Whole Lotta Whole30

I have been battling with the scale for the last several months. Well, that's not exactly true.  I've been battling with the scale since September 28, 1975, also known as the day I was born. I'm only slightly exaggerating.  I remember being a little, little kid (in age, not size evidently) and my brothers teasing me that I had a double chin.  "What's a double chin? Oh, it's my chin?"  Devastation. It was my first memory of ever being aware that I was chubby.  Was I 6? Maybe 7?  Whatever age I was, it was the point in life where I started thinking I was different.

Getting back to the point, it seems that I've been struggling even more lately.  I have lost the same 5 pound at least 10 times. Hooray! I've lost 50 pounds! Oh wait...I still weigh the same.  BUMMER.  I also have a gut.  You heard me.  I have a G.U.T.  Who the heck has a gut besides old men who still insist on wearing size 32 pants when clearly that tool shed needs a size 40+?  A few years ago, I was at my lowest weight as an adult.  I was wearing a size 16 jean, and I was feeling pretty darn good.  Needless to say, I'm not wearing a size 16 anymore.  That ship sailed, and my pants are big enough to catch the wind and propel us into the horizon.  Sonofabitch. 

My best friend from high school and perhaps the one person who understands the struggle with weight loss and the fattyboombalatte syndrome has been doing really great in the weight loss department lately.  We were talking the other week, and we talked about our current weights.  Hers was significantly lower than her all-time highest (and significantly lower than mine), which made me super happy for her.  When I mentioned my latest weigh in, she was nice enough to say, "Well, you are a few inches taller than me..."  Sigh. 

Here's the messed up thing, though.  At the same time that I was happy for her, it also made me feel really crummy.  We have always been around the same size, or at least in the same neighborhood.  Sometimes I weighed less, sometimes she did, but even in this leapfrog dance we did, we were always close.  Now I felt like I was being left behind.  I secretly wanted to sneak into her house and replace all her food with Dingdongs and Ho Ho's and all the other Dirty Debbies I could find so she could stay fat like me.  "Get back here you skinny hussie! If I weren't so fat, I would chase you down and drag you back to Fat Village with me, and we will be fattyboombalattes together."  See.  I told you it was messed up.  I'm not proud.  Sorry, buddy.  I would never really stock your house with snack cakes and bricks of lard.  I promise. 

We used to do this really crazy thing where we would see a fat person on television or in real life, and one of us would say, "Am I as fat as her?" 

"No! No way! You're way skinnier than that person. Don't even think you're in the same neighborhood as that person." 

"Phew..Thank goodness." 

Comparing yourself to someone else to see how you measure up doesn't really do much, realistically.  It's all about how chubby you feel in your mind, and in my mind, I feel like the chubbiest person you know. Secretly wanting to keep your friends fat so you aren't fat alone also doesn't help.  So, I'm starting the Whole30 again today.  I feel better when I follow the Whole30.  I'm more active. My mood is better.  I plan my meals and stick to the plan better than when I'm doing the "Whatever, I'll figure out something to eat today" plan.  When I do the "Whatever" plan, I usually end up eating a really healthy breakfast and then 5 million donuts throughout the day and some sauteed kale for dinner.  And I wonder why I lose the same 5 pounds over and over again.....

So, today is Day 1 of the Whole30. For dinner I had tuna salad lettuce wraps, some sauteed cauliflower, and a couple of olives.  I am also cooking a whole chicken to have a protein for meals for a few days this week.  Here we go.  And if you wake up to find a thousand snack cakes stashed around your kitchen, I swear it wasn't me trying to sabotage your diet and make you fat too.