Hey, fat guy

Someone on MyFitnessPal pointed us to Hey, Fat Girl last week, and it was seriously one of the best things I had ever read.  I felt like they were talking to ME in a way.  The post was brought up in a topic where someone was having doubts about going to the gym because of her weight.  I've been extremely blessed to be able to go to this gym at this point in time because the people there are pretty fantastic. No one makes rude comments.  If anything, people seem to go out of their way to come tell me when they've noticed I had a good workout, or they simply say hi, or smile at me.  It's very supportive and the gym is a safe place for me.

While I was there today finishing up my workout, a guy walked in.  Our treadmills overlook the gym and so I noticed when he walked in.  I feel like I need to say something to him.


Hey, fat guy.

You walked into the gym on a Sunday afternoon when almost every guy there is a weight lifter.  I'm not blind. I see how incredibly fit their bodies are.  I know they put a lot of work into looking that good because I see them there squatting, curling, lifting, pushing. They have six pack abs and well defined, muscular arms.  They carry milk jugs with water, and they're all over the gym doing their thing.  Some of them probably haven't eaten a real sandwich that wasn't fashioned out of a lettuce wrap in years.  Watching you walk past them was like watching a fluffy baby bunny walk past a pack of sleek, toned lions.

It took you a bit to come up the stairs to the cardio area.  I know how hard it is to walk up those stairs when you're carrying extra weight.  Your knees, like my own, probably creak with every step.  I watched you out of the corner of my eye while you got up on one of the machines.

I completely admire you.

It's not easy to be the biggest at the gym.  I'm always the biggest when I go in, and I'm pretty sure you and I are neck and neck in that department.  But you still came in.  You marched right past the weight lifters and got on with your workout.  Although you didn't stay on the machine long, you still did it.

When my own workout was finished, I noticed you in the basketball court.  Part of me wanted to come in and tell you that I loved that you were there today.  The other part figured you'd look at me like I was crazy. Which, you know, would have been okay since I get that look a lot.

I hope I see you there again sometime.  I hope one day you're there with the lions.

The start

It started in April.

Well, it started long before that, but we'll say it started in April.

My boyfriend started on some blood pressure medicine, and I noticed that my knee was really starting to hurt. Oh, I knew we were overweight. I'm not blind.  I knew that we'd both blown past being simply "chubby" a while ago and now we're firmly into the "fat" category.  In fact, I am probably in what my favorite "fluffy" comedian Gabriel Iglesias calls the "DAAAMN!" category.

I decided that it was time to do something about this.  Only, what to do?

Diet, of course, would be the major part.  But what diet? We'd both done Atkins before, with some moderate success, but even though I felt amazing by cutting white sugar and bread out of my life, I did not enjoy plowing face first into a birthday cake (Okay, I kinda did enjoy it) and then not being able to really get myself back on track.  I'd attempted South Beach, but it only lasted about a week.  Slim-Fast didn't do squat for me because I like to chew.  Weight Watchers was pretty decent, but I quit because I was taking a medication that caused weight gain and I felt like an ass going to meetings every week and gaining.

But it couldn't be THAT hard to just do what I knew to be good. More vegetables, less red meat, smaller portions.  Couldn't be simpler, am I right?

Nope. Wrong!

I didn't take a couple of things into account.  One, I'm not THAT great of a cook when it comes to healthy stuff.  Being both Texan and Latina is a handicap because I like very rich, heavy food.  I'm great at making comfort food!  And then, two?  My boyfriend really doesn't like vegetables!!

As much as I love recipe sites and blogs, none of them have really told me what to do with a picky eater.  Plus, a lot of them act like dinner time is an episode of Chopped with all kinds of weird ingredients I wouldn't know on sight, much less know what to do with.  I feel, a lot of the time, that I'm flying blind in the world of healthy eating.

So what is this blog about?  Food.  Being fat.  Being picky. Being hungry. There will be cursing. There will be bitching.  There will be pictures and recipes that usually won't have more than 5 or 6 fairly simple ingredients.

But more importantly, there will be hope and progress. And in the end?  There will be health.