Hello, Fat Blog...

If you don't read that title in the same tone of voice in which Seinfeld habitually greeted his arch-nemesis neighbor, Newman, then you aren't quite getting the overall mood of my revisiting this particular topic.

I'm still fat. Well, I have to be fair--not "fat" per se, but chubby. A couple of pounds chubbier than I was when I last left you. Yes, moving to Southern California didn't necessarily spark the "ooooh, we're going to be SO healthy and eat bean sprouts and quinoa and hike canyons and by the fall, I'll totally be waifish (and freaking starving!)" that I thought it would. Turns out, they've got just as many Starbucks here as they did there---and they have Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, too, and their muffins are to die (read: to gain 5 lbs) for.

So here I am, again. Sigh. Not pregnant AND not skinny. I'm just another chubby, not-pregnant girl. Gah!

After having watch every single season of The Biggest Loser, I have developed a love/hate relationship with that she-devil Jillian. Thus far, my commitment to "what have I done today to make myself proud" extended to not eating a bowl of ice cream during the hour or two (those nights are tough) that she show is on. I figure if those contestants, many of whom are two or three of me (much like I am closing in on being two of Nicole Ritchie---when she's not knocked up), can work out for six or seven hours a day, eat nothing but Jenny O turkey and be tempted by tables of full of Krispy Kremes, I can go sixty to one hundred and twenty minutes without ice cream.

Not surprisingly, this sacrifice on my part has not gotten me the desired results. Nor has the anxiety-eating, social-eating, anger-eating, depression-eating, boredom-eating, the all-but-hey-I'm-actually-hungry-eating that I've been doing for, well, years.

Don't get me wrong, I've been going to the gym, spending hours on the treadmill and elliptical trainer, and eating salads for lunch---I'm just not getting results. Because no one is pushing me. And I just don't push myself, beyond the surface.

So I netflixed that she-devil's DVD--The 30 Day Shred. Just the name is shudder-worthy. Do I want to "shred"? For thirty days? That's a lot of shredding. And what is being shred, anyway? Me? Ouch. The premise? A twenty minute work-out, alternating rounds of strength, cardio and abs. Twenty minutes? Hell, I can totally do that!!! Right? right?

"They" say Day 1 is the worst---most likely because it's like being thrown into a freezing cold ice bath after lounging leisurely and blissfully in the sun. After that initial shock, I guess your body isn't surprised by the pain.

So today was Day 1. It sucked. She's so mean. Nothing soft and gentle about her. I believe she wants me to get thin, and that she cares that I stick with it, but a little part of me thinks she must hate me because I'm chubby. Like if she walked by me on the street, she'd go "uggggcccchht" or something, while rolling her eyes and making a comment about fat people to her equally skinny friend. So it's kind of like having the popular, athletic girl from high school "motivate" you to lose weight.

I was taught yoga by a dancer, and have taken pole-dancing classes, so I like to think I have a touch of grace when I move (anyone who's ever actually seen me walk, dance or otherwise move? You go ahead and take a moment to laugh at the idea of me being graceful). But Jillian hasn't an ounce of grace in her---her warm ups are jerky and fast, just throwing her arms around. She admits to being uncomfortable with the hip rolls, like it's embarrassing for her to move her body in a way that could be even the slightest bit sexual in nature. So I wasn't sure if her hard-core, "put your freaking sneakers on and sweat blood" approach was going to be for me.

I didn't really have a whole lot of time to contemplate because she was wiping the floor with my ass by about minute 4.

Jumping Jacks, jumping rope, lunges, squats, crunches, running in place in such a way that you literally kick your own ass (she's a bitch, I tell you! A bitch!)---it's just non-stop and when you think about taking a tiny break in between intervals, she gets all up in your face about how you're "only doing 20 minutes! NO breaks!" Seriously--she's coming through that screen and into your living room and bitch-slapping you if you slow down.

My 2.5 year old (who, in a cruel trick of fate, weighs under 24lbs and has never once been more than 3rd percentile on the weight chart), thought it would be fun to help me, so dodging him on the living room floor as he did "jumping jacks" and "ran in place" (which involved running all over the place) also became a part of the work out. And I was unable to do the bicycle crunches at the end because Ethan thought it would be way more fun to climb up onto my shins as soon as I got my legs up to 90 degrees and pretend that he was an airplane instead. So fine--I was doing crunches while lifting a 23lb weight on my legs---that counts, right? Perhaps that reason alone is the only reason She-Devil didn't come tearing through my screen and berate me for not doing her bicycle crunches the right way.

When it was over, I just hurt. My arms and legs were shaking, my stomach wanted to puke and it was about 20 minutes before I felt like I could stand up long enough to take a shower. And I'm so tired right now, I'm not entirely sure what I'm even writing about.

But that scary bitch will be on my TV screen again tomorrow, for Day 2. "They" say it's easier---"they" better be right.