Hey Fatty
A journey to self care
In 2008 I weighed 170 pounds. I was out of shape and my cholesterol was almost 300. I had never been so fat and unhealthy in my whole life.
There are three defining moments that pushed me to take control of what had become my fat, lumpy, middle-aged, body. I was a far cry from the hottie I once was.
The moment I realized that the fat woman in the mirror is me, was horrifying. I was in a dressing room of a department store with all of those horrible mirrors that reflect every angle of your body with those unforgiving fluorescent lights that hummed in agreement with the saleswoman who said “That’s very slenderizing on you”. At first I was in disbelief. No one had ever said that to me before. Oh my, she is talking to me! There it was, in all its glory! Lumps and bumps of pink slime filler had settled over my once envied figure. I decided it wasn’t me she was talking to. She was talking to the arrogant fat all over my hips, thighs, ass, and muffin top tummy. “The fat is not me”, I told myself. “The fat doesn’t define me or who I am”. I am still a hottie inside. I hadn’t been fat long enough to know how people judge you for being overweight.
The second defining moment came in March 2011.
I visited my mother in NY and I hadn’t seen her in a while. She said, “Wow, look at your ass. It’s huge. I don’t like that sheitel 1 on you either. It makes you look old.” This was the incentive I needed and the determination to lose fifty pounds.
My third and final wake up call came from a Bat Kol 2.
A Heavenly Voice!
I had joined Weight Watchers® after that visit with my mother and lost just a few pounds.
So here is what happened one Friday afternoon in June of 2011. I was in my dirty, banged up, old, Toyota mommy minivan driving into the entrance of the small parking lot where Stan’s used to be. There was a woman who was trying to exit the entrance. It was clear by the way she was glaring and honking her horn at me that she didn’t like that I was in her way. I was not backing up. I couldn’t even if I wanted to. By Los Angeles standards, I was clearly an inferior human being to her by the mere fact I was in an old Minivan. She was driving a brand new, shiny, black suburban. This in itself was proof of her superiority and the reason why I should get out of her way. I assumed she used her SUV to haul around her holy Jewish children to their holy religious day schools. Didn’t I see that I was in her way? She was in a hurry! So was I but that was lost on this far superior skinny woman. I was not backing up.
So there we were, my inferior bumper mere inches away from her superior bumper. I just sat there, waiting and watching to see what she would do. After a few minutes, I decided to get out and speak to her. We were obviously at an impasse. We exchanged a few UN-pleasantries that didn’t solve anything. As I was getting back into my car she yelled, for no apparent reason other than to be mean; or did a Malach3 momentarily possess her? “Hey Fatty” she yelled in anger, “you big fat bitch, get out of my way!” She screamed, “you’re still fat from a kid that you had, what, ten years ago?” She was right; I had an obviously huge ass, a fat face, no neck, and double chin with a bad sheitel on top. She suddenly reversed her three-ton hunk of steal and combustible fuel, just enough to allow me to pass her. Her Chevy Suburban roared powerfully under the pedal of her angry, food hording, Shabbat preparing, don’t you know the world was made just for me. Is she a daughter of Israel with the voice of an angel?
Wow. “Hey Fatty” stung and rung of complete, in your face, the kind I like to dish out, TRUTH!
First of all, she was correct. I was fatter than I was after my son was born. I still weighed in at a hefty one-hundred-and-sixty-five pounds. I weighed more than my Husband! I had somehow shrunk from my previous stature of five-foot-five inches to five-foot-four inches and increased my dress size from a size four to a size fourteen in as many years. After twenty months of breastfeeding, I spent four years injecting hormones into my belly, thighs and rear. All of our attempts to bring another child into the world were now evident and happily ensconced in blobs of fat all over my well-endowed, round hips, thighs, and face. It was very happy there and had no intention of going anywhere. Fat blobs had moved into spaces I never imagined it could. Like on my lovely long neck and the exposed clavicles I once had. There were potato Pierogi’s 4 firmly ensconced over the lower portion of my rib cage on either side.
I should have been wearing a shirt that read,
“I did in vitro fertilization for four years and all I got was FAT. No Baby. Just FAT!”.
What is the secret to my successful weight loss? I’ve kept it off for 4 years now. It’s not anything we all don’t already know; diet and exercise.
What I did was not really a “diet”. It was a lifestyle change just like when I became kosher. I stopped eating treif 5 and only ate kosher food. Bread, cookies, cake and candy became my new treif!
Weight Watchers was not working. I couldn’t listen to woman talk about how much Pirate Booty they can eat for only 2 points, or counting or weighing anything. After a year, I had only lost a few pounds.
Luckily for me, a friend turned me on to Doctor M. , who specializes in metabolic syndrome. His program was easy to follow, nothing to weigh or measure. The biggest problem I had was swallowing these huge pills he prescribes to boost my metabolism.
I hate swallowing pills. The idea of gagging down some pills to lose weight may seem appealing, easy and almost cheating to some, for me it was torture.
So many people have said, “so what’s the big deal, you swallow a few pills and you lose the weight.” Well, no, it isn’t just swallowing some magic pills. If it was, everyone would be skinny. It’s what you eat, when you eat, when you don’t eat, daily exercise and the pills.
I had no problem following the food program and exercising. My biggest challenge was those damn horse pills. I spent the first year avoiding taking them as much as possible. Each time I would walk into his office I would proclaim, “I’m still fat!”
Once a month I would get on the magic scale that reveals all of your secrets. You can’t lie to Dr. M. and say you have been exercising and eating right when you really haven’t. There was no way to trick the Magic Scale. The Tanita Body Composition Analyzer, aka the Magic Scale, knows exactly how much weight you have lost or gained. Is it water weight, muscle or just more fat? You stand on the scale in your bare feet in nothing more than a paper gown and hold on to these handles connected by wires to the Magic Scale. In just a few minutes it spits out a full report on your weight. Your BMI, BMR, your percentage of fat, your fat mass, your FBI and your CIA. Dr. M. knows in scintillating detail whether or not your body is responding to the program or if you are even participating in the program.
At about a year into this metabolic weight loss program, I had only lost 20 pounds. Doctor M. very gently said, “why don’t you try taking the pills every day for one month? Let’s see what happens.” I gave it a try. For one month I swallowed Garcinia Cambogia, L-Carnitine, Thera-Slim Phase 2 and chromium. All natural supplements touted on TV by Dr. OZ.
Low and behold when I went back to stand on the magic scale one month later, I held his handles hopefully. Dr. M. declared I had lost 12 pounds of fat! Okay, gagging notwithstanding, the supplements worked. I drank lots of water, drank green tea all day and I committed to taking the supplements as well as continuing following the program. The results are what you see now. I lost about 50 pounds, I wear a size 4-6 dress, my ass is considerably smaller and the Pilates workouts I do four times a week has toned my body to the point where I look pretty hot for my age. I’m 58. I’m so grateful to have evicted the fat blobs that once squatted all over my body.
I found my inner skinny girl and I am keeping her. Healthy is the new skinny. All of you who hate the word “skinny” will suddenly love it the first time someone tells you, “You look so skinny.”
For me the “f” word doesn’t have four letters, it has three, F- A- T.
So for anyone else on the journey from fat to fit, don’t allow others to judge you. Be good to yourself. Be kind. And above all else, love yourself no matter your size.
Yiddish for wig
Heavenly Voice
Heavenly Angel sent by Hashem (G-d) to deliver a message to you personally.
Pierogi’s are boiled semicircular dumplings which are then baked or fried usually in butter with onions – traditionally stuffed with potatoes, meat, or cheese originated from central and eastern European villagers.
not kosher food