Designated Fat Girl (9 page)

Now does that mean that all morbidly obese people are as miserable as I was? Absolutely not. I think many, many people handle it much better than I did, and I applaud them for it. We only get one life, and we all have challenges to face. I believe it is how we behave in the face of adversity that really defines who we are. And it’s that belief, I think, that caused me even more unhappiness. Why couldn’t I get it together? What did it say about me that I couldn’t care enough about myself to do better, to make the most of a bad situation? I allowed the weight gain and subsequent physical problems to prevent me from maintaining friendships, from seeking career opportunities, from bettering my marriage and my family life. I collapsed under the weight of obesity. I totally lost who I was and all the things I cared about.

It certainly didn’t help matters when I developed what I laughingly called “the flesh-eating virus.” During my second pregnancy, with my gestational diabetes raging out of control and my body expanding rapidly to accommodate what would become a twelve-pound newborn, I noticed a nasty rash forming under the folds of my skin, right under my belly. It was itchy and bumpy and awful … and it smelled rancid. It looked like something out of a horror movie, and nothing I did made it go away or helped the odor dissipate. Finally I showed it to my doctor at a prenatal appointment, and she gently gave me the news: It was a yeast infection. Now I’ve heard of women developing yeast infections, but never under their stomachs. No, my
doctor informed me, this happened because of all the heat and friction in that area of my body.

Shoot. Me. Now.

I had to get a specially prescribed powder, which I applied three times a day. After a shower I had to lie flat on my bed and use a hair dryer to make sure the area was dry at all times. I was beyond mortified, especially when the problem kept coming back after I’d given birth. I was so big and my stomach so large that I frequently developed these types of infections. The fact that my diabetes didn’t go away after my pregnancy didn’t help; people with diabetes are more prone to yeast infections. Yet another embarrassing problem I inflicted upon myself because I couldn’t get my eating under control. I felt like a million bucks.

With every humiliation, every embarrassment, I hoped I would get fed up enough to change my life. Sometimes I did manage to change my habits for a bit, getting my eating under control and bringing my bingeing to a halt. But those successes were rare. Instead I used the bad stuff to further convince myself that I wasn’t worthy of looking good, of feeling good about myself. I was stuck in a terrible, vicious cycle. And no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t find a way out.

I can remember the exact day I uttered the dumbest string of
words ever to leave my lips. It was July 1992, and I had just finished my freshman year of college. I was working part-time in the handbags section of a department store, and my coworkers and I were using the lull in the summer shopping season to discuss the important matters of hair, clothes, and makeup. The talk inevitably turned to weight, and the others started lamenting about how bad they looked in their swimsuits that year. My issues were a bit bigger than beachwear: I had recently gained back a little of the weight I’d lost my senior year of high school—a weight increase I chalked up to being in love with a great guy (finally) and not paying enough attention to what went into my mouth. I admitted to these girlfriends that I was back at my old standby weight of 165—a number on the scale I’d spent most of my teen years trying to permanently ditch. “But at least I know one thing,” I proclaimed with certainty. “I eat and eat and eat, and I never go past 165.”

If I could reach back in time and yank that stupid girl by the hair, shaking her into reality, I would most assuredly do so.

Within a year of that asinine comment, I would be approaching two hundred pounds.

And, well, we know where I went from there.

I spent most of my adult life daydreaming of being 165 pounds again. Over the years I hatched plan after scheme after program to get me there. I read all the latest diet books. I watched all the current health documentaries. I signed up for nutritional classes, for support groups. I joined walking clubs and fitness centers. I bought fresh new notebooks and filled the pages with detailed eating plans and elaborate exercise charts. I excitedly showed Michael my “Work It Girl, Phase 1 & 2” outline, sure that this time it would work. Over the years, it became a (good-natured) joke between me and my husband: “Work It Girl, Phase 10,280! This is the one!”

I know it’s hard for outsiders to believe, but I honestly thought, each and every time, that my latest plan would work. Every diet book, every weight guru drills into us the same theme: “If you are determined, and if you work hard, you will succeed.” I approached weight loss as if I were studying for a big exam: I read everything I could get my hands on, I studied caloric charts and memorized fat gram contents, I outlined detailed food intake plans and exercise routines. I put in hours and hours of time, but ultimately I got very little success in return.

I can remember being about eleven years old and desperately wanting to shed my chubby tummy. My brothers teased me endlessly, and the kids at school knew right where to go if they wanted to hurt me: “Fat pig!” was a common retort from my adversaries on the playground. During the summer months I became convinced that all my schoolyard problems would be resolved if I lost a little weight before September.

So there I was, barely a fifth grader, tuning in to the
Richard Simmons Show
every morning. I wrote down eating tips, I
listened to the motivational stories, and I sweated to the oldies with the end workout routine. I tried to ride my bike a little more around the neighborhood, and I walked to my friends’ houses instead of having Mom drive me. I even tried to cut back on all the chips and soda around the house. Looking back it was a pretty healthy effort at weight loss, save for the fact that I was still in grammar school! I doubt if I lost any real weight, however; all it really did was mark the beginning of a lifelong struggle of desperately trying to combat nature.

I’ve already mentioned the weight loss I did achieve when I was a senior in high school. Truth be told, it was my only successful effort at shedding pounds without the aid of diet drugs or surgery. How did I do it? Where did I find the willpower? If I knew the answer to that, I would have employed it many times over again! All I know is that it was really, really hard. I can remember going to bed early, in tears, because I was so hungry and wanted to eat so badly. I recall forcing myself to drink diet soft drinks and hating every minute of it. But at the end of the effort was the reward: I’ll never forget putting on a short black skirt and having men stop and stare at me as I walked down the mall. Yeah—that feeling stands out the most!

After I was married and the weight started to pile on, I tried to find that elusive willpower again. I would go for about two weeks, managing to avoid fast food and sticking to Diet Sprite and baked potato chips. But I always, always fell off the wagon. I’d buy a candy bar and eat it fast before I really had a chance
to think about it, or I would give in to temptation and stop at McDonald’s. I’d slip up, and I’d allow it to devastate me. I was never able to pick myself up, dust myself off, and keep going. I would instead wallow in self-pity, eating all I wanted, vowing to get it out of my system and then right the wrong. I thought maybe that was the way to go—thinking back to that New Year’s Eve when I ate everything and then went on to lose a bunch of weight on my own. I tried to recreate that elusive magic, time and again.

It never happened.

I became convinced I was not in charge. Willpower was a force that was going to be bestowed upon me from Heaven above, and I had to just sit and wait for it to hit. I prayed. I read. I studied. I waited. I felt weak, and I needed help. I thought if I wanted it bad enough, help would just magically appear. I was not the one in control of my destiny.

In the winter of 1997, I reached critical mass. It had been years since I’d had significant weight loss. I was approaching 280 pounds, and I grew panicked. My dreams of being a television reporter were slipping by with each passing day; I wasn’t getting any younger, and I thought I had a very narrow window in which to get my career started. Not to mention the toll my now-morbid obesity was taking on my marriage. Michael and I had only been married four years, and he was baffled by what was happening to me. He never once said anything negative to me about my weight—he was more concerned about what it was doing to me, to my self-esteem and quality of life. He wanted to help, but felt powerless and frustrated. I beat myself up daily, wondering why in the world I couldn’t get it together.

I went to my ob-gyn for my annual checkup and dissolved into tears as I opened up about my turmoil. She listened patiently as I explained the many ways in which I’d tried to shed the pounds. She ordered a full blood work-up to see if she could find a problem, but in the meantime she had a question for me: Had I ever considered diet drugs?

Up until that point, my thoughts on diet drugs were almost all negative. We’ve all heard about women getting amped up on Dexatrim or other appetite suppressants bought at the drugstore. We’ve all seen the episodes of
The Facts of Life
or
Beverly Hills, 90210
in which one of the main characters abuses diet pills and finds herself in trouble. My mom was even part of that elite club. Back when she had me, she said doctors were really tough on women about getting baby weight off quickly after giving birth. They frequently prescribed “black beauties” to help new moms burn off the fat. The pills were
speed!
My mom said they worked great: She lost all her excess weight in no time—and her mind, too—as she stayed up all night cleaning the house, organizing closets, and doing everything else except sleeping. Diet drugs, to me, sounded dangerous and reckless, something I felt I should avoid.

My doctor explained that there was a new combination of drugs called fen-phen, a weight-loss regimen that was seeing a lot of success. These drugs were only prescribed to extremely heavy patients, so the potential of abuse by people who shouldn’t be taking them was all but eliminated. Whatever side effects caused by these drugs—and they really weren’t sure what those were long-term—were tempered with the great benefit of shedding weight off of morbidly obese patients whose
very lives were threatened by their excess pounds. The risk seemed to be justified.

Could this be the answer? Could I solve my problems simply by taking medicine? It seemed doubtful to me, but nothing else was working at that point. My doctor was recommending it, so why not give it a chance? How bad could it be? I agreed to try it, without much hope or expectation.

It was like freedom in a bottle.

The drugs made me not care—about much of anything, really—but specifically, I didn’t care about eating. It wasn’t that I was
not
hungry per se, I was just indifferent toward food. And that was incredibly liberating. I could go about my day and not obsess over whether I would binge eat fast food; I truly didn’t want to. As the weight started to come off, my confidence began to build. For the first time in a long time, I had real hope. The scales were finally going in the right direction, and I felt I had that elusive control I’d fought so hard to find.

People started to notice my weight loss, and that fueled me even further. I began to exercise, and I loved it. I walked for miles around the track at the local high school, listening to Sugar Ray, Smash Mouth, and Third Eye Blind on my Walkman, feeling young, alive, and vital. I daydreamed about finally getting back into reporting, realizing my dream of continuing my on-air career. I was able to take an interest in clothes and start to look forward to buying pretty things again. Life was beginning to feel good once more.

If the drugs had negative side effects, I was unaware. The most discomfort I ever felt was dry mouth, which actually worked in my favor, causing me to drink lots of water and avoid
soft drinks. I never felt dizzy or disoriented, never had that heart-racing feeling you sometimes hear about. I became convinced that these drugs were meant for me, that they were the key to reclaiming my life.

I still loved to eat and found that it was okay to do so. I just manipulated the times that I ate around the times I took my medication. For example, if I was craving a particular food, I would plan to have it for breakfast. Sure, spaghetti with meat sauce sounds a little gross first thing in the morning, but it worked for me. I stuffed myself until I was satisfied, then a couple of hours later, I took my pills and was fine for the rest of the day. I didn’t obsess over the foods I couldn’t have, I just planned them for when I could eat them. I never felt deprived, and most important, the results made me feel fabulous. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of this solution sooner.

After about eight months, I’d lost fifty-five pounds. I was down to about 230, lower than I’d been in years. My dream of being a television reporter was starting to feel attainable again; I really felt as though I could do anything I wanted to. I hadn’t been this excited about the future in a long, long time.

And then the rug was yanked out from under me.

My mom called me at work. It’s kind of ironic that I am a self-proclaimed news junkie and like to think I know everything before others, and yet my mother—a decidedly non–news junkie—called
me
with
the news.

“Jennifer! Did you see the news on Channel 5? They said those diet drugs cause heart damage. They’re pulling them off the market!”

I wasn’t too worried at first. My mom tended to be kind of alarmist about this kind of thing—not to mention not very accurate. Surely she was wrong; surely the report referred to another kind of diet drug. After all, my doctor had suggested these pills. They weren’t dangerous! There had to be a mistake.

There was no mistake. The makers of fen-phen were pulling the drugs off the market after several reports of heart valve damage. Some people had even died.

My immediate reaction was to go into self-protection mode.
Look at how much weight you have lost,
I told myself.
You don’t need drugs anymore! You’ve started to exercise, you’ve cut down on bad foods, you can do this! The rest of the weight will come off easily!

It never once occurred to me to be worried about my health. I was twenty-five and felt invincible. My weight—at least in my warped way of thinking—had nothing to do with health and everything to do with vanity. Never mind that I had just spent eight months taking a combination of drugs that some claimed did permanent damage to their hearts. I felt fine! No need to worry about that.

No, my immediate concern was to ensure my future weight loss, to make sure I could continue to drop pounds. And for a little while, I did. I kept up the exercise, and I tried to stay with the same eating habits. Slowly the overwhelming hunger started to creep back in, no matter how hard I pushed it away. I managed to beat it back and maintain what I had lost for about a year. But eventually I succumbed to my never-ending cravings for all things bad. The negativity in my mind really started to do a number on me:
You can’t do this by yourself. You tried for years, and look where it got you. The only time you really lost
weight was when you had the drugs, when you had help. Don’t even try, you will fail.

The weight came back, and then some. Sure I tried to beat it. Every day I once again started something new, some different way to take control, to do it myself. For example, I once signed up for Weight Watchers. I liked the thought of using everyday, normal food, just in moderation. I had such a limited palate, I thought this would be the eating plan that would work for me. I showed up for the first meeting at the Baptist church in my small town. There wasn’t anyone in the room younger than fifty. Embarrassed, I weighed in, in front of everyone, and then sat for the group discussion. All the talk focused around cooking for families and eating sensibly at work. No one talked about obsessing every minute of every day about what they ate. Not one person offered up that they stuffed themselves until they were sick, hiding food in their homes and their cars. I had absolutely nothing in common with the group, and worse, I felt like some sort of freak. I didn’t go back.