Half-Assed

by Jennette Fulda

  Having options was another factor in choice. Some people had lives that were more predisposed to make them fat. If you had decided to eat healthy, what did you do when the cafeteria had only donuts or danishes left for breakfast? How easy was it for you to exercise if you lived in an urban environment? Is it really a choice not to go to the gym if you can’t afford a membership?

  Saying that fat people choose to be fat is at the very least oversimplifying matters, and at the most, it implies we have more control over our lives than we actually do. Not everything that happens to you is a direct result of a choice you made. If it were, we’d all be allpowerful and all-knowing. If an idiot rear-ends your car, it isn’t your fault simply because you chose to go for a drive. Some things happen to us that we have no control over. Choices we make sometimes have consequences that we are unaware of when we make our decisions.

  That’s not to say we have no control, either. Fat people can get thinner. I still had the fat pants to prove it. I made different choices and altered my behavior, and now I had seen the rewards. But a lot of my success came from awakening to the fact that I hadn’t been making choices. I wasn’t debating “Should I run tonight or not?” The thought never occurred to me. I didn’t know that eating a big bowl of macaroni and cheese would leave me tired. I never considered eating something better. However, I did know that eating a jar of frosting with a spoon wasn’t making me the next Kate Bosworth either. That one was all on me. It was the difference between accidental manslaughter and premeditated homicide.

  I chose the actions that ultimately made me fat, but I wasn’t always aware that the food I was eating had so many calories, and I didn’t always have a treadmill in my bedroom. I was responsible for being fat, but it wasn’t always a choice.

  I had no idea how to tell Carol this, though. I finished chomping on my celery stick and the discussion concluded. Sadly, we did not solve the obesity epidemic of central Indiana that afternoon. I got up to get my jacket from the hat stand. Carol came over to see me off and said, “Congratulations again. You seem really happy.”

  I was happier, but it wasn’t just because I was thin. I had changed a lot on the outside, but only because I’d changed so much on the inside. People saw this brightness in me and assumed it was because I was skinnier.

  “You don’t look like you need to lose any more weight, either,” she added. There’s a sentence I’d never thought I’d hear someone say to me.

  “Thanks,” I said as I opened the door. “And good luck.” I shut the door softly between us.

  A couple of weeks later it was warm enough to go outside without a jacket, so I headed straight for the trail. It was odd to think I was excited to go outside. I’d always hated the outdoors growing up. In fifth grade, I’d hid under a table so I wouldn’t have to go out to play kickball. I’m sure the class’s pet guinea pig was happy to have the company or at least happy to be tormented by one fifth-grader instead of thirty. I laced up my shoes tightly, headed for the gate, and started walking to warm up my muscles. I passed a woman with an amazing physique. Thankfully I’d stopped playing “Is she fatter than me?” lately and had started playing “How many reps will make me that ripped?”

  I picked up my pace and broke into a slow run. The rasp of air rushing through my nasal passages sounded like intermittent static on the TV, sparking off and on while someone adjusted the antenna. I was now able to complete an eleven-minute mile, but I knew my pace wouldn’t break any land-speed records or even beat the eight-year-old on training wheels ahead of me. I didn’t care.

  I felt breeze on the back of my sweaty neck and was hit with a sudden blast of joy. Even though I didn’t have a boyfriend, and I didn’t have a million dollars, and my toilet was probably in the process of breaking, I was experiencing these unexpected hits of happiness more and more lately. I was closer to joy now than ever before, as if I had moved next door to it and caught glimpses of it mowing its lawn and getting the mail from time to time.

  The sun was burning hydrogen and helium to create dazzling light that sparkled off the water below the bridge. The hot and cold air collided to form a breeze that brushed my hair back in the wind. As I inhaled for two steps, exhaled for one, I felt the rhythm of my running flowing through me like the air in my lungs. Ryan Adams was singing in my ears telling me I was so alive, so alive. I couldn’t disagree.

  If there were a secret, this was it.

  CHAPTER 18

  Killing the Fat Girl

  So, that’s the end, right? I got thin and now I get to live happily ever after. I’ll never step foot in the plus-size section of another department store. I’ll eat sugar-free gelatin desserts for the rest of my life. Someday I’ll meet the perfect man, and we’ll laugh at my fat pictures and joke about how ridiculous it is that I ever looked like that. Let’s close the book on this fairy-tale story, put it on the shelf, and knock back some champagne with my fairy godmother.

  Too bad I could still get fat again.

  It happens. A lot.1 If the diet industry knew how to successfully help people maintain long-term weight loss, it would have put itself out of business decades ago. People like me have a fat chance of staying thin. I’m going to roll the dice anyway and gamble that I can maintain my weight. It’s better to play the game even though I might lose than to sit it out entirely.

  I’m on permanent probation. I’ll be making weekly check-ins with my parole officer forever. His office is my bathroom floor and his face displays three numbers. He lets me walk all over him. If I stop exercising and stop eating right, I will go back to fat prison. There is no leniency. I have to think about food and exercise more than I’d like to, but that’s the price I pay, and it will probably never go away.

  My metabolism will slow down as I age and ten or twenty pounds might start to creep back on. There are weeks now when the numbers start to climb back up, and I worry that I might have to dig out a larger pair of jeans. I don’t have a box of skinny clothes at the bottom of the closet any more, just a box labeled FAT CLOTHES (IN CASE OF EMERGENCY).

  I don’t think I’m going to get fat again, but who ever plans to gain back the weight? No one plans a car accident, either. When things are going well it’s difficult to remember how hard life was before. But to gain back all two hundred-and-something pounds, I would have to completely stop caring. I can’t unlearn everything I’ve learned. I think my chances are good for success because I’ve accepted the fact that my body needs constant care and attention. I haven’t been cured of obesity, I’m just in remission. There is no fat vaccine. I have realistic goals and I won’t be heartbroken if I never wear a size 4 dress.

  The funny thing is, that fat girl hiding in my mother’s photo albums, the one in the ugly clothes with the slumped shoulders, she had a pretty good life. She had a cat who curled up on her soft, fleshy belly for naps. She had a family with a sense of humor, who never made her feel bad about herself. She got good grades and was frequently the teacher’s pet. She always had a safe place to sleep, food to eat, and a place to call home. Given the choice between that life and the life of a skinny starlet in rehab, I’d put the fat suit back on fast enough to jam the zipper.

  Many thin people would be surprised that fat people could feel that way about themselves. A survey done by the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity showed that nearly half of the people questioned would rather give up a year of their lives than be obese.2 Between 15 and 30 percent would rather get divorced, become infertile, be depressed, or become alcoholic. People are scared of fat. Fear can sometimes be a good thing. Fear means the bad thing hasn’t happened yet. But sometimes, you experience the worst possible thing you can imagine and surprisingly discover it is survivable. All the panicking and freaking out over fat is worse than any love handle. Fearing that I could become fat again is a waste of time. I would never have consciously chosen to become morbidly obese, just as I would never fling myself into the path of a speeding Volkswagen. We don’t get to choose the obstacles life sets in our path, y
et there is a lot to be learned from jumping those hurdles.

  Obesity gave me a great sense of perspective. I don’t have any unrealistic expectations about how thin any woman should be. I look at magazine covers in the grocery store aisle and feel genuinely sad for the emaciated superstars who are picked on for being anorexic twigs or gluttonous pigs. I see women who probably wear size 12 jeans and think they look thin. I can appreciate being thinner more than someone who has never been fat ever could.

  Obesity also made me understand that the package you come in affects the way people treat you. Being fat was like having a built-in asshole detector. People who were jerks didn’t go out of their way to be nice to me. It must be hard if you’ve always been thin and you’ve always seen the best sides of people at first. How can you determine who the jerks are if they come at you wearing disguises? I’ve certainly never had to wonder if I got anywhere because of my looks.

  But when I talk to unhappy fat friends, I sometimes feel as though I have moved into a different class, like I’m a poor little match girl who now owns a lighter fluid company. I wish I could tell them how to get to the happy place where I am, but the route doesn’t seem to be found in any road atlas. If it did, I’d make photocopies for everyone and circle the destination in a big, yellow highlighter and tie balloons to the mailbox so you could all join the party. But I can’t. You have to find it yourself without the aid of a global positioning device. You don’t necessarily have to be thin to come inside, either.

  I do love being thin, though I still carry enough weight that some people might consider me chubby. When I’m walking through the mall I occasionally have to remind myself that I can shop in the normal stores. Sometimes I walk into the department store and try on dresses that cost more than my cable and electric bills combined just to see how cute I look in them. But I usually put those frocks back on the rack because I prefer to be able to continue using my hair dryer and checking my email. Every time I look in the mirror I still think, “I look so freaking hot.” Sometimes I think I would look even hotter if I lost ten more pounds.

  One friend said I smile more now. Another said I was glowing. I am a lot happier. I think people assume it’s because I’m thin. That’s only part of it. At the beginning I saw weight loss as the ultimate goal, but once I started taking care of myself I started living a life that made me happier, which also happened to make me thinner. It’s easy to confuse the two. I’ve heard it said that people need to love themselves no matter what, but I think you have to earn your own love through the things you do for yourself. I had to shape myself into someone worth loving, someone worthy of my own respect.

  I’ve changed so much through this experience that I wonder if I should add an upgrade number to my name to alert people to all my new features. Introducing Jennette 2.0, now with less fat and a more huggable interface. Last week I walked down the trail to an organic grocery store to buy pears and found myself wondering, If I’ve been replaced by a pod person, would I know about it? I’ve heard a rumor that every cell in your body replaces itself at least once in the course of seven years. Sometimes I wonder if my data got slightly corrupted and now I’m a copy of someone I never was. I might just be growing up.

  I probably don’t even notice some of the ways I’ve changed. I can’t stand outside of myself and observe my actions like both the rat and the laboratory scientist. I always liked who I was, but maybe people can just see that better now. When I hear my voice on an answering machine I think, That cannot possibly be me. I do not sound like that. But I do. Perhaps the image I am projecting now more closely matches the image I had of myself all along.

  I cooked dinner for my mother when she visited my apartment a couple of months ago. I coated some chicken breasts in Italian dressing and sautéed them while green beans seasoned with garlic cooked in the microwave and I brought some water to boil on the back burner for couscous. She stared at me and shook her head.

  “Who would have ever thought,” she murmured.

  “What?” I said.

  “My daughter, the culinary genius.”

  “I could throw in a cartwheel to really impress you, but I have to flip the chicken now,” I replied.

  When she left, she wrapped her arms far enough around me to grab her own elbows, squeezing me tight in her embrace.

  When I began this journey, I thought I would get to the finish line and write a tirade about everyone who discriminated against me, saying I was the same person thin as I was fat. Only that isn’t true. I can cook. I can run for miles. I feel proud and powerful. I accomplished a huge task and took control of my life. I feel like I’m driving now, not just sitting in the back seat of a stinky taxicab with a questionable upholstery stain. I’m more myself. I have the amplifier turned up to eleven.

  I live a life with less fear. I’m not afraid I’ll have to ask the stewardess for a seat belt extender on the plane. I’m not afraid to walk into a clothing store and be able to buy only a pair of socks. I don’t fear looking at the photos from my brother’s wedding, when I proudly wore a sleeveless dress to show off my new arm muscles. I didn’t make it to goal by then as I planned, but I felt beautiful and alive, and I broke my dress strap as I kicked my heels up to “Shout.”

  I don’t have to feel the pain of obesity anymore and not just in my aching knees. When I ride the bus, I’m not the fat lady whom everyone avoids sitting next to. I remember avoiding eye contact as people swiped their bus passes. I remember praying no one would be left on his or her feet because I was too fat to sit next to. But remembering a feeling isn’t the same as hearing your heart quicken in fear and feeling ashamed that your thighs are spilling into the next seat. I’ve gotten off that bus and all I have left is a ticket stub to remember the ride.

  The world is a more hopeful place now, as though the magnetic poles switched and I’m living on the positive end of the planet instead of the negative end. Anything seems possible. I am, after all, the girl who lost more than two hundred pounds. I’m not entirely convinced that if I stepped out my second-story bedroom window and decided I could hang glide on my batwings of arm flesh, that I would land in the bushes and break my leg. And if I did end up in a full body cast, at least I tried to fly. There’s nothing to be ashamed of when you fail to do something great. When you go out on a limb, sometimes you fly and sometimes the limb breaks. Even if you end up lying on your back with branches poking your butt cheeks, at least you have a great view of the stars.

  A lot of people have called me an inspiration. It’s odd being a success story, to be the girl who has something so many other people want. I always had a sweet tooth, but I was never a fan of the sugary, sweet stories about people overcoming adversity. They always seemed fake, built up by the author to tell a good story while quietly brushing the bad stuff under the carpet to be ignored. But I think I was just afraid that they were true, that there were people who loved their lives and had sunshine coming out of their asses and that I would never be one of them. I suppose I’m one of those annoying bastards now. I don’t have any light shining out of my rectum, though. I’m bendy enough now that I checked. I’ve achieved something many people want to accomplish, but it doesn’t make me any more special or amazing than anyone else. I don’t think people give themselves enough credit. We’re all capable of a lot more than we think.

  Sometimes I feel I need to apologize for being so happy, to say I’m sorry to all the people who want to be thin but are stuck being fat. When I shine so bright, I’m bound to deepen the shadows in their lives. But my life isn’t perfect either. Being thin hasn’t solved all my problems, and the problems I do have can no longer be blamed on my obesity. Overweight women who read my blog frequently ask if people treat me better now, as if no one would ever be mean to me again because I’m thin. I get cut off in traffic by insecure men driving SUVs even though I’m thin. I had to wait in line at the DMV to finally renew my driver’s license and replace my fat photo even though I’m thin. I have not been seduced by a hot Latino love
r over a latte at the bookstore even though I’m thin. The grass always looks greener where the thin people live, but there are patches of crabgrass and poison ivy here too. I haven’t been invited to any secret glamorous thin parties where we stand around not eating hors d’oeuvres.

  In all the preceding chapters in this book you’ll notice I never did meet the perfect man and run off into the sunset. There aren’t any wacky dating stories either because I don’t have many to tell. The longest relationship I’ve had with a male is with my cat, and he doesn’t even have balls. But any intimacy issues I have are because of me, not because of my fat. They always were. I might be able to pick up more guys in bars now, but I have to go to the bars for that to happen. I can’t expect to find new friends and lovers hiding under my couch. I got LASIK and I lost the weight, so I’m no longer a blind, fat homebody, just a seeing, thin homebody. The house of me is in a lot better shape, but it could still use some work. Construction will never be completely finished, but I could start inviting more people over.

  Sometimes I joke about my old fat self and wonder if that’s okay. If I were still almost four hundred pounds, I’d have to sit on someone who insulted me. I get a pass to make fun of myself, but if anyone else makes fun of the old fat girl, I feel my fists curling at my sides. She might no longer physically exist, but she’s rented a back room in my mind. I don’t know if I can ever evict her.

  It’s possible I’ve forgotten exactly how painful it was being fat or how hard it was to transition into a healthier lifestyle. Time might scrub my memories like steel wool scraping against a dirty pan until only the shiny spots remain. I don’t know what percentage of my life I actually remember. All the time I’ve spent driving to and from work or brushing my teeth and showering has most likely been saved and overwritten a million times. I’m definitely grateful for all I can do now. Sometimes I squat down to pick up cat toys simply because I’m amazed that I can do so. Then I pop back up without the aid of a coffee table. I can put my foot on the bathroom counter and cut my toenails with ease. I didn’t know my body was capable of such things. It’s like when I discovered my cell phone could not only make calls but also play pinball games and keep a date book. I now come with extra features.