Fat

It's 10:00AM. I'm covered in sweat, hot, and regretting every decision I've made that's brought me to this point.

I'm running a 5K on a treadmill as the final leg of a practice indoor triathlon, something I got up at 6:00 to prep for. It's not the actual indoor triathlon I signed up for--that's three weeks away. I got up early on a Sunday to do a practice triathlon.

I'm being a little dramatic. I was regretting the decisions I had made, but only because running a treadmill is the most boring thing in the world. While I'm running I'll cope by texting bad selfies to friends, asking if they know that treadmills were originally designed as a punishment, and generally being a whiny little bitch.

At the end of the run I'll hop off the treadmill and get hit by a rush of euphoria.

While I didn't win the genetic lottery in . . . basically any other way I'm lucky enough to be a person who gets a runner's high almost every time I work out, regardless of the activity.

I'm feeling even better when I check my watch stats and see I've cut an entire minute off my normal swim time. I've been working really hard since November, cross and strength training and it's nice to see that hard work paying off.

I trade my sweaty workout clothes for a towel and decide to hop on the scale before getting in the shower.

That's exactly the place where the bottom falls out.

"I deserve this" I think, tearing up in the shower. "I had that extra drink on Friday night and ohmygod refined pasta? You slob, what were you thinking?"

"I deserve this."

* * *

I am in the best shape of my life. 

I've lost three dress sizes, my mile times are faster than they've ever been, and my last doctor was thrilled with my progress. When people ask me my secret, I laugh and say "Oh, you know, diet and exercise." 

Here's my actual secret. 

Every morning I get up and weight myself, often more than once. Depending on what the scale says, I'll have Breakfast A (70 calories) or Breakfast B (an indulgent 140 calories). I will go to work and try to keep my total calorie consumption throughout the day to around 700 calories, mostly eaten two hours before I go to the gym, which I visit six days a week. I'll spend 90 minutes Spinning, will shower, and will walk the 1.5 miles back to my house. I'll eat a carefully portioned dinner, ensure that I haven't had more than 1,200 calories in a day and will skip eating back most of the calories burned during my workout. More often than not, I'll halve my dinner so I can have a beer to help me sleep. 

If, say, I've done something egregious like go to dinner at a friend's house and eat more than the calories I have allotted, I will get home, put on my running clothes, and run until I'm at my calorie limit for the day. 

I do this every day for nine months.

At the end of it, a new doctor will ask how I made such progress. When I detail my diet and exercise routine for her, she looks me dead in the face and tells me "That's not a lifestyle change. That's an eating disorder."

"No, it's not. Fat girls don't have those."

She almost slaps me.

I would have deserved it. 

* * *

"I mean, for someone who works out so much, I don't understand how you put on so much weight."

I've heard no fewer than 17 variations of this comment throughout my dating life. 

This particular time I lock myself in the bathroom and cry for hours. 

I am three years and thirty pounds from the best shape of my life. I fell in love and stopped working out so much because I was so happy. I fell out of love and drank too much and ate too much comfort food as a method of coping. Everything about my life feels so out of control at the moment that the constant refrain in my head is "You deserve this. You let yourself go. You're an ugly fat monster."

"You deserve this." 

* * *

It's 10:00PM. I'm covered in sweat, hot, and regretting absolutely none of the decisions that brought me to this place. 

I'm sleeping with someone new. It's the first someone new since my ex-husband and while it's nothing serious, it's been incredibly meaningful for me. He's a genuinely funny, kind, and warm person and I couldn't have written a better first-since-my-ex-husband.

I can't get out of my own head. 

The second my clothes come off, all I can think about is the stretch marks on my boobs, the cellulite on my ass, my disgusting belly. I'm convinced that this is a pity fuck or a meh-I-have-nothing-better-to-do fuck or a I-haven't-had-sex-in-awhile-and-I-can-close-my-eyes-and-imagine-Scarlett-Johansson fuck.

It's not. 

I get a little bit better the more I get used to him (see previous comments about funny, kind, and warm), but I still can't settle down. Every time we eat together he comments on how little appetite I seem to have (It's one of those unspoken fat girl rules. Eat less than you want and try not to enjoy it). Based on the number of times I've said "Oh, I got busy and had a late lunch" he must think I'm the most overworked employee in the place. 

I make a lot of jokes to him about how I'm the incarnation of a goddess of sex, here for his adoration and awe, but the truth is that I'm five years and ten pounds from the best shape of my life. And for as much as I'd like to be proud (and am proud, if I'm being honest) of the fact that I can do an indoor tri for practice on a Sunday morning, there's an extremely loud voice in my head talking about how maybe my fat ass should walk the two miles home and I can probably skip that post-workout bagel and oh, by the way, maybe you should cancel your plans with funny-kind-warm tonight.

Afterall, it's not like I deserve it.