Attitude of Fatitude

The weigh-in this week wasn't as tragic as I expected it to be. I think the time change fooled my body, which I have by now figured out is my mortal enemy. Because we "fell back" one hour, my body forget to gain the usual 12 pounds in time for the weigh-in, so I actually lost a full pound this week, down to 202.8 pounds. I'm still a long way from my goal; I still terrify grown men on the street, but I lost a pound. I will gain it back again 20 or maybe even 40 times over the next month but for now, I can truthfully record in my journal that the pound is down.

My body is a wonder of weird science. It will not comply with the laws of nature, nor succumb to threats of extreme surgery, physical violence or bribery. It just keeps blubbering along, all proud of its fatness, while I hang my head in shame and shop in the "Big Woman" section. I hate it.

I haven't missed a day on the treadmill for 50 days now, but still no results. Maybe I'm living in a state of delusion, a fat-altered reality. Maybe when my fevered brain thinks my body is up on the treadmill pounding out the miles, in reality I have my head stuffed in the refrigerator licking butter. How else do you explain my body's stubborn refusal to shed fat?

So I have decided to develop an "attitude of fatitude" (sorry, Oprah) to match my body's behavior. Maybe that way I can trick it into doing what it's supposed to do...shrink...dammit...when confronted with far fewer calories and many more hours of intense physical exercise.

Today I went shopping for the tools required to pull off this hoax. Since walking isn't working, I'm adding a new exercise routine. I know, I said I was going to do this last week, but it takes about a week for an idea to get from my head out into the realm of reality, and then another week or two of chewing my cud before I actually get up off my double-wide and do something. Anyway, I decided I wanted to get one of those big balance balls you see on The Biggest Loser. I thought that my help me flatten my stomach so I would no longer look like "The World's Oldest Pregnant Woman."

And for those of you who are worried, no, I won't stop walking. I'm determined to finish the 90 Day Fitness Walking Program and get all 90 little checks in my journal. I just want to do the balance ball thing, too.

I went to the store and was immediately confronted with about 15 different configurations of balance balls in various colors and sizes and even more confusing, with different accoutrements. This was going to take hours, because I had to read every line of text on every box, I had to pick them up, look at them, touch them, feel them, smell them, chew on the edge of the boxes, ruminate, cogitate, correlate and relegate. That's a lot of work, and it all had to be one without raising the angst level of the store clerks who were scurrying up and down the aisles looking for places to stick up more Christmas merchandise. After all, it is November 6th already.

Some kits had resistance bands in the box, others had weights, others had resistance rings. Some had accompanying workouts on DVD, which I considered essential since I basically don't know what I'm doing when it comes to balance balls. In fact, if I followed my usual routine, I would blow up the ball, sit down on it, lose my balance, fall over, break my neck, and that would be the end of my exercise routine, if not the end of me.

So the DVD was a must-have, but equally important to me was there had to be some kind of device included to blow up the ball. Oh, shut up! I can hear you all now; "Surely she has enough hot air to blow up anything," but in fact, I don't. I am so old and decrepit I can barely breathe, must less blow up a giant ball with air from my own lungs. So naturally, the kit I liked best, that had the DVD and a pretty blue ball with color-coordinated resistance bands...did NOT have a blow up thingie included. Okay, says me. I'll just buy one, only the store clerk tells me they don't carry them since all the balance ball kits come with them.

I beg to differ and show her the soothingly designed kit with the ocean blue ball and accessories. She insists there is a blow up thingie in there and proceeds to rip open the box and scatter its contents all over the exercise aisle. Hmm, guess what? The little picture on the side of the box that shows everything included in the kit, only it didn't have a blow up thingie, well it was right.

The clerk refused to believe it and stared meanly at me as she struggled to get all the parts back in the box, which brings to mind another of Sir Isaac Newton's Laws of Physics: "Any item once removed from its box will never again go back into the same box without first performing extreme acts of legerdemain and uttering copious curse words. Even then, the box will be distorted according to the precepts inherent in the following equation: cm^–1/(kA/cm^–2)."

Actually, that's a lie. I just made it all up because I am fascinated by things I cannot understand. I stole that equation from a paper entitled:

Self-consistent solutions to the intersubband rate equations in quantum cascade lasers: Analysis of a GaAs/Al x Ga 1–x As device

just because I wanted to. But equation or not, things still won't ever go back into their boxes without a struggle and lots of broken nails. Trust me on this one.

Anyway, I suddenly spied a kit that had the balance ball, the resistance bands, the resistance rings, hand weights, a DVD and a blow up thingie, all for less than $30.00!

Only, it was one of the thousands of items designed specifically for October Breast Cancer Awareness month, and it was all titty pink.

I walked away. I could not bear the thought of bringing this hideous pink thing into my carefully crafted Zen bedroom. The color was so alarming that sleep would have been impossible with the damn thing in the room. But as I did a little math inside my head (always a dangerous thing to do...) I realized that to get all the stuff in that box individually, I would have to spend at least $100.00.

So now I'm home with the damned titty pink ball and still staring at it. I haven't yet had the nerve to take it out of its box and blow it up. I think I'll wait until it's dark, but this thing is so bright it might possibly glow in the dark.

It doesn't match a thing I have except for a bra I bought when I was feeling all girly one day. I can feel my entire house sending feelings of disapproval and puzzlement in my direction.

The Mrs. doesn't usually bring home such ugly things. Do you think she is sick?

No, that wasn't my husband saying that; it was my house. I don't have a husband, remember, because I am the size of a small out-building. I am an entire planet. When I stop losing weight it isn't because I have hit a plateau; it's because I AM the plateau. Men don't like women who are bigger than them. It scares the foo out of them, okay?

Anyway, my house, which is used to a calm, Zen vibe, which has soothing, tasteful colors, reacted viscerally to the introduction of the titty pink balance ball. I could swear I heard little groans and shrieks of disapproval emanating from the walls as I brought it through the door. But that's just too bad. I want to learn how to do a balance ball routine. I want to do resistance bands and I want to lift weights. I have no confidence that any of this strenuous physical activity will have any impact on my body composition whatsoever, but so what? I know I am destined to go to my grave composed primarily of fat cells, most of which have apparently migrated to my brain, but I don't care. I still want to do this.

Now, how's that for an attitude of fatitude?

Planet Fat Cat