The author of the new novel Fat Chick weighs in on decades of dieting.
My husband has two wives.
One’s name is Skinny Minnie, the other is called Chubs. Their personalities are basically the same, however there are subtle differences. Minnie is much more confident, walks with a swagger and is a bit vain. Chubs cries more, doesn’t like to go out that much and often chows down when she’s not hungry.
I have been an emotional eater and yo-yo dieter since I was thirteen-years-old. A weight in flux followed me into my single gal twenties, married thirties and eventually into motherhood.
Yes, along with me, Neil has ridden the yo-yo. I think sometimes the ride has been more exhausting for him than it was for me.
He’s made meals for us and our two children only to watch me not partake (I once decided, as I did as a teenager, that not eating dinner was the key to slimming down), watched with admiration as I planned a menu (via Weight Watchers) for myself and stuck to it, hung his head in despair as I scarfed everything in sight in some anxiety frenzy -- wrestling the butter out of my hand as I was about to slather a Saltine (or ten), and sat across from me while we enjoyed a nice meal in fine restaurant wishing this was going to become the norm.
There are people whose life experiences bring to mind a certain song or fashion trend. I relate milestones in our relationship, not on how we celebrated the event, but on whether it was a fat or thin year.
Our marriage happened in a svelte year. In contrast, we celebrated our tenth anniversary with me in a too tight dress, at an expensive restaurant where the young waiter commented on how quickly I had polished off my oversized pork chop. For our twentieth, I was not as thin as I would have liked but had discovered SPANX, which helped give the illusion of thinness.
Neil has paid for Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig (twice), as well as clothes in many sizes to accommodate my ups and downs. For a while, he had to get used to a stationary bike as part of our living room decor, when I once added that exercise to my weight loss repertoire. He has many a time had to maneuver to make room in the refrigerator for groceries, when I had commandeered the freezer to house my stash of Lean Cuisines.
In four years Neil and I will celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary. Perhaps we should renew our vows and rewrite them so Neil will promise to love, honor, cherish and cut back on serving carbohydrates; I to love, honor and obey the food pyramid more strictly.
