A Day in the Life of a Medifaster

Wake up, go pee, weigh myself immediately after. Approach the medicine cupboard. Take the following:

1. Potassium pill that is so large I have to dissolve it. And I am the kind of girl who can swallow ANYTHING.
2. Pill that inhibits formation of gall stones due to rapid (HA) weightloss.
3. Phendiametrazine: legal speed to suppress my appetite. (kind of)
4. "Happy Mood" chinese herbs that I take as I wean off Wellbutrin.
5. 6 pectin pills that are supposed to aid on weight loss?
6. Quick dissolving B12 tab.

Now I am ready for my shake! YAY! Blend up one of the following:
1. Dutch Chocolate: smells and tastes like chocolate covered ass.
2. Vanilla: kinda tastes like Cake Batter ice cream from Coldstones.
3. Banana Creme: it's ok

Drink water, wander around the kitchen looking at all of the food that I can't eat. Go get dressed.

Have a Luna bar. "S'mores" - who is it that they think they are kidding?

Stare at the package of peanut butter filled pretzels that I can't have, don't really like anyway, but would inhale at a moment's notice.

Sulk through my day.

Forget the second 6 pectin pills.

Take more legal speed.

Have another shake. Yum.

Have another shake. Yum.

Forget the third dose of pectin.

Watch my family plow through some delightful dinner, whilst I sip my soup:
1. Chicken with Wild Rice Shit
2. Cream of Chicken-ish Taste
3. Tomato w/ MSG
4. Cream of Crap Broccoli

Wander through the evening, cursing my grumbling belly.

Weigh myself.

Have another Medifast drink:
1. Tropical Punch in the Gut
2. Cranberry Mango Ass
3. Peach Tea-se

Forget my second gallstone prevention pill.

Take my antidepressant and chinese herbs.

Drink more water.

Lay in bed and fall asleep to the pleasant tune of my stomach rumbling.

Dream of food.

You Don't Eat ANYthing?

Nope.

So, I went to see this medical weight loss doctor. I took BART, walked the three blocks to his office, and met with the incredibly thin and beautiful Russian nurse. We'll call her Nurse Natasha for kicks. She is actually really really sweet and kind to me. So we draw blood, talk a little about the program, and then off I go back into the streets of San Fran.

The next week, I meet with the doctor, Dr. PrescriptionPad. After a brief calculation, he decides that I have to lose 90 pounds, and that at 3 pounds a week, I should need about 32 weeks of Active Weight Loss. After that, it will be another 30 weeks of Maintenance. And to start, I can only have shakes. Medifast shakes. Seven of them, a day.

And psycho me, after hearing all of that, I respond with the question generated by the single train of thought I have had since he began speaking:

"Um, doctor, where did you say I can fill that prescription?"

Some habits never do die hard the way they should.

MediFAST? We'll see.

So, it's been two years since I've posted. TWO YEARS! A brief recap:

- Summer 2006: Total Meltdown. Had a crying fit in my bitch of a doctor's office. She shooed me out of there with a prescription for Paxil and Valium. Paxil, well, I'm one of those fraction of a percent people for whom Paxil makes depression worse... Ended up parked on the couch of a busy and distracted phychiatrist who perscribed me Zoloft and sent me on my way. Three weeks later I realized that it wasn't me - I hadn't lost the talent for orgasm - it was the meds... Switched to Wellbutrin and things looked, I dunno, a little brighter. Well, not to exaggerate... maybe they just looked a little less bleak.

- Fall 2006: Started Weight Watchers. Lost 15 pounds. Went back to work. Quit Weight Watchers.

- Spring 2007: Familial World War III. Stopped speaking to my parents for six months. Gained back the 15 pounds. Gained 10 more.

- Summer 2007: Summer of Camping. Tried to pretend I was a fit and healthy outdoors loving gal. Gained 10 more pounds.

- Fall 2007: Keep on Eatin Baby. Ate my way through the school year. Gained 10 more pounds.

- Spring 2008: Began going to therapy with a woman that specializes in body image. Went to find out about this medical weightloss breakthrough study happening at Stanford University. Turns out they implant this thingie in you, and then you have to wear this belt that transmits a signal that is supposed to turn off the hunger signal to your brain. You wear the huge fucking thing all day. Every day. For the rest of your life. NEXT.

- Summer 2008: Am actually really trying. For real. I'm fucking hungry.

A Brief Intro

So hello. I never knew how to begin my journal entries during my half-assed attempts to keep one as a young girl... I for sure do not know how to begin this blog. I was thinking of a few options:

1. A "Purposeful" intro in which I tell you what I am trying to create with this space. This would be wonderful if I knew what my purpose was.

2. A "Humorous" intro in which I delight and entertain you with the kick-ass humor and phenomenal personality that I have had to develop due to being a fat girl. Okay, a possibility. I always fall back on the self-deprecation in any situation.

3. A "Dramatic" opening that is compelling and makes you swear to yourself that you will never miss a post of this riveting and fascinating blog. Um, yea, no.

4. The truth. Here goes...

I am a fat girl. I am one of those girls that you see applying the smack-down to a bitchin concoction from Coldstone's Creamery and you think to yourself, "Well no wonder!" I am one of those girls that tries to act like I'm not winded as I walk up the stairs with you during a conversation. When I pause before speaking, it's not because I am trying to think of the best response. It's because I am trying to catch my breath. I am one of those girls who will go with a slender friend into a store like "Forever 21" and make it a point to be very busy helping you find the right dress, going to find your size while you stay in the dressing room, looking wistfully at the fashions that would literally not fit over my calf, choosing a scarf or glitter lip gloss from the front by the cash registers just so I can buy something too, and then going with you to Boardwalk Fries. I am one of those girls that knows exactly how to pose my body in such a way that takes off at least 25 pounds in a picture. I am an expert at hiding behind my child or my thin friends in photos. I censor every picture that is ever taken of me and then freak out when I find pictures that are not pre-approved by me or *gasp!* candid shots of me from behind.

I am funny, outgoing, smart, well-dressed (as much as possible) and I have that fat girl necessity: "Such a pretty face!" I am the most confident un-confident person that I know. I am a walking contradiction. I think I have deluded myself into thinking I can cope, but honestly I am moving into a psycho-realm lately that is proving otherwise. It is taking me longer and longer to get dressed everyday. I now scream at anyone in the room to get the fuck out as I am getting dressed because I can't bear for anybody to see the psychotic process. I will try on fifty different things in one setting and try to find that one outfit that possibly in some weird way kind-of sort-of doesn't totally show ALL of the cellulite in my ass. Today, that is. Tomorrow some inexplicable change will occur whereby an outfit that fit yesterday suddenly makes me look like a rhino, when yesterday I merely looked like a cow.

I think I could continue forever, but I am hot and too much truth at once tires me out. Here's my point: I am really trying to do something about my weight, my health, my life. If I chronicle it here, maybe it will stick. Maybe I will make it this time. Maybe at some point I can change the title of my blog to "Confessions of a Girl." We all need a goal, right?