’re all proud!”

  I stared down at my plate and counted the ridges in the crinkle-cut chips. Gareth gave my knee a squeeze under the table.

  Is that what the past decade really boils down to? my fat? I spent the first five years accumulating ridiculous amounts of it, then the next five obsessed with making it go away. That’s not something to really crow about. It only reminds me that as a pampered Westerner, I had the luxury of being able to “achieve” obesity in the first place.

  But as I listened to the burble of chatter around the dinner table, I realized that while it might feel like the last ten years were all about my fat, other people don’t see it that way. My friends asked about my writing and my travels and my love life. And when they told Gareth stories about our high school antics, not once did my size rate a mention.

  I wanted to cry right there at the table, thinking of how I’d actively avoided these people for so many years, thinking I was unworthy of their friendship. I viewed my world through the fat goggles and assumed that’s how they saw me too. I told so many lies and hid so many secrets. Who knows how different things could have been if I’d just reached out?

  I’m longing for the day when I can look back at these long years of lard busting and it will simply be a throwaway sentence. Like, “I went to university” or “I got married.” It will just be, “I was fat but then I wasn’t.” It’s still too raw right now, but I know one day it will become part of the landscape. Just another story to tell.

  After dinner we took a nostalgic stroll down Cowra’s steep main street. I pointed out my old haunts to Gareth—the KFC, the Chinese take-away, the cinema where I ate all that free popcorn. But there
were nonfat landmarks too—the Motor Registry where I’d spectacularly failed my driving test, our mailbox at the post office, the Clint’s Crazy Bargains shop where the prices are just crazy.

  We ended up at the Town House, usually a happening nightspot but dead on a Sunday night. We got turfed out before we had a chance to down our first drinks. So we called our parents to pick us up. Just like old times, except now we all had mobiles and didn’t have to queue at the phone box.

  We all stood there in the deserted street, watching the traffic lights flip lazily between red, yellow, and green. It was surreal to be here again, just as we were ten years ago except with a collection of partners and husbands and experiences.

  And for the first time I felt I belonged. I wasn’t hiding anything. I’d always tried to compartmentalize the pieces of my life—keeping friends and family far away from my darker thoughts, separating first with emotional distance, then with physical distance. But as I stood there with my re-newly-wedded husband and my oldest friends, I finally felt it all come together. Big Shauna, Smaller Shauna, Old Shauna, New Shauna. It’s all me. From now on there’s just going to be one Shauna for every occasion.

  EPILOGUE

  WEEK 333

  May 28

  175.5 pounds

  175.5 pounds lost

  I’d always pictured the perfect ending. Just as I thought there’d be a grand epiphany for me to start losing weight, I thought there’d be an equally spectacular moment when I finished. Sunbeams would stream through the window as I stepped on the scale, and the magic number would appear just as the last sliver of excess fat fell from my body. I’d be presented with a bouquet and tiara and then I’d tearfully declare my mission complete.

  I returned to Scotland after Wedding Part III all fired up to secure my happy ending. I’d gained four pounds on the trip, taking me back up to 193 pounds, so I had 14 pounds left to lose.

  I was consumed by the need to finish the job properly. I couldn’t fight the flab for six long years only to let it just fizzle out. And what about the hundreds of people around the world who’d faithfully tuned in to my adventures? Didn’t I owe them all a grand finale?

  The pounds came off painfully slowly. I was thoroughly fed up with calorie counting and weekly weigh-ins, and longed for the day when I could hurl the scale off a cliff and just live like a normal healthy person. I daydreamed about being a grizzly bear in hibernation. I’d only need one winter! I’d live off my body fat, snooze away the last 25 pounds, then emerge from my cave in the springtime, all slender and complete.

  By August 2006, I’d dropped eighteen more pounds and finally reached the magical milestone of 175 pounds lost. I’d shed half my body weight. My inner statistician rejoiced at the beautiful symmetry of it all, and when I took some progress photos in my new size 14 jeans, I was proud of what I saw. I felt confident, sexy, and content. I felt done.

  But how could I possibly be done? I was still fat in the eyes of the Body Mass Index chart. Surely my successes didn’t really count until I reached that number? I’d made a public commitment way back in 2001, so I couldn’t give up so close to the end. I was Dietgirl, darn it. I was supposed to be a weight loss superhero!

  For the next few months I was obsessed with reaching that mystical goal weight of 165 pounds. But the harder I tried, the more the scale refused to budge, and I began to see numbers in my sleep. They frolicked hand in hand through meadows, laughing at my inability to catch them. I grew panicky and impatient, and instead of keeping faith in my tried-and-true formula of sensible eating and exercise, I scoured my old diet books in the hope of finding a better way. In a fit of lunacy I even went back to Weight Watchers for a month, until I overheard a woman complaining she’d gained weight because she’d worn heavier socks than usual.

  Finally in January 2007, on the sixth anniversary of my lard-busting adventures, I stopped and asked myself, What the hell am I doing? Haven’t I learned anything? Why am I torturing myself?

  For six years I’d battled to achieve a balanced approach but now I’d fallen back into my old, obsessive ways. And what for? I was fit and healthy. I liked my body. I liked being me. And that was what I’d wanted more than anything when I’d stood under the clothesline all those years ago. But all those positives were being trampled by my goal weight fixation.

  I decided to try a radical experiment and just stop. No more number crunching, no more ritual weigh-ins, and no deadlines. Obsessing was getting me nowhere, so I resolved to just let go and see where my instincts took me.

  Why hadn’t I tried this tactic before?

  I’d always been slightly suspicious of my achievements. Despite losing a mighty 175 pounds, it somehow felt like a hefty stroke of luck. Me, a success story? I worried that I was one bar of chocolate away from being 350 pounds again. How could this person doing all the exercise be me? Am I really someone who chooses brown rice more often than cake?

  Even though I hadn’t followed a diet for years, I’d been clinging to the dieter’s mind-set, taking comfort from the rules and rituals and boundaries. What would I do if I weren’t obsessing? Would my healthy habits come undone without the fear of a weekly weigh-in? What if it’s all been a six-year fluke?

  But letting go turned out to be liberating and empowering. Instead of worrying about weight loss, I simply did the things I’d do if I were already at my Happy Ending weight.

  I focused on my fitness because getting sweaty had always made me feel sound and strong. I developed a thirst for new activities, and each one indulged a different side of my personality, from the serenity of yoga and Pilates to the grueling pleasures of canoeing and cycling. I explored my aggressive streak with kickboxing classes. I laced up my boxing gloves, thought of everyone who’d ever annoyed me and just let fly. After all those years of kicking thin air at BodyCombat, it was thrilling to finally connect with something. I loved the sound of my foot smacking the pad, pow pow pow!

  I also took up hill walking with Gareth. I grumbled with every step, as I’d done on Mount Ainslie, but secretly reveled in the ache and burn of my leg muscles as we made our ascent. Every time I reached the top, I thought of the Old Shauna hiding in the house with the blinds drawn, so disconnected from her body and surroundings. I longed to drag her into the wilderness so she could know this beautiful silence and feel the cold air on her skin.

  I even tackled my lifelong fear of the pool and signed up for swimming lessons. I was nauseous with panic beforehand, so pale and wobbly in my new swimsuit. But my teacher led me into the water with the soothing, encouraging tones she normally reserved for hysterical toddlers. Soon she had me thrashing up and down the pool in a messy front crawl, too busy concentrating to be self-conscious. I felt strong as I pulled my body along, yet peaceful and serene as the water enveloped me. Afterward I relished the chlorine sting in my eyes and proudly crossed item number one off my To Do When I’m Skinny list.

  Recently a friend and I were preening in front of the mirror as we got ready for a night out on the town.

  “God, I’m so fat,” she muttered. “Look at my gut. It’s huge!”

  I frowned at my own reflection, trying to select a fault to contribute to the conversation.

  In the old days I’d have blurted automatically, “That’s nothing, look at my hefty arse! And watch I don’t slap you with my arm flab!” But now I realized I had nothing to say. I no longer saw my body as a collection of flaws. My body was something to savor and celebrate. I looked in the mirror and saw sparkling eyes and glossy lips curved into a confident smile. Instead of the old shapeless sacks, I’d poured myself into a figure-hugging dress that showcased my nippy waist and rounded hips. Everytime I put on high heels and jewelry and lipstick and perfume, it felt like I was singing to the world about the joy I’d found within.

  So I had no desire to put myself down, not even in jest for sisterly solidarity. I realized that you have to be your own superhero. I’d always been desperate for approval and validation from others, but now I know that th
e real pleasure comes from impressing yourself. Now, after a lifetime of self-loathing, you could drop me on a runway with a pack of supermodels and I’d still be happy. They’ve got their look and I’ve got mine.

  Way back at the start of my journey I was in deep denial that I was seriously overweight. Now I know the situation has reversed—I’ve been in denial that I’m healthy and slim. But over the past few months, just as in the beginning, all the evidence has come at me in little bursts of awareness. How I’m optimistic by default. How I exercise purely for the joy of it, not to make my body more pleasant to the masses. How my eating is instinctive and balanced but with room for guilt-free indulgence. How they have no trouble finding a vein when I donate blood. How I can fit into size 10 skirts at H&M. How I can walk past a bakery without being restrained on a leash. How instead of thinking, These are things I must do to lose weight; I now truly believe, This is just how I live my life.

  I decided it was time to revisit my To Do When I’m Skinny list. With a flourish and a red marker I ticked off each item, savoring the thick lines slashing through what I’d thought were impossible dreams. I felt a surge of pride, realizing that I hadn’t waited for official Skinniness to achieve them.

  And now there were only two things remaining.

  5. Buy some sexy leather trousers.

  What the hell was I thinking there? I must have been going through some sort of Jim Morrison phase. I’m sure you’ll forgive me for abandoning that one.

  Then my heart leapt into my throat as I read the very last item.

  6. Have a full body massage.

  Rhiannon and I headed into the English countryside for a girly spa weekend. I’d booked my massage for the very last day, giving me plenty of time to work myself up into a traditional Fat Girl Freak-Out. When my massage therapist finally collected me, I felt like a bathrobed lamb being led to the slaughter.