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It’s official. I’m fat.


My partner Sara says I’m not, but she’s biased–or maybe blind–but either way we can’t trust her assessment of the situation.

To give you a sense of how bad it is–how big the bulge has gotten–I should share that Saturday night, when Sara and  I walked to the Mary Chafin’ Chapin Carpenter concert five or six blocks away, I had to wear shorts under my dress to minimize the chafing of my upper thighs.

Don’t laugh.  Please.  I know it’s bad.

I’m not brave enough to weigh myself  yet–to quantify my size–but I am at least motivated, or maybe desperate enough, to know I need to start exercising again and watching what I eat.

It reminds me of a time, more than two years ago, before we went to Vietnam, when I knew I needed to lose weight.  I was dreading my close encounter with the scale, but decided I was willing to put a number on the situation.

It was winter–the middle of the night, when I woke up, intending to take the dogs for a pee.  Then, at two the morning, my fat ass bravery kicked in, motivating me to bring the scale into the bedroom for my moment of reckoning with pure poundage.

Having emptied my own bladder, I proceeded to strip naked, because God forbid I weigh that extra ounce of urine or flannel from my nightgown.   I even removed my glasses and seriously considered doing without a barrette but decided it unwise to try reading the numbers both blind and with hair falling in my face.

Stepping on the scale like the most over-sized contestant on the “Biggest Loser,” I was told I weighed a mere 75 somethings or other.  While I may not have had a completely realistic sense of what I weighed, I did feel fairly certain I hadn’t been 75 pounds since I was seven.

But unable to get the offending scale to stop reading in kilograms and begin weighing in pounds, I stood shivering and blind in our drafty 100-year-old house.  Not following through with the decision to weigh, once I’d gotten up the guts to do so, didn’t sit well with me.

So Sara, who had woken up for the spectacle of my weigh-in and was herself sitting warm and fully PJ-ed under the covers of our bed–decided to intervene.  After playing with the thing for a few long and chilly minutes and asking me where I had put the manual–when, in fact, she is the manual-keeping half of this relationship–Sara got the apparatus reading in pounds again.

I won’t share what I weighed.

That’s not the point of this post.  That’s not what matters.

What matters is that the fat has caught up with me again.

What matters is that, although Men’s Health Magazine has ranked Lexington America’s most sedentary city and Stephen Colbert has awarded my home town the “golden reacher grabber award,” I’ll be damned if this city of sloth will get the best of my lazy ass.

No way.

I’ve accepted the fact of my fat.

I’m officially on my way from flab to even flabbier.

Now if only Sara will hand me the phone, so I can order that pizza.

34 thoughts on “It’s official. I’m fat.”

    • Thank God I’m not the only one! The thigh thing seems like the last straw for me. I like EVERYTHING on my pizza, except black olives–though I’m really big on pesto! Hope you have a great day, Wendy!

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  2. Hey… Totally feel your pain! I have just started a blog about my weight issues…it’s so difficult, sometimes you have to just get on with it or accept you are who you are. This time i can;t accept it so i’m trying to do summat about it.

    It dawned on me after my experience on holiday…i laid on the sunbed…well tensed up on the sunbed…thought it was gonna collapse!! I couldn’t see my feet for mount gut! then i got up and had a breakdown in the pool! 😦 Not good. But i’m trying now and i’m hoping my blogg and motivation from others might help me!

    In regards to chaffing! VASELINE! works a treat….little bit in the right spot stops the friction and the pain! give it a whirl 🙂

    Best Wishes
    Adele x

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    • It’s great to hear from you, Adele! I appreciate your taking the time to read and comment! Sounds like we’re similarly fed up with our weight–no pun intended. I look forward to checking out your blog! Good luck on your weightloss journey–I hope you will come back! How fun to meet someone new!

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  3. Thank you! Good luck to you too…i think it’s going to be long bumpy ride but i hope i get there in the end!! I’m sure we’ll find happiness in ourselves at some point! 🙂

    Ps i’m a huge fan of pesto too…love it in pasta!

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  4. You are right, the pounds are not the point. I got to a point where just feeling fat pissed me off. Clearly I was furious, because I’ve been angrily jogging for months now, and finally feeling healthier. I still have no clue what I weigh, but I’m not worried about it anymore either 🙂

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    • For years I worked out religiously, which kept my weight tolerable. But Vietnam and Haiti made exercise a challenge. In Vietnam the gyms were outrageously expensive, and in Haiti I fell out of the habit when we were housebound because of rioting. Not good excuses for not exercising now that we are home in the US, but that’s what happened;

      It’s admirable that you have been jogging for so long. That’s one thing my aging body doesn’t tolerate–so good for you, Tori!

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  6. Lady! I loved your post. You really captured the self-weighing process. I feel like everybody does that. I will never weigh myself unless I’m in the buff with my intestines/bladder cleared. I just got my first full time job out of college, and while it’s an awesome opportunity, it’s a desk job. I have been finding pizza dough pockets all over my thighs….I think I need to go for a nice long run. Haha. Thanks for the read.

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    • I’m so glad you enjoyed the post! OMG– I had forgotten about clearing the intestines, as well. How funny! I feel for you and your thighs! Hope you manage the run. Thanks for taking the time to read and comment. I really hope you’ll come back–it was great having you!

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  8. Kathy–
    this is an ongoing struggle for me–if it’s not food, it’s been other things I crave…
    God MADE us to crave…it’s just…when we stuff other things in the place He so wonderfully wants to fill…that’s when things go all argawarga.
    This verse has meant EVERYTHING to me…
    Romans 8:37
    No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
    and this one:
    Psalm 16:5-6
    LORD, you alone are my portion and my cup;
    you make my lot secure.
    The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
    surely I have a delightful inheritance.

    God creates in us a craving…He wants to fill it. We search and we search for things to fill us…
    Kathy…I have to offer this up each and every day…some days I am victorious…other days, face full of skittles and popcorn and crepes and whipped cream and ice cream and junk junk junk I just feel rotten and defeated…
    But I just keep going back and back and back again to the source…and allow God to fill me up, and trust His provision and care and love.
    Also, on a practical note, I LOVE http://www.myfitnesspal.com and the android app on my phone…mindfully keeping track has helped me a LOT.
    Blessings
    jane

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    • I, indeed, crave–big time, always–but almost always food. I guess I can be grateful I don’t have to deal with more. Thanks for these wonderful verses. I especially Psalm 16. I will have to check out the fitness app. Hope you have a great evening, Jane!

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  10. I’m just so envious you got to see Mary Chapin Carpenter! I haven’t seen her live in years. Hang in there! I’m sure it’s not as bad as you think. And always take solace in MCC’s songs. They always make me happy.

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  11. I wish we all could just take the poundage in stride, crank up the exercise, cut back on the goodies, and get on with it. But we have to make it so *personal*. Extra weight is not an indictment of our character, just a signal that adjustment need to be made. Good luck with yours, Kath.

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  13. Weighing yourself is so yesterday – I say get rid of the scale altogether, those numbers are meaningless! Just enjoy yourself and let things work themselves out organically. I like my pizza with extra cheese.

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  14. Oh my goodness, I love this post! So happy I found your blog.. I am dealing with the dreaded “menopause middle” But staying positive. I hate the scale, the scale is not your friend. Instead I choose to base my flab factor on the way my clothes fit. Be Well, Katherine

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    • Oh, you are a wise woman, Katherine! Whether or not clothes fit is a great measure. I too have the menopause middle and am trying to stay positive–fat but happy!

      Can’t wait to check out your blog, and thanks so much for subscribing.

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  15. Pingback: This Title Sucks! | reinventing the event horizon

  17. Somehow I missed reading this when you first wrote it. Hilarious. I don’t weigh myself anymore in SA because I hate doing the kilograms/pounds conversion. And it’s one less thing to stress about.

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