Welcome to my

Year of Thinking Thinly

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         This past Labor Day (September 7, 2009) I launched an experiment. I set out to answer the question, "What would it be like to live as a thin person for one full year?"

        "Huh?" you say, mouth gaping open. "Isn't that just going on a diet?"

        Nay. Only fat people go on diets. I'm going to live thinly. The difference between the two makes all the difference in the world. In fact, I suspect this is the missing link in my years of managing my weight. I know how to lose weight. Heck, I've done that hundreds of times. I even know how to keep it off for a little while. The one thing I have yet to learn is how to live thinly.  How to eat Thanksgiving dinner, celebrate a birthday, be depressed, joyous, hungry, travel in a foreign country, go on a picnic, eat a pizza...all as a thin person would.

        My experiment is simple...with multiple complications. For example, thin people view everything differently. Food, exercise, parties, Ben and Jerry. Take vanity:

• Thin Vanity: Looking my best is an everyday thing.

• Fat Vanity: I’ll pull myself together for the wedding.

• Thin Vanity: My mirror is my friend.

• Fat Vanity: If I never look in a mirror, I can imagine anything.

• Thin Vanity: Quality and fit are everything.

• Fat Vanity: Comfort is everything.

• Thin Vanity: Looking great is worth the effort.

• Fat Vanity: Polyester is worth not ironing.

• Thin Vanity: I’d rather look good than eat that.

• Fat Vanity: I look okay from the front, at an angle. In
                                     flattering  light. I can repair the damage tomorrow.

Fatties, and fat-heads like myself (no matter what the scale says, I feel like I'm one donut away from my own TLC special) tend to kick the calorie can down the road. And we rarely look at our cans at all. I have not seen my rear end in years. Seriously, years. Who looks in a three-way mirror unless they have to? Unless Stacy and Clinton make them on What Not to Wear?

So, my year-long quest has begun to find out what it really takes to be thin when you weren't born that way. When you were raised with pork chops, mashed potatoes, corn, cornbread and bread. And dessert every night. When you've been chubby all your life. When you're sick to death of diets. (They don't work, but what other option does???) When you've been at least ten pounds from goal all your adult life. When you feel like a fat person no matter what you do.

Can a lifelong fattie ever undo the damage and transform herself into a woman who feels thin? Or, have all us fatties and fat-heads been fooling ourselves all these years?

           It's time to find out.

           My experiment is based on a simple philosophy: Your body will follow your mind if you act "as if." Dieters act as if they are dieting. Which, of course, they are. Fatties act fat and thinnies act thin. What would happen if a fattie acted as if she were thin? Would her body get the message?

            I'll let you know. For twelve months, I'm going to keep a diary of my attempt to live thinly. Also, I will observe thinnies in their natural habitat. I'll interview my tffs (Thin Female Friends) to unearth their secrets. I'll talk to diet docs and geneticists. I'll explore the Nature vs. Nurture debate from the inside. For one full year, I will eat what a thin woman eats, act like she acts, feel what she feels. (So far, it's mostly hunger.)  I will go undercover and report my findings back to you in a book and this blog.

          Here's my promise: I vow to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Including The Wendy's Incident, and...as I've inelegantly come to call it...Bob's Butt Crack. (Sounds gross, but it's really my husband's comment on the size and shape of my rear end. What, is he suicidal???)

          The truth, the whole truth, and nothing butt.....

          So far, my journey has been mortifying.  Trust me...living thinly is hard work. It's much easier to lose weight. There's a reason I began my journey on Labor Day.

        Below is an excerpt from the book. Comments (no divorce lawyers, please) can be posted here. As my Year of Living Thinly progresses, I'll keep you posted. Wish me luck.

A Year of Living Thinly

DAY ONE. Labor Day.

September 7, 2009

           I wake up full. Today, Labor Day, I begin work on my new life. My thin life. For one year, I’ll be living like a skinny person. I’ll eat the way she eats, think like she thinks, slip into her wee little skin to experience life on the other side: The mysterious, shadowy world of thin people. A Wonderland of One-Digit Sizes. A parallel universe that’s previously been beyond my reach and my comprehension. The anti-buffets, coffee with no cream, eggs with no yolk, bread with no butter, no bread with anything. Lettuce pray.

            Or, maybe thin people eat everything, but, like Dolly Parton, they limit their meals to a few tiny bites. (Though Dolly also admits one secret to looking slim is "a good push-up bra." I would have to agree...along with a complete Spanx wardrobe. Which, in my opinion, is a major reason why bathroom lines are so long for women. Trust me, wrestling tight spandex over abundant thighs is no simple task.) This year, the mystery of thinness will be revealed to me. I will become one of them.

Of course, first I had to have a last supper. No way was I going to begin my Year of Living Thinly on an empty stomach.

“Don’t do it!” my svelte sister, Diane warned me when I mentioned my plan to “prep” for my thin year by eating everything I was sure I would miss. “You can gain two pounds in two days!”

“Really?” I said. “Two pounds?”

“Yes, really. I know it for a fact. It’s happened to me. Two pounds in two days.”

“Ouch.”

Secretly, I  rolled my eyes. Has the woman never been on a cruise? I added ten pounds of butt luggage on a seven-day cruise to Barbados. Two pounds in two days? Amateur.

Ignoring Diane’s warning,  I stood in line at Bobby Flay’s Burger Palace and studied the menu on the wall. I’d been dreaming about eating one of Bobby’s burgers for weeks, having watched the restaurant rise up from the dirt in the back of an outlet mall in Paramus, New Jersey. Gourmet burgers—two of my favorite words. Along with sourdough, crispy, slathered, and the foreign words, carne asada and parmaggiano reggiano.

Like Goldilocks, I evaluated the menu. The Palace Classic was too plain, the Miami—with its pressed ham and swiss cheese—was too familiar, and if I knew Bobby, the Buffalo Style Burger would be too spicy. For my final meal as a fat person, the L.A. Burger was just right. Avocado relish, watercress, melted cheddar and a firm red tomato. Plus fries with spicy dipping sauce. (Can you even eat a burger without fries?) And a diet coke. Truly, I’ve never understood why anyone would drink a regular soda when those hundred calories could be applied to twenty fries, seven Nacho Cheese Doritos or four Hershey Kisses (five if you go Special Dark).

The wait felt interminable—an hour in stomach time, about ten minutes in reality. As the waitress finally lowered my last fat meal in front of me, I bent over it and inhaled deeply. I choked back tears. Before I even tasted my burger, I felt a crushing sense of loss. Already, I missed its meaty company, the sheer joy of being together. I wanted to tuck a fry behind my ear for later. Even the pickle garnish was a phallic work of art. Would I never again feel such unconditional love? Would the aroma of grilled angus beef, warm sesame buns and deep-fried oil never again caress my nostrils?

There, in Bobby’s Burger Palace, my future became clear: for me, a year of living thinly would be one of bereavement. Twelve months in mourning. I’d be a calorie widow. Why was I doing this to myself?

“It’s time,” I said out loud.

“One thirty.” The woman next to me at the counter glanced at her watch. Then she glanced at my burger. “You didn’t crunchify?”

“I’m a purist,” I said. “Is that the Bobby Blue?”

I’d considered Bobby’s blue cheese BLT burger. Veiny chunks of blue cheese tumbled out of it like rocky snowballs. It smelled like old socks. Delicious old socks.

“The chips make it,” my countermate said.

I smiled at her and nodded. Then I took a deep breath and said to myself, “I’m doing this for the sisterhood. For every woman who’s reluctant to wave hello or goodbye in a sleeveless shirt. For those of us with a complete Spanx wardrobe and a bellybutton that has become more of a slit than a circle. For my zoftig sisters everywhere who are convinced that thin women simply have a speedy metabolism and less arousable tastebuds. For caloristas who “crunchify” blue cheese burgers with potato chips. My Year of Living Thinly is for you. And for me. And my back fat.”

Once and for all, I was going to uncover the skinny on thinness. The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but. By living as a thin person, instead of being a fattie on a diet, I will discover what it actually feels like to be the woman I’ve always wanted to be.  I will be thin...whether my body is or not. A seemingly vague difference, but one that--I suspect--is the key to the whole enchilada. Which, by the way, I love.

I took a bite of my L.A. Burger. Then another. I dipped a russet-colored fry—perfectly crispy!—into the creamy, spicy sauce. I tried not to weep. The word, “Palace” was apt. This was a meal fit for a king—or a queen with ten pairs of jeans varying in size from “Old Faithful” to “California Dreaming”. Snarfing down my burger in six bites, I said goodbye to the Jersey Girl next to me and scurried into the mall for a scoop of Baskin-Robbins Pralines ‘N Cream ice cream. Because, really, what’s a last supper without dessert?

DAY TWO. Hard Labor Day.

September 8, 2009

           The only people who think thin women have it easy, are fat. Labor Day was the ideal start date for my Year of Living Thinly because being thin is hard work. I’m hungry and I have a headache. Bobby’s burger is now gone (by “gone” I mean passing through my digestive tract on its way to my thighs) and reality is setting in. First, I realize I have no idea how a thin person actually lives. Do they just starve? When their stomachs rumble, do they go to the gym? Reach for a carrot? A glass of water? Good God.

Second, I now regret telling my friends how much more I like Whoopi than Barbara on The View. It can’t be easy for Barbara to sit there while the acid in her empty stomach eats away at the lining.

          I need to do some research. Observe thin women in their natural habitat. Get out in the field. Maybe stalk one until she breaks down and eats lunch? I know the perfect place to do some skinny sightseeing: Madison Avenue, New York City. The stores cater to the skeletal set and the sidewalks are full of lean and hungry women. I’ll go on Saturday. If my headache is gone by then.

DAY FOUR: Fat Disclosure.

September 10, 2009

          In the interest of full fat disclosure, I’ve been overweight my entire life. Not obese, just never thin. I weigh more than Gayle, less than Oprah. I’m usually a size ten. Madison Avenue store clerks would scoff if I tried to shop there, but so would Lane Bryant. The surgeon general would probably issue me a warning if she measured my waistline, though I would not have to pay a McDonald’s surcharge for health care. The history of my physique is thus: I was a cherubic baby, a chubby kid, a pleasingly plump tween, an “awkward” teen and a young woman whose college boyfriend, upon trying on a pair of her pants, said, “These had better not fit me.” (They did.) I was so mortified, it never occurred to me to ask him when he became a cross-dresser.

          If you don’t already get the picture, here’s me (second from right) on a family vacation somewhere between my pleasingly plump and awkward years. Note my skinny sister, Diane. She’s so mortified at having to spend time with her family that she can’t bear to remove the radio from her ear.

            My mother, wise calorista that she is, had five children to hide behind in photographs. Our family has no historical record of her body shape, other than the ten pounds of hair on top of her head.

Today, nearing middle age, my figure is more of a wine glass than an hour-glass. Not a brandy snifter, but by no means a champagne flute. Most importantly, I have a fat head. I think like a fat person. When it’s time to get my car serviced, I drive forty-five minutes to a mechanic in Queens because he’s near a diner with excellent pancakes, vacations are really “eating adventures” and my fantasy job is currently occupied by Guy Fieri, a food network chef who tours the country in search of the best “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.” I live in one of the food capitals of the world—New York City—but love sidewalk kebab carts. I rarely touch doorknobs with my bare hands, and never subway poles, but will eat anything a Costco worker hands me. Though the word, “buffet” no longer quickens my pulse—probably because I really don’t trust those sneeze-guards—I have noticed a bit of flushing when I hear “endless breadsticks” or “Meat Lovers Pizza”.

In short, I have the heart and soul of a New Yorker, but the stomach and palette of an Oklahoman (my birth state). Honestly, it’s a carb thing. I love my husband, Bob, my dog Lucy, my Subaru, and warm crusty sourdough bread slathered in organic butter (it really does taste better than conventional). And my friends. And family.

          That is, I mean to say, before I began my Year of Living Thinly. Now, in my first week, I’m retraining my brain to disassociate every event with food. A birthday doesn’t always mean cake and a funeral doesn’t always mean cold cuts. And my car really doesn’t need servicing every month.

DAY FORTY-EIGHT. Optical Delusions.

October 24, 2009

            For the first time in...forever, my husband Bob said something negative about my weight.

“How’s your Year of Living Thinly going?” he asked.

An innocuous question, much like, “How’s your mom doing these days?” or “Did you finish updating your website?” Had I not been standing there naked, I would have tossed it off as the daily banter between husband and wife. The fact that Bob suddenly dropped to the bedroom floor to do sit-ups should have clued me in.

“Great,” I said. “Why do you ask?”

“No reason.” Six, seven, eight.

“Is it my...butt?” I asked, gingerly. The reason I was standing naked in the first place is because my dermatologist had burned some sun damage spots off my back and Bob was behind me changing the Band-Aids. Before he was doing crunches, that is.

Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen.

“It’s okay,” I said, calmly. “You can tell me the truth.”

Seventeen, eighteen.

“Does my butt look bigger than normal?” I’m nothing if not tenacious.

“Well, yeah. Sort of.”

There it was. The ugly truth. It hadn’t just been our bedroom mirror and the way the light reflected off of it. Things actually were bigger than they appeared.

“Maybe it’s just this awkward angle,” Bob added quickly. “You know, from my position down here on the floor.”

“But didn’t you notice my butt while you were, you know, in the position of standing right behind me?”

Twenty-two, twenty- three, twenty-four.

The silence was as wide and vast as my ass. I quietly crammed myself into my Spanx and got dressed for the birthday party Bob and I were attending that night. Another tff, Joy—the birthday girl—has a great body. All evening, I couldn’t stop staring at her beautiful, firm butt.

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