Follow your dreams, you can reach your goals, I'm living proof. Beefcake! Beefcake!
-- Cartman
Today was a very momentous occasion for me. I hit 150 pounds...on the motherfucking scale. I've never in my life weighed 150 pounds before and to be honest I'm not sure whether I should celebrate or call Jenny Craig. For now I'll drown my sorrows in chocolate milk and be all deep and shit and write something and wax egotistical instead of being productive...
I've never been the slim girl; I was always the "fat" distance runner. Being not skinny is a special kind of experience in Southern California where you are expected to have blond hair, big boobs and weigh less than 100 pounds. I had none of these things; I'm a dorky, flat chested brunette and I weighed around 130-135 pounds and wore a size 8 in high school. I didn't have a lot of upper body strength and I definitely could have weighed less but I was in no way fat. I was also totally awkward anyway so I found myself constantly running into situations that I once found insulting and now find hilarious. I ran Cross-Country in high school and one of my teammates needed a black dress so I offered one of mine and she responded with, "Oh, well, I'm reallllllly thin." I should have clocked her in the face but her comment sort of shocked me so I did my best to shrug it off and walk away so I could go eat some In-N-Out. Another time I came home from a Cross-Country meet and was eating lots of spaghetti and my grandfather looked at my plate and said, "Diana, if you keep eating like that you are going to get FAT!" Grandpa got a little bit of an earful from me that night but my family's MO for I love you usually involves hurling insults across the room rather than hugs and pleasantries so I was generally ok with it. However, with every comment that was thrown my way I tried to act like I was cool about it but they did eventually start to hurt my pride; nobody likes to have their weight be a regular topic of discussion.
I suppose I was a prime candidate for an eating disorder but there's one thing that always gets in the way of that - I really fucking love to eat. If I end up skipping a meal I'm a total fucking bitch. Seriously, if you ever see me cranky, find me a cookie or a sandwich or a pizza and I'll calm the fuck down. My uncle once asked me if I was eating enough and I looked at him, laughed and said, "TRUST ME, you will NEVER have to worry about that." I also trained with a few people in high school and college who either meticulously watched what they ate or didn't eat at all. I will admit that back then I wished that I could look like them; I remember all of them being tall but that's probably because they were so slender. They all definitely looked better in the horrible butt hugging shorts we had to wear in Cross-Country. I also remember how crappy they always felt. Some of them were very susceptible to mood swings or fainting on a run and I knew there was no way I could ever have the discipline to train on a restricted Calorie diet. That kind of discipline and control was a power that I never wanted.
By college I grew tired of shorter distances and moved on to more half and full marathons. Distance running made me happier because I got to eat a lot more. I was still around the same weight but I definitely lost some body fat and gained more muscle in my legs. I was also more accustomed to the funny comments I would get when people found out I was a distance runner. When one of my college roommates found out she responded with, "I thought marathon runners were skinny." I was rather shocked by the bluntness of the comment but I was far more mentally prepared for comments like that so I calmly responded with, "Well, I like to eat." In my head I wanted to say, "Fuck You Skinny Bitch" but I knew what she meant. I didn't look like a marathon runner; marathon runners tend to look very sinewy and lean and I...do...not. As in high school I still wanted to look like the other runners, I thought that they looked so incredible and in shape and strong. I wanted to look skinny; I wanted to be the badass slender looking girl; I wanted people to look at me and think, "THAT girl is a runner." I started to diet, I limited my Calories and ate cottage cheese and salads instead of everything else that I wanted to eat. I also decided that I should get back into Cross-Country and on a legitimate training schedule so I met with Pepperdine's coach and talked about the prospect of joining the team. Five minutes after entering the coach's office I was immediately turned off on the idea; the way he talked about the female runners was completely offensive to me. He talked about doing three a days and how this girl and that girl needed to lose a bit of weight. I knew the girls that he was talking about and all I could think was, "Wow, if you have a problem with this girl's weight, you are going to have a field day with mine." To be fair, his comments were probably no different than any other coach's but I was disgusted by the whole thing. That day I stopped dieting and accepted the fact that I was just not going to be that kind of girl. I was never going to force myself to throw up; I was never going to go on a restricted Calorie diet; I was never going to be the skinny girl.
I started CrossFitting a few months after becoming an attorney; I would never have tried it but I didn't have enough time to train for marathons and I needed something quick and dirty that would fill the adrenaline void and CrossFit was of course perfect for that. While training my weight never fluctuated more than 5 pounds, I stuck around 130-135 but I gained muscle and my dress size went down to a size 4, which was pretty spiffy. I worked out 3 days a week and I was relatively satisfied with how I looked. I went on a paleo challenge and people started asking me if I was eating because I leaned up so much; I'll admit that warped my brain a little bit and I thought it was cool that I looked skinny enough for people to notice things like that. The girl that I am now would have kicked that girl's ass and given her a little piece of my mind. Even with that skinny mindset I did change my vision of the ideal body type; I wanted to look more muscular than skinny. I was CrossFitting by the time I ran my last marathon and instead of being envious of how they looked I thought so many of the runners looked emaciated, especially their upper body. I wanted to take some of them to eat and buy them a sandwich. They no longer looked strong and healthy to me; they looked like death.
Which brings me to a couple months ago, where I eschewed paleo in favor of full fat dairy products and on certain (most) days shoving as many Calories into my body as humanly possible. A few days after starting a strength training program I was in my office having already eaten two very healthy sized breakfasts and I was still so hungry I couldn't think straight until I ate a breakfast burrito. I was both proud and grossed out by my three breakfast day. It was cool though, I was getting stronger and wasn't gaining any weight and my clothes fit. My firm had an informal Halloween party and two guys were talking about losing weight and I got to tell them, while holding a plate of pizza, "That's cool, I'm trying to gain weight." One of them replied, "Let's not talk to Diana for a while." I meant it, I want to gain more muscle and if that means gaining weight I'm ok with that. However, I suppose I wasn't mentally prepared for the jump to 150 quite yet. It's cool though, because my clothes still fit...oh wait that's right THEY FUCKING DON'T! I tried to find a nice dress shirt to wear this weekend and it was quite the battle to get them around my shoulders. I gave up on fancy and grabbed a tank top and threw on some jewelry in hopes of classing it up a bit. Ok, so that part actually felt pretty awesome, but the rest of it did not. My dresses, if I can get them to even fit, look very strange on me now. And my jeans, my fucking jeans have betrayed me. I can barely fit my sexy, blotchy purple, bruised, scratched up legs into my stupid god damn jeans. That one hurts because 99% of the time that I am out and about it's in jeans. And my jeans aren't remotely close to skinny jeans. I probably can't get my calves halfway through skinny jeans, the mere attempt would make me cry. I'm going to have to find a job where I can wear sweatpants or a potato sack 24/7 because I fucking hate shopping for new clothes.
Here's the cool part. I was at the Turkey Challenge Competition this weekend and talking with one of my teammates about how I could do sprint workouts but that I preferred the long, nasty ones. He told me, "That's interesting, because normally girls that can lift heavy weight like you don't have the endurance." He's married so I didn't kiss him on the face for that comment, but it made my day. Later that day one of my dude buddies told me his goal is to keep some of his lifts 100 pounds heavier than mine and another one asked me to flex and told me I was getting ripped. I'll definitely accept 150 pounds if I can get comments like that. Hopefully in time people will look at me and think, "THAT girl is a CrossFitter" or "THAT girl could beat the shit out of someone in a dark alley." Either one is fine.
So hello 150 pounds, it's nice to meet you I guess. I'm not trading in my steak for a salad, after all, this is what I've been trying to do. I may, however, go for a long run tonight.
150 fucking pounds. Shit.
"Sprinkle some fries on those CUPCAKES"
-- Patton Oswalt
-- Cartman
Today was a very momentous occasion for me. I hit 150 pounds...on the motherfucking scale. I've never in my life weighed 150 pounds before and to be honest I'm not sure whether I should celebrate or call Jenny Craig. For now I'll drown my sorrows in chocolate milk and be all deep and shit and write something and wax egotistical instead of being productive...
I've never been the slim girl; I was always the "fat" distance runner. Being not skinny is a special kind of experience in Southern California where you are expected to have blond hair, big boobs and weigh less than 100 pounds. I had none of these things; I'm a dorky, flat chested brunette and I weighed around 130-135 pounds and wore a size 8 in high school. I didn't have a lot of upper body strength and I definitely could have weighed less but I was in no way fat. I was also totally awkward anyway so I found myself constantly running into situations that I once found insulting and now find hilarious. I ran Cross-Country in high school and one of my teammates needed a black dress so I offered one of mine and she responded with, "Oh, well, I'm reallllllly thin." I should have clocked her in the face but her comment sort of shocked me so I did my best to shrug it off and walk away so I could go eat some In-N-Out. Another time I came home from a Cross-Country meet and was eating lots of spaghetti and my grandfather looked at my plate and said, "Diana, if you keep eating like that you are going to get FAT!" Grandpa got a little bit of an earful from me that night but my family's MO for I love you usually involves hurling insults across the room rather than hugs and pleasantries so I was generally ok with it. However, with every comment that was thrown my way I tried to act like I was cool about it but they did eventually start to hurt my pride; nobody likes to have their weight be a regular topic of discussion.
I suppose I was a prime candidate for an eating disorder but there's one thing that always gets in the way of that - I really fucking love to eat. If I end up skipping a meal I'm a total fucking bitch. Seriously, if you ever see me cranky, find me a cookie or a sandwich or a pizza and I'll calm the fuck down. My uncle once asked me if I was eating enough and I looked at him, laughed and said, "TRUST ME, you will NEVER have to worry about that." I also trained with a few people in high school and college who either meticulously watched what they ate or didn't eat at all. I will admit that back then I wished that I could look like them; I remember all of them being tall but that's probably because they were so slender. They all definitely looked better in the horrible butt hugging shorts we had to wear in Cross-Country. I also remember how crappy they always felt. Some of them were very susceptible to mood swings or fainting on a run and I knew there was no way I could ever have the discipline to train on a restricted Calorie diet. That kind of discipline and control was a power that I never wanted.
By college I grew tired of shorter distances and moved on to more half and full marathons. Distance running made me happier because I got to eat a lot more. I was still around the same weight but I definitely lost some body fat and gained more muscle in my legs. I was also more accustomed to the funny comments I would get when people found out I was a distance runner. When one of my college roommates found out she responded with, "I thought marathon runners were skinny." I was rather shocked by the bluntness of the comment but I was far more mentally prepared for comments like that so I calmly responded with, "Well, I like to eat." In my head I wanted to say, "Fuck You Skinny Bitch" but I knew what she meant. I didn't look like a marathon runner; marathon runners tend to look very sinewy and lean and I...do...not. As in high school I still wanted to look like the other runners, I thought that they looked so incredible and in shape and strong. I wanted to look skinny; I wanted to be the badass slender looking girl; I wanted people to look at me and think, "THAT girl is a runner." I started to diet, I limited my Calories and ate cottage cheese and salads instead of everything else that I wanted to eat. I also decided that I should get back into Cross-Country and on a legitimate training schedule so I met with Pepperdine's coach and talked about the prospect of joining the team. Five minutes after entering the coach's office I was immediately turned off on the idea; the way he talked about the female runners was completely offensive to me. He talked about doing three a days and how this girl and that girl needed to lose a bit of weight. I knew the girls that he was talking about and all I could think was, "Wow, if you have a problem with this girl's weight, you are going to have a field day with mine." To be fair, his comments were probably no different than any other coach's but I was disgusted by the whole thing. That day I stopped dieting and accepted the fact that I was just not going to be that kind of girl. I was never going to force myself to throw up; I was never going to go on a restricted Calorie diet; I was never going to be the skinny girl.
I started CrossFitting a few months after becoming an attorney; I would never have tried it but I didn't have enough time to train for marathons and I needed something quick and dirty that would fill the adrenaline void and CrossFit was of course perfect for that. While training my weight never fluctuated more than 5 pounds, I stuck around 130-135 but I gained muscle and my dress size went down to a size 4, which was pretty spiffy. I worked out 3 days a week and I was relatively satisfied with how I looked. I went on a paleo challenge and people started asking me if I was eating because I leaned up so much; I'll admit that warped my brain a little bit and I thought it was cool that I looked skinny enough for people to notice things like that. The girl that I am now would have kicked that girl's ass and given her a little piece of my mind. Even with that skinny mindset I did change my vision of the ideal body type; I wanted to look more muscular than skinny. I was CrossFitting by the time I ran my last marathon and instead of being envious of how they looked I thought so many of the runners looked emaciated, especially their upper body. I wanted to take some of them to eat and buy them a sandwich. They no longer looked strong and healthy to me; they looked like death.
Which brings me to a couple months ago, where I eschewed paleo in favor of full fat dairy products and on certain (most) days shoving as many Calories into my body as humanly possible. A few days after starting a strength training program I was in my office having already eaten two very healthy sized breakfasts and I was still so hungry I couldn't think straight until I ate a breakfast burrito. I was both proud and grossed out by my three breakfast day. It was cool though, I was getting stronger and wasn't gaining any weight and my clothes fit. My firm had an informal Halloween party and two guys were talking about losing weight and I got to tell them, while holding a plate of pizza, "That's cool, I'm trying to gain weight." One of them replied, "Let's not talk to Diana for a while." I meant it, I want to gain more muscle and if that means gaining weight I'm ok with that. However, I suppose I wasn't mentally prepared for the jump to 150 quite yet. It's cool though, because my clothes still fit...oh wait that's right THEY FUCKING DON'T! I tried to find a nice dress shirt to wear this weekend and it was quite the battle to get them around my shoulders. I gave up on fancy and grabbed a tank top and threw on some jewelry in hopes of classing it up a bit. Ok, so that part actually felt pretty awesome, but the rest of it did not. My dresses, if I can get them to even fit, look very strange on me now. And my jeans, my fucking jeans have betrayed me. I can barely fit my sexy, blotchy purple, bruised, scratched up legs into my stupid god damn jeans. That one hurts because 99% of the time that I am out and about it's in jeans. And my jeans aren't remotely close to skinny jeans. I probably can't get my calves halfway through skinny jeans, the mere attempt would make me cry. I'm going to have to find a job where I can wear sweatpants or a potato sack 24/7 because I fucking hate shopping for new clothes.
Here's the cool part. I was at the Turkey Challenge Competition this weekend and talking with one of my teammates about how I could do sprint workouts but that I preferred the long, nasty ones. He told me, "That's interesting, because normally girls that can lift heavy weight like you don't have the endurance." He's married so I didn't kiss him on the face for that comment, but it made my day. Later that day one of my dude buddies told me his goal is to keep some of his lifts 100 pounds heavier than mine and another one asked me to flex and told me I was getting ripped. I'll definitely accept 150 pounds if I can get comments like that. Hopefully in time people will look at me and think, "THAT girl is a CrossFitter" or "THAT girl could beat the shit out of someone in a dark alley." Either one is fine.
So hello 150 pounds, it's nice to meet you I guess. I'm not trading in my steak for a salad, after all, this is what I've been trying to do. I may, however, go for a long run tonight.
150 fucking pounds. Shit.
"Sprinkle some fries on those CUPCAKES"
-- Patton Oswalt
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