Former Fat Celebrities

Dear FFGs and Future FFGs--

So maybe you have been reading the news about Kirstie Alley quitting (or getting fired from?) Jenny Craig. You know the backstory: Kirstie, who had a show called Fat Actress (never saw it), signed on as the JC spokesmodel in an effort to lose weight. I think she lost something like 70 pounds (same as me), and flaunted it on Oprah in a bikini.

Now there are reports that she's quitting Jenny to start her own weight loss thing. Or if you believe the National Enquirer, which I noticed (how can you not?) at the checkout lane in the grocery store Sunday, she was fired for gaining the weight back. In true NE style, they had a horribly unflattering photo of her on the cover of their "expose" story.

Who knows if it's an old photo, a new photo, whatever? And who, in fact, really CARES?

Sure, Kirstie put herself out there, and it was a great professional move for her. It kept people talking about her for a good long while (3 years?). It also really did get her to lose the weight she wanted to lose, and hopefully come away with some sense of what works for her and what doesn't weight loss-wise. Maybe she did/will gain the weight back, or at least some of it. Jenny is, after all, one of those plans that has you eating "unreal" food in an "unreal" world. So when you stop ... when you start going to parties, or eating out, or traveling, or just trying to live like the rest of us do surrounded by all kinds of temptation, how do you cope?

I have no idea if Kirstie exercises, if she has mantras, if she has any ways of mentally coping beyond the sort of forced portion control that is at the heart of the Jenny plan. I hope she does. One powerful stimulus is the fact that she so very publicly lost the weight--so hopefully, that will help her keep it off too. I have to say that I have joked to people that there's nothing like the pressure of "coming out" as a Former Fat Girl to keep you on a weight loss plan.

But even if she does gain it all back, as I did so many times along my journey, it's not wasted effort. I know it is hard to believe when you're in it, but I know that with every attempt to lose the weight, get healthy, start exercising--success or non-success (i will not use the f-word!)--I learned something about myself. What made it harder, what made it easier, which foods I could live without, which fitness routines I absolutely couldn't stand. And all of that knowledge helped me, in the end, become an FFG.

I have blogged a bit before about forgiveness, about our need to give ourselves a break when we don't meet our goals. If we truly believe this is a journey, a process, that should make it easier to look at our stumbles as lessons that will make us stronger and smarter when we wake up tomorrow. Know that I still struggle with this, too, in all aspects of my life. I struggle to get past every less-than-perfect moment in my life ... every lapse of memory (yesterday, I forgot to fill Johnny's water bottle to take to school), every slip of the tongue (so, I called a new colleague Darrel instead of Darin on the phone ... so what?), every inadequacy (too many examples to mention here). Every extra slice of pizza ... sneaky bite of chocolate ... fingerful of icing. It's almost a physical process to shut out the urge to dwell, overanalyze, relive these little moments. Sometimes, I visualize myself pushing closed the door to a huge vault, shutting myself off from those super-self-critical thoughts. It's another INO moment: It's Not an Option to obsess.

Anyway, that's what I'm thinking about today.

Lisa D

The Year of I Don't Know

OK, so it's a month into 2008 and I'm just now writing about my New Year's resolutions. (Guess it's good that I didn't vow to tackle my propensity for procrastination or tendency to take liberties with the concept of time.)

Actually, I don't really make resolutions any more. Oh, I did vow to drink more water: I force myself to stand in the kitchen and down two 16 oz glasses at the start of every day. I think I'm in a perpetual state of dehydration, and front-loading helps me make a dent in it. (It's not exactly pleasant, though.)

Anyway, beyond those small-time vows, I have stopped doing resolutions. Instead, I do "theme years." The year I wrote my book, the theme was "All About Me." I chose that theme because I was determined to stop dreaming about writing a book, wishing wistfully for a little baby hardback to call my own. It was time to actually make it happen. I'd been thinking about writing Former Fat Girl for years--eight of them, actually. But other things, other obligations, usually obligations to other people, always got in the way. "All About Me" kind of kept me on task, gave me permission to take the time I needed to pursue that dream. And hey, it turned out pretty well, didn't it?

[Detour: Any of you FFGs out there who loved ... or even sort of liked ... the book, please go to Amazon.com and write a quick review. I have 18 reviews so far, and most are really good, but the last woman who wrote really zinged me. Said that all the positive reviews must have been written by my friends! And we know that's true, because I don't HAVE that many friends!]

So I do theme years. This year is The Year of I Don't Know. Allow me to explain: You know about the Un-Comfort Zone? That place where you are pushing yourself beyond your limits, your safe, secure, deadly boring limits? The limits that keep us from having the life we want to have, from losing the weight, from getting the job, from dating the man ... you know what I mean. Well, it's SO easy to slip back into that comfortable place without even knowing it. And it makes sense. The fact is that yesterday's challenge is today's rut. Unless we keep consciously and constantly pushing ourselves to seek out the new, we find ourselves back in that comfortable place.

I know me: I have this need to have all the answers. To be on top of it all. And while I have experienced the value of approaching this life as an adventure, I haven't been exactly living that way. Many of you know that I did make a career change last fall, and that was a big step. But part of the reason for adopting the I Don't Know theme is that I have this way of getting too committed to things way too fast, to shutting off my brain to other choices, other opportunities. (Maybe this is the dark side of INO.) Anyway, I am trying, this year, to suspend myself in this state of I Don't Know. To try to get back to where I am following my gut, listening to my instincts, trusting that the answers will come, instead of forcing them. Branding this The Year of I Don't Know reminds me that it's ok not to be so damn certain about everything.

Now ... I would love to know if any of you have themes for this year. Maybe this is The Year of I CAN! or The Year of YES! or (maybe even better) The Year of NO! Or it could be The Year I Travel to Italy and Decide Never to Return! The possibilities are endless.

What's your theme? Share it here.

Until next time ...

Lisa D
FFG, FKIA (Former Know-It-All)