One thing I’ve gained on my weight loss journey (along with the realization that I’m not quite as alone in the universe as I thought) is good friends such as Diana, who recommended the book “Half-Assed,” by Jennette Fulda, to me.  I checked it out on Amazon and thought it sounded interesting, so I ordered it (along with a couple of other weight-loss memoirs/stories that I will review as I finish them).

What a fantastic book!  I started reading it this morning and am already on page 95.  I’d be farther along, but I was finishing “I Thought It Was Just Me.”  I think this book should be required reading for anyone who has a great deal of weight to lose or just wants to understand someone who has a great deal of weight to lose.  The first couple of chapters had me feeling like I was reading about myself and the past several chapters that I’ve read have had me literally laughing out loud.  The girl is hilarious, or perhaps it’s just because I’ve been through so many of the same situations that she has.  One of my favorite comments so far has been:

Thankfully the book didn’t refer to foods as “good” or “bad,” as though we could assign philosophical concepts of morality to the items we eat.  There wasn’t a “wrong” way to eat either, except if you tried stuffing cheeseburgers up your ass. 

I loved that.  She has described so many situations that I’ve lived through myself, things that I’ve thought, feelings that I’ve felt that I at one point thought to myself, “Damn.  I don’t have to write my story anymore.  She’s done it for me.”  Okay, we haven’t lived the same life, and there’s enough differences between our journeys that I don’t feel like I’m reading my own autobiography, but it’s amazing to read something that someone else wrote and think to myself “she read my mind.”

There’s one situation I just read about that really made me laugh.  She was talking about how her speech class in college required her to have her speeches videotaped so that she could critique herself.  She said that she would watch it on fast-forward and then immediately tape over it.  We had to do the same in my speech class, and we were supposed to watch ourselves afterwards and critique ourselves to see what we needed to work on for next time.  The operative words here being “supposed to watch.”  I didn’t, of course.  Not a single time.  I got As on all of my speeches, so I felt I was doing okay, but I just could not bring myself to watch myself on video.  I’d had enough of that when one of my friends taped me at a party one night.  I about died when I saw it.  I mean, you know you’re fat, but it doesn’t really settle in until you see it on video, especially when it was from a night you thought you had looked slightly decent.  Her telling of her tale made me think of my own speech tape.  I still have it, still unwatched, buried in my storage unit somewhere.  Maybe one day when I actually clean the unit out, I’ll come across that tape. And maybe one day I’ll have the courage to actually watch it and be able to look past the fat to see if I can figure out what possibly could have warranted an A.

At one point, she mentions taking the stairs at work to her 4th floor office.  Immediately after reading that (I was at work and we were slow), I was like I’m gonna do it.  I’m gonna go walk some stairs.  Feeling like I was in decent shape, I started off fast, thinking to myself, “this is gonna be a piece of cake.”  HAH!  I made it from the 13th floor to the 17th (8 flights of stairs) before I thought I was going to die.  Of course, I did do it really fast, probably under a minute, but still.  Oh my God, I was huffing and puffing.  It honestly reminded me of how out of breath I used to get before I lost my weight.  It was a little terrifying, because I had never wanted to feel that way ever again.  You feel like you’re going to die.  I then recalled that if I had tried that before my weight loss, I probably would have literally passed out after maybe the 2nd flight.  If I had made it that far.

Another thing that has changed is that I am much more open about my weight and myself in general.  When my co-worker and I were getting ready to leave, I actually shared my experience with her instead of hiding it like I would have done before.  And I laughed as I shared the story, instead of crying like I might have done before.  She laughed and said, “I wouldn’t even try.  I’d be afraid that I’d die in the stairwell and no one would find me until the security guards did their rounds, if they even found me then.”  Well, at least I can say I tried and next time I’ll know to start off a bit slower…

Thanks, Diana!  I can’t wait to read the rest of the book.