Object: 1 Cubic Yard of Concrete
Weight: 3300 lbs.
Conclusion: A Cubic Yard of Concrete weighs more than me.

I went shopping today, for a new dress.  But not just any new dress.  I was buying a cocktail dress for a formal Hollywood Awards Show I’m attending this weekend.  (The PGA Awards) Yes, I’m going to be hobnobbing with some of the Hollywood glitterati.  And I’m going to do it in a hot new dress that looks like the one pictured above.

As I was tooling around the mall today, and soliciting help from all of the sales associates I could find, I realized that this whole thing is pretty cool.  And I realized that releasing myself from the fantasy of a life as a skinny woman, allowed me to live some pretty fantastic moments in the real world.

After all, if I had decided to put everything on hold until after I lost weight, I might still be counting my carrot sticks and pedaling to nowhere on the stationary bike.  By living my life full and full-figured right now, I get to get duded up in some fancy new clothes and rub elbows with the richer and famouser. 

All in all, I’d say it was a pretty good choice.

So I’d recommend you stop waiting, and start living.  At the very least, the wardrobe is awesome! 

Love,
The Fat Chick

So this week, we’re going to talk about the second part of the Big Fat Cycle, the Fantasy part.

Okay, so if the Fat Chick Fairy came and visited you in the night, and waved her magic wand and granted your wish and poof you were as thin as you always wanted to be, what would happen?  We’ve all dreamed it, right?

Shopping for dresses sized in the single digits.  Giggling merrily from the dressing room as we call out to the shopkeeper, “can you bring me a smaller size?  Oh, you’re such a dear!”  Sliding into skinny jeans without any special assistance (you know, Crisco, laying on the bed, industrial strength girdles).  Oh the wonder of it all.

But after the buying clothes fantasy, what then?  Will handsome oil-baron princes sweep us off to their yachts where we can be photographed by paparazzi?  Will Victoria’s Secret supermodels call us and ask us to lunch?  Will we be discovered by Hollywood talent scouts and be cast in a movie by fall and receiving our first Oscar(TM) by spring?

Most of us have this sort of fantasy from time to time.  And it’s no wonder.  Dieting sucks.  It’s hard, it’s uncomfortable and it rarely works.  It takes a gargantuan type fantasy to keep that kind of effort in motion.

But I’m going to invite you for today, to really dig in the dark corners of your fantasy about being thin.  What does it entail?  Are Brad Pitt and Angela Jolie there?  Take a moment and jot down a few elements of your nonfat fantasy.  Don’t worry about how crazy or outlandish it seems for now, just write it down.  Part of how we’ll hop OFF the big fat cycle, it helps to understand your Nonfat Fantasy as completely as possible.  So fantasize away.

Sweet Dreams!

Love,
The Fat Chick

Although I sometimes think I could eat the biggest pizza in the world all by myself, the truth is, I probably couldn’t.

The largest pizza ever baked (according to The Guiness Book of World Records):

• Was made in South Africa on December 8, 1990.
• Measured 37.4 meters in diameter (over 120 feet).
• Contained  500 kg of flour (over 1100 pounds), 800 kg of cheese (over 1700 pounds) and 900 kg of tomato puree (over 1900 pounds).
•  Weighed over 5000 pounds.

Conclusion: The world’s largest pizza weighs more than me.

Object: Cargo of a Red Cross Plane bound for Haiti
Reason: Delivering food, medicines and supplies to an area ravaged by an earthquake
Cargo Weight: Over 40 tons

Conclusion: Sometimes being heavy can help a lot.

So you’ve been staring at  your to do list, right?  The one that you made to help you cope with panic.  And maybe your list had 47 things on it, like my “Stuff I gotta do before I go home for Christmas” list.  What’s next?  Pick one thing off of the list and do it.  Don’t worry about doing 20 things.  Don’t worry about doing everything.  Do ONE thing. 

Now, if you’re looking at your list, and you’re getting ready to do your one thing, and every one of your one things to choose from seems huge and overwhelming, then my dear you may need to divide before you conquer.  Like let’s say your list has just one thing on it like “get in shape”.  Well this is a pretty big goal.  It’s not something you can get done tonight or even this week.  So when all the stuff on your list is huge, you’ve got to divide these tasks into smaller tasks.

This may seem counter-productive.  After all the stupid list is getting longer, not shorter, right?  But until you get the tasks down into discrete pieces you can’t cross them off your list, and thus you can’t make the list shorter.

So if your goal is “get fit”, maybe you could break it into smaller tasks like, call gym around the corner and check out prices or buy really cute workout top or go to http://www.thefatchick.com and order a DVD to work out with.  (I’m shameless, what can I say?)

But when you’re in panic mode, there’s nothing like crossing something off your list, and I mean ANYTHING off your list, to help you calm down and find some control.

So go cross something off your list.  Go do it right now!  There, doesn’t that feel better?

Love,
The Fat Chick

There are more than 7,000 varieties of apples grown in the world.
The apples from one tree can fill 20 boxes every year.
Each box weighs an average 42 pounds.
So one tree can produce 840 pounds of apples
Conclusion: The apples from one tree may weigh more than me.

So, we recognized panic, took a mind clearing walk, stopped to engage our brains and we made a list.  Outside of eating that paper list out of sheer frustration, what’s next?  The next step I usually take in managing my panic is to take a look at my list and do a little sorting.  Chances are, after you take a deep breath, stuff on your to do list will start to fall into various categories like:

Order of Importance
1.  My Pants are On Fire!  I’ve got to do this stuff today or they are going to repossess my stuff, or take me to jail or put me on the Jerry Springer Show.
2.  Stuff I’ve really just got to do.  (But secretly I know, that nobody will die if I don’t do it today or even this week.
3.  Really important stuff that I really want done but isn’t completely necessary.  (And actually if I don’t get to it this month, nobody will probably know but me.)

Order of Difficulty
1.  I can finish this in the time it takes me to write this on my list.
2.  If I push I could finish this in 20 minutes to an hour.
3.  I’ve already been working on this for a decade and I think I’m making some headway.

Order of Proxmity: How easy and close are these items to one another.

After I stare at the list for a while patterns seem to emerge, and I start to prioritize.  I usually don’t have to actually rewrite or number my list based on priorities, but just thinking it through in my head helps me start to organize things.

I try to let the stuff that isn’t a high priority drop off the list when I’m in panic mode.  There are a lot of things I’d LIKE to do, but is it worth trying to do it all and having a panic attack or nervous breakdown?  Probably not.  Notice I said that I “try” to do this.  As my husband can easily attest, I don’t always succeed.

Actually, I will let a few lower priority things stay on my list if they are super easy, i.e. buy paper towels and they are close and convenient to something I absolutely need to do on my list, i.e. buy toilet paper.  My method of sorting and yours may be totally different.  Everybody prioritizes differently.  But prioritizing is crucial to managing panic.  The point is, take a deep breath, accept you can’t do everything on your list at once, and figure out what on the list is most important to you.

I promise, I won’t tell if you don’t dust this week.

Love,
The Fat Chick

One of the simplest ways I’ve found for coping with panic is to formulate a plan.  Often this plan starts with something as simple as a piece of paper, a pen and 15 minutes to write a to-do list.  I have been blessed enough to be very, very busy over the past few months.  And while I am definitely NOT complaining, there have been times where I became somewhat overwhelmed with the volume of producing, writing, business and family projects I was juggling.  And by “overwhelmed” I mean crying hysterically and screaming at my husband to hurry up with the D@#@#$N paper bag for me to breathe into.  And when that happened, I found it most helpful to follow the “steps for coping with panic” pretty much as I’ve been outlining them for you:

1.  Recognizing I’m in panic mode.  (Often facilitated by my husband sheepishly peeking around a corner and asking, “are we in a panic then?” and ducking before the frying pan, encyclopedia or office chair could hit him in the head.)
2.  Doing something physical to blow off some of the adrenalin.  Either teaching an aerobics class, or walking around the block or chasing the dog.
3.  Taking a quiet moment to stop, and take a deep breath so I could think properly.
and then
4.  Taking out a piece of paper and a pencil and writing a to-do list.

Sometimes the list in itself is a little overwhelming.  I had one list before Christmas that got to 43 items that I wanted to do before I left town the next day.  Naturally I had to trim a few things off the list.  And 43 items due the next day is like, um, YIKES!  But somehow writing everything down always helps.  The to-do list is just a beginning step to formulating a plan.  You can manage, prioritize and execute the list a little bit later on.  But somehow knowing what the drama is, in black and white, always seems to calm me down and I think it will help you to.

A to-do list isn’t just about errands.  A to-do list can also apply to life situations that cause you to panic.  So if you’re feeling panic-stricken about your weight (or anything else), take out a piece of paper and a pencil and make a to-do list about all the things you think you should do about it.  Don’t worry if these things are attainable or logical or reasonable at this point.  Just write down every crazy idea you have about what you should do about your weight (or whatever is bothering you).  Then fold the list up and put it away until tomorrow.  We’ll deal with it then.  Happy list making…

Love,
The Fat Chick

One of the first things that happens when we panic is that our brain rushes to and prepares for the worst case scenario without an accurate assessment of whether or not the worst will happen.  This is why when many of us panic, we worry that we will be as big as a house or at least an elephant if we don’t do something RIGHT NOW.  Given the size of a house or an elephant, this isn’t likely, but we worry nonetheless.

I have talked to many, many people who struggle with their weight, and this worry seems to be fairly universal.

However, it is my experience that our bodies have a built in system for regulation that does a pretty good job of keeping us within a certain weight range.  Once I stopped dieting and simply focused on getting regular exercise and eating food that is both pleasurable and nourishing to my body, I lost about ten pounds and pretty much stayed there.  Contrary to all popular wisdom, I didn’t keep gaining weight.  I didn’t “balloon up”, or grow “big as a house”.  And lest you believe this experience is unique to me, there is quite a bit of science to back up this idea.

Most of us, tend to stay within a 10-20 pound range that is normal for us.  This “normal” weight may be thin, average or heavy, and is influenced by a variety of factors (the most important of which is heredity but may also include culture, psychology, habits and many other factors).  In any case, to stray significantly from our “average” range is a lot of work for most of us.  That’s why significant weight loss tends to be fleeting.  And that’s why once we each reach our personal “normal” weight, we don’t tend to get too much heavier.   This scientific concept is called “set point”

Please note that this is not true in every single case.  There are always exceptions–especially when specific medical and metabolic disorders are involved.  But the vast majority of us tend to hover around a specific weight range unless we diet very dramatically, or overeat very dramatically.  It’s also important to note that some people who have a “normal” weight that is far above what the height weight charts say they should be, are not eating any more that those in the “thin range” in the charts.  No matter how much folks in the “thin range” lord it over the larger folks, saying they are thin because of their morally superior engagement in healthy behaviors, their behavior may be identical to a naturally heavy person in the “higher range” of the charts.

I know.  You’re saying–yeah, right.  She just wants to make excuses for eating chocolate chip cookies.  What does she know?  And if you’re saying that–good.  It means your rational mind is starting to creep back, and you’re beginning to make evaluations based on logic instead of just believing what people tell you.  So in order to feed your logical mind, here are some links to some articles that will give you “food for thought”.

A nice PDF about set point from MIT Medical.
A Brief about a prison study demonstrating set point.

There is a very good section regarding this topic in Gina Kolata’s Book

While not everybody agrees with every element of set point theory, most agree that going on a wildly restricted, low-calorie plan will result in short-term weight loss, at best.  And chances are, if you take 15 minutes or even a day or two to think things over, your weight will stay pretty much the same.

This is a very important fact to keep in mind as you are facing screaming, hysterical panic about your weight.  Because, when you are facing this panic, it’s most important to stop, take a deep breath and deal with the panic FIRST before you take any action regarding your weight.  Wait.  Breathe.  Study.  Contemplate.  Take a walk as I suggested yesterday.  For heaven’s sake, gather some facts before you go on the next all meat, all grapefruit, all cabbage diet or stop eating all together, or take some unregulated metabolism enhancing herbal supplement or barely regulated new weight loss wonder drug, or get a major, life altering surgery.

Just wait a minute, why don’t you?  Take a deep breath and consider  your options.  Let your rational mind consider your next move and let your panic-filled lizard brain have a rest.  You’ll be glad you did.

Love,
The Fat Chick