Food, Lies and Videotape

Today I got on the scale. It said 234 pounds.

How the fuck did I gain that much weight that fast? Am I eating that much in preparation/fear of the fast I plan to embark on?

A couple weeks ago I read the Loni Anderson auto-biography. Why, you ask? Well, because I remember her being It On A Stick - or, probably better named I'd Like To Have Her On My Stick - back in the 1980s. And then she disappeared. And her book was in a thrift store for a dollar, and I thought, her story might have some interesting revelations for my own.

So I read it, and here's what I'm going to relate today. In it, she is talking about how she never had any "casting couch" stories to tell. How she had even said that to a producer, and the producer said, (I'm paraphrasing) "You haven't had any because while your body says one thing, your demeanor says another. And your demeanor says you wouldn't be up for that."

This struck me. Cuz she does - she has the looks of someone who would blow half of Hollywood if it got her a decent pay rate. Sorry, Loni, but you do, you have that look.

So what's that "look?" Is it because men would want her to blow them? Is that why we think she has that look? Do we label the women pre-emptively?

I'm not going to go into that right now, but the part about how our bodies speak for us has been kicking around in my head since then. So I think I'm going to start sharing what my body is saying each day, at each gain and loss of poundage.

So, starting with today, 234 pounds, here's what I think my body is wordlessly saying:

She can't do it anymore. She has hit bottom. This person's soul I am carrying around is tired, she doesn't want to do the work we need to do and she's avoiding it by cramming all this weight onto her caravan. She needs help. She's drowning in her own pool of fat and shame. She doesn't need to carry all this weight around. In fact, she doesn't really enjoy it. But she does enjoy all the stuff it gets her out of doing. Risking herself, being around others. She has an addiction - there is no way around this, but she will not face it until she hits bottom. Today she had the thought that if she keeps going, she'll get up to 250, even 300. Is this territory she really wants to explore, or is it her way of just burying and hiding herself further and further away from the surface of her own life, her own skin. For the heavier she gets, the farther she gets from her soul, and she knows this. The lighter she gets, the more in danger she is. If she is cut then, - thin - there is no where for the knife to go but to cause her damage. If she is cut now, - fat - the fat can absorb some of the hurt and the harm. The fat is her refuge. She is in refuge in her own fat right now. She is not truly accessible. She can peer out at you from all the fat, but it's like trying to be intimate with someone in a battle tank - they can shout at you from inside, but there's no getting close to them. This is what her body is silently telling everyone around her right now. And until she's ready to change that, that's the message she will keep sending out. For she is not safe thinner - thinner means more demands from more people. Fat fewer demands from fewer people. She can only handle so much. This is the message she is proclaiming to the world via the size and shape of her body. This is what she wants them to know. Until she learns how to express that otherwise, her body will continue to hold that responsibility.

Thank you for listening. Until next time.