Nice To Meet You, I'm Size9

© Trudi Evans 2007


I feel like a recovering alcoholic who's been taken to a party with an open bar and a room full of partying alcoholics.

Everywhere I go, people are on a diet. Not only are they on a diet, they are talking about being on a diet. I used to be these people. I want to be these people. I don't, but I do. I hate the whole diet trap and I hated being in it and I hated being a part of it, but I don't want to give it up. It's what I know. It provides a modicum of control in my life. It makes me feel righteous to be fighting the war on fat, because we all know, fat is the enemy and diet soda is our ally.

I want, I so badly want, to be one of those people who eats when they are hungry and stops when they are full and only thinks about food enough to decide "what would I enjoy and am I getting a varied diet?" and that be it.

But damn, it is hard. We do not live in a society that supports this one tiny bit. Every woman I meet is on a diet. Every woman I run into is talking about dieting. I ran into an acquaintance who came back from a week long ski vacation where she skied daily, ate well and enjoyed herself, but is now talking about needing to shed the 4 lbs she gained. FOUR. She's considering a fast for four pounds. Did I mention that she's a nurse and patient educator? Great. We're fucking doomed.

My first official diet was when I was 15. It was summer and I wanted to start Grade 10 thin and hawt and have everyone love me. I went to the only dress shop in town at the end of that summer and plunked down sixty hard earned dollars for the tightest fitting acid wash denim skirt you could ever imagine (stop giggling - it was 1986). I wore that thing with pride until one night, about 3 months later, I split the seam up the back while doing something foolish at a dance or after a dance or something.

I never fit into it again. I was 139lbs the day I bought that skirt. It was a size 9. I'm not a size 9. I've never been a size 9. I was thin and I still wasn't a size 9, but that did me in and for 20 years, I've been trying to be a fucking size 9.

"Hi, nice to meet you Jane. I'm Size9 Jones. Yes, that's my name. My whole fucking identity. Size9."

While I preach and possibly believe now that it's only a number and I'm not defined by a number, why do I desire so badly to not be the size that I am today? Why do I hate my body more than ever before? Why do I own 2 scales (that frankly, I'm too scared to step on. The damn things mock me and I let them).

Time to get real. Sure, I want to have more energy, feel fitter and feel good. But I also want the perky ass I had when I was 22 and the flat stomach from when I was 15 and just once in my life, I'd like to have thighs that don't rub together. I'd like to walk into any store and have options for what I can fit into. I want my numbers to be smaller than my husband's numbers. I want one person, just one fucking time, to mutter "wow, I'd love to have her body". Not that I want other people to feel jealous, but I'd like to know that I look as good as I can possibly look without going under the knife.

I'm shallow and vain and caught up in this horrid whirlwind of self-righteous pride that comes with deprivation, aggravation and starvation.

I know how to eat well. I know what a balanced diet looks and tastes like. I know how to make sure I am getting a good balance of nutrients. I don't do any of it - I'm either binging or starving.

If we were concerned about being healthy, we wouldn't buy "diet food" or drink carbonated chemicals as a "treat". Read the label on your diet cola (good god, I love diet cola and all it is is water and chemicals.) Would you slam a shot glass of chemicals down and say "wow that was great!" Highly unlikely, but here we are, every day, sucking them back in the hopes of a smaller ass.

I've watched women turn up their nose at vegetables and call it rabbit food only to peel open a Lean Cuisine and eat what looks like regurgitated rabbit poop named "alfredo" and pump up their self-worth because they didn't cave and eat "too much".

I'm so sick of being a part of this. And yet I crave it like a junkie craves a fix. I want to log my calories and struggle with cravings and tell myself that I'm going to lose all this weight and when I do, I won't have a problem with food anymore. Ever heard those words in your own head? They're carved in fucking stone in mine.

I only know two extremes: binge or starve. I'm hanging in limbo right now and it's where I should be, but it is such new territory, I can't get my footing. I'm slipping and sliding all over and about to fall flat on my ass. Good thing it's well padded.