The Story No One Wants to Hear

A little over three weeks ago I started dieting and going to the gym again. Now I've spent a lot of my life working out, but I've never been on a diet before. I've never felt like I needed it because, despite the fact that I've been steadily gaining weight for the last few years, I was crazy skinny before so I was just coming into normal size. The problem was that I was not used to that. I've spent my whole life thus far having size 00 jeans fall off me in the fitting room. There are a couple of brands that made a 0 or 00 that fit me, so I've only ever owned maybe four pairs of jeans at any given time-- and you can forget about any other kinds of pants.

So when those smallest-of-the-small-size pants started to be too small for me, I didn't even realize what was happening for a long time. I've outgrown things, yes, but never in my life have I ever been too heavy to wear something. I was so used to being tiny that once I was no longer tiny I didn't even notice. It wasn't until my skinny jeans couldn't get over my hips at all that it hit me: I was getting chubby.

An interlude here to say that all the people who just rolled their eyes or got offended because that's still a small size and I don't understand what it's like to be REALLY big, I should shut up and be grateful, etc: Go play in the street.

Anyway, the moment I realized this was when I came home one day and peeled myself out of my previously relaxed-fitting bootcut jeans into a much more comfortable pair of sweatpants. That's when it dawned on me-- "These are FAT PANTS. Holy crap I have fat pants. I have to wear fat pants."

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that not being a size 0 makes you fat. But when all your pants give you muffin top such that you stopped wearing fitted shirts to hide it and the only thing that fits right is your sweatpants? Those are fat pants. And on someone who's barely five feet tall with a short stubby little torso, a size 2-4 is starting to look chubby. Yeah the size is small, but so is the rest of me. Proportionally it doesn't look small at all.

So I decided to do something about it. I calculated my basic metabolic rate, figured out how many calories I needed a day to maintain, and tried to stay around 500 calories beneath that. I made an effort to keep my calories from fat as minimal as possible and to avoid simple carbohydrates more than once a day. I made sure to spread out my food over the day instead of eating two big meals and a snack like I normally do. I already walk about 45-70 minutes a day to get around, so I added going to the gym 2-3 times a week as time permitted. Since my stamina was really low (mostly from my asthma) I started off just on the elliptical and recumbent bike and, when that got easy, I added some weight training. I never spend more than an hour at the gym.

So now, at a little over three weeks of this, I didn't feel any better. I didn't think I looked any different. Until this morning, I wanted to wear long pants but the only clean ones I had were a pair of extremely unforgiving high-waisted American Apparel skinny jeans... A pair that had ceased to fit over my hips months ago. So I tried them and... POW. Fit perfectly.

I want to share my success with people but, like my original frustration with my weight, no one wants to hear it. People will congratulate me and all but generally hearing about it being easy for me makes other people feel bad. I think Ryan North is right on here when he says "dieting is about commiserating" and no one wants to hear someone going "GUYS LOOK WHAT I DID EASILY" especially when no one thought I was chubby in the first place.

Anyway, so the final punctuation on what I'm sure has been a wholly infuriating read for most of you is this: Today I rushed home from dinner with my boyfriend so I could make it to the gym before they closed because I didn't want to skip a day. When I was adding my workout to my log I realized I hadn't really eaten much today. So on my way home I stopped at the store and got a package of little chocolate donuts as a reward, and also to make sure I got enough calories today.



Now you all hate me, thank you, goodnight.