21.3.12

Everything I Know About Diets, I Learned from Metalocalypse



When I first watched this episode with my sister, I laughed a little hesitantly, all the while glancing furtively at her to see if she noticed how forced my laughter sounded, because...this is basically the way I eat.

My eyes grew wider as the episode went on and my mind-hole was blown again and again:

Wait...so you shouldn't starve yourself all day and then eat one big meal?


And snacking on jellybeans all day long is what's making it impossible for me to lose weight?


You mean...exercise is a real thing?!  I thought it was just something yuppies do ironically.

Back when my metabolism wasn't just some disappointing myth, I never used to take body image too seriously - not enough to actually do something about it, I mean.  But I was always aware of it.  Of the six daughters my parents spawned, five blossomed gracefully into tall, willowy young women, while one just sort of hobbited up all short and stocky - but at least she made people laugh.

Guess which one I am!

A month ago when I was basically homeless and too stressed to eat, I was actually several pounds underweight and getting sick from living so unhealthily...but I had a perfect figure.  Then, once my living situation became more stable, I got the Depression Hunger and went back to the way I looked before--but now I knew what I could look like, and those few pounds that linger so noticeably on a petite frame were gnawing at my perfectionist tendencies.  However, as usual, my laziness and lack of self-discipline won out, and the result is an unhealthy fixation on food, constant disappointment in myself, and overwhelming shame and disgust over the fact that I've become a girl who complains to her boyfriend that she's getting fat.

WHO AM I?!  WHY HAVE I LOST THE ABILITY TO MOCK SENSE INTO MYSELF?!! 


Now that I'm days away from visiting my old college and seeing all my friends there, I have a vain, burning desire to look thin and waifish, but I haven't been able to lose a single goddamn pound for weeks.  Not just that, but I am taking it all really personally!  Past Tracy would have stepped on the scale and given a big, juicy raspberry to the number she saw before scampering off to eat seventeen shortbread cookies for second breakfast.  For some reason, though, I just can't handle the way I look anymore, and I pretty much melt into a blubbering, cursing ball whenever I take off my clothes or even stray into the general vicinity of a scale.

The sad thing is, I'm not even overweight.  I have a little extra flab 'round the middlish areas of my anatomy, but if you saw me on the street, you probably wouldn't even call me chubby (UNLESS YOU'S A BITCH).  I am just a sad, sad woman trying to starve myself as long as I can each day and then giving in to my sugar cravings and gobbling everything I encounter until I'm stuffed with carbs and regret.

I'm not saying that I spend my days wallowing in a great, murky puddle of self-loathing.  I do have some hobbies, too.  Like practicing my pan flute.  But when genetics gives you short legs, a love of cheese, and no natural affinity for physical activity, it's difficult not to find yourself occasionally sitting in a cloud of grey, idle drudgery, maybe working up the motivation to go for a run once a month and then remembering that you hate running as your lungs solidify and your brain seems to knock against your skull with each footfall.  So then, maybe you consider moving to a place where being overweight is a sign of prestige and wealth, heart disease and high cholesterol be damned!

Because when it comes down to it, I could work out an hour every day and eat only dry lettuce and clementines for three meals a day, but I've been trying that and so far it's made me a cranky, awful bitch.  I don't like myself.  I don't respect myself - not because of my weight but because that's my current basis for self-worth.  I seem to have temporarily forgotten that there are worse things than having some extra padding - a little more fluff than some people.  Like having no arms.  Or no sense of humor.  Or no sex.*  And I know I'll be much happier if I loosen up again and stop mercilessly berating myself if I eat schome popschiclesh or the occashional leftover birthday cupcakesh I wander acroshsh in the kitschen on my lunsch breaksh.  Thish ish not a posht with schome happy resholutionsh tacked on to the end.  I am who I am!  Scho my ashsh will schoon shwell to the schize of schmall whale and my middle hasch a jsholly little pousch!  Schcrew you, aschshhole!  Get me schome cheeshe before I  schqueeze your tiny head between my giant thighsh!

Murderface demands it.



*Or all three, in which case the latter may be caused by one or both of the former.


Images via All Posters, Raise Yer Fists!!!

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