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It is so incredibly difficult to celebrate a holiday amongst family without being a fatty fat.
A ‘fatty fat’ is a technical term for one who feels ashamedly fat.
This weekend has been filled to the brim with a variety of fatty fat activities, including (but not limited to) alcohol-spiked fruit dip, appetizers of all kinds, hearty cholesterol-filled breakfasts every morning, drinks in the evening and one whopper of a July 4th picnic meal that included German potato salad, 3-inch thick grilled steaks, salmon, corn-on-the-cob, and strawberry shortcake.
Lord, help my arteries.
The problem with celebrating with family is that there are innate obstacles that prevent you from maintaining your diet/healthy lifestyle/attempt to consume less than 3,000 calories in a day. Let’s review some:
- The food is damn delicious. Your family is all in one place, which means that somewhere in that mix is someone who has the most recent or most authentic version of your grandma’s something-or-other and it’s fantastic. And fattening. Because when your grandmother had it back in her day, kids still ran around outside to burn off calories instead of sitting inside playing a game about running around and burning off calories.
- The guilt is overwhelming. With all the blood, sweat, stress, and tears that your family puts into preparing food, you can at least eat it. Who cares if you cry? Who cares if you have a high cholesterol? No one, that’s who. Eat it, say it’s delicious, and then go to the spare bedroom and rock yourself in a fetal position. That is, if you can move your fat far enough out of the way to do so.
- The skillful use of classic bandwagon tactics. Everyone else is eating it and if you don’t, you’ll make them feel badly about themselves. So stop ruining everyone’s good time. Does this sound familiar?: “Look at grandpa – grandpa has a slew of health problems. He’s practically dead already and he’s decided that by golly, he’s going to enjoy life. So why can’t you? Lighten up and live a little.”
- You tell yourself you deserve it. The reason doesn’t matter. You have a ton of them at the ready: you work hard all year long, you never see so-and-so, you never do such-and-such, you’ll just cheat this weekend, you’ll skip breakfast tomorrow, you’ve been doing so well, you should celebrate your recent weight loss, life is short, and on and on without end. You want delicious food, you find a reason you deserve delicious food, you eat delicious food. And then cradle your gut in your arms.
- This time only comes once a year. This would be fine if it were true, but it’s not. This time comes lots of times a year. New Year’s, Easter, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas – about every other month there’s an excuse to get everyone together and gorge on a smorgasbord of fatty foods. And not to mention the holidays you split between families. I can’t tell you how many times my stomach has been subjected to two Christmases or two Thanksgivings. I’ve committed sins of the stomach that even a year’s worth of running couldn’t right, and I’m willing to bet you have too.
And so I’ll be driving back to my house today with the car hanging just a little lower than it did when I came. As if the food weren’t tempting enough the first time around, the backseat will be loaded with enough fatty fat leftovers to fuel me for a week. And if I wouldn’t eat them cold right out of the fridge, they might actually make it that long.
I suppose I should go about setting up a rigorous fat-blasting routine for these next few weeks. I can’t imagine how long it will take me to get back to where I was before any holiday fat madness ensued. Even if I get back to that place, I’ll have to blast even more fat away in preparation for upcoming holidays.
Today’s RAK: Planning some heavy relaxation time for someone in need.
The Jackie Blog 
Jackie, do stop berating yourself for being ‘cuddly’..stop feeling guilty.
Feeling guilty only makes you eat more and then you feel even more guilty.
If you are happy, really happy as you are then learn to be content.
If it makes your miserable….the do something about it.
This comes from one who had never been slim until 1972 and now in 2011 I am right back to square 1. I weigh too much and sometimes wish that I didn’t but then life is for living, enjoy it while you can. I shall just get a bigger coffin!
Don’t worry my dear , it all comes out in the wash (old English saying) and more important of all we all love you as you are
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Cuddly is so much a nicer outlook than chunky, fat, jiggly, etc. I might refer to myself as such from now on.
Thanks for the lovely comment, P 🙂
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I am fully prepared to further enable you with this one: “Not everyone gets a holiday, so you should enjoy yours and be grateful.” I’m not directing any bitterness at you; it’s not your fault… but I would kill for my aunt’s deviled eggs right now. Just sayin’. So… go ahead. Eat the potato salad. The Germans made some bitchin’ potato salad. 😉
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lol okay note taken 🙂 I’ll remember this comment when I’m weighing myself next time and see that the 2 pounds I gained that weekend still aren’t gone.
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Love this, Jackie! I am so with you on the holiday get-together fat-a-palooza. Why, Lord, why???
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I liked your post about the fat-a-palooza as well! Sadly, I too gained a solid 2 pounds back from holiday ‘fun’. Ugh.
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All of the food sounds fantastic. I might have to crash the family fun next time.
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please do – having someone else to split the calories with would be a service to us all 😉
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i have absolutely no idea what this post says because i cannot stop laughing at that picture!! [ok, i read it. but seriously, that picture?! hahh ahha ha ha h ah ah hahaaaa]
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LOL thanks
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