God blessed me with two of the most wonderful grandparents
who ever walked the earth. The entire
time we shared together they lived half the year in Florida and half the year
in Canada. Yes, God blessed them
too.
Now, if you don’t know this, and I bet you do, people tend
to look at their childhoods thinking, “That’s the way it’s supposed to
be.” Living half the year in Canada and
half the year in Florida, that’s what I always wanted. After I was a grown up I didn’t always get to
Canada annually. Then my daughter was born and I was a woman on a
mission. Get that child to Canada in the
summer so she can experience happiness.
I am not kidding.
I played with various allocations of time over summer vacation,
such as two trips up or one entire month up.
You know what’s bad about one month up?
Leaving July 31st and knowing you are not coming back until
July 1st is terrible.
In January of 2013 I started dieting, for the 500th
time, but this was the time that worked. Even that time it didn’t work all the
time. My weight fluctuated until I
joined diet contests in November. No
more wild fluctuations. I turned out to
be crazy competitive. Who knew?
Then came the summer of 2014. What do I want in the summer? To go to Canada. Scheduling was hard, because I didn’t want to
blow a diet contest, and I knew I would blow a diet contest on vacation,
because a diet contest takes daily focus.
We came up one weekend AFTER Labor Day ‘cause I was in a dumb ass diet
contest that ended the Tuesday after Labor Day.
I should not have entered that contest.
STUPID.
The smaller you get the harder it is to lose weight. That’s a fact. I got to where I was very good at
manipulating my weight. “How?” you
ask. Eat a gigantic meal the night
before a weigh in. Drink lots of fluids,
eat a massive breakfast, weigh in. As
you get closer to weigh out you may want to find out how many days you can green
juice. I’m not going to tell you my
record cause I know if you have the ability to focus you can beat it and IT’S
STUPID. The diet contests were the best
tool I ever found to lose weight, and then I figured out how to beat them, so I
stopped because my own behavior was offensive to me.
So out I go into the world at a weight that is not fat. But I look fat to myself about 95% of the
time, that’s a personal problem. And ya
know how they say maintenance is the hardest part? It’s really true.
I’ll tell you some things I learned about myself that may or
may not be true for you. Alcohol, carbs
and sugar hold weight to my body like crazy.
Everywhere I went friends would tell me, “Just have a drink, Marian, one
drink won’t hurt you.” It will. “Everything in moderation, that’s what I
say.” I say you are so fortunate that
works for you. “Just have a piece of
cake, it’s a party.” Well, let me tell
ya, in my world there’s a party just about every day, and that party food piles
up on me.
And I want to say a word about men. OMGoodness there are so many kind,
compassionate men who tell me, constantly, how great I look. They do so feed my ego. Thank you.
I was recently with a married couple who are two of my best
friends. Their little daughter said, “Marian,
remember when I used to play with the fat underneath your arm?” I raised my arm and told her, “You can still
do that. It didn’t go away. It’s not going away unless I have it
surgically removed, and the scar that surgery leaves, I’ve seen it, it’s not
nice.” The little girl’s mom is in the
medical profession and agreed about that particular scar. But we moved on to speak of tummy tucks and
face lifts. The husband said, “If some
man is concerned about your loose skin and wants you to have surgery like that
he is not worth having.” His wife and I
politely explained it’s not about how we look to men. It’s about how we look to ourselves.
As the Summer of 2015 approached I thought about what do I
want to do? I want to be in Canada as
much as I possibly can. I have given up,
for now, living there half the year.
It’s not conducive to operating a solo law practice, but I chiseled out
the perfect summer schedule. I was up
the first two weeks of July, the first week of August, the first week of
September. I work from my computer and
return phone calls daily.
What did I do through August besides enjoy the heck out of
my vacations? Gain weight. How and why?
Well, before the first vacation I went out to dinner at the fondue
restaurant. Now, I could have just eaten
the salad and meat course. I wouldn’t
have gained weight. I didn’t do
that. I drank, ate the cheese course,
salad, meat course and chocolate dessert course. It was delicious. I gained 11 pounds. People tell me that’s impossible. It’s not impossible. I did it.
Then I came to Canada where, ya know, they have different food than we
have in South Florida, for real. I
gained about 4 lbs. I came back up in
August, gained another 4 lbs.
In late August I was back in Fort Lauderdale at a party
where a man tells me when I walked into the room last Halloween wearing the
dumbest most elaborate Viking costume anyone has ever seen he thought it was
the coolest thing ever.
Seriously? You’re
kidding me, right? No, was I going to
wear it again this year? No, who wears
the same Halloween costume two years in a row?
I would never do that. I was
planning to be Wonder Woman. I planned
to wear the little pants. Wow, I have
gained weight, and that’s a daring costume if you’re skinny. Last year my slimmest friend wore that
costume and she wore the skirt. But I’m
not doing that ‘cause I am audacious. So
I ordered the Wonder Woman costume. I
tried it on with those little pants.
That sent me right back to diet contest mentality with single-minded
focus. Then, guess what? I flew back to Canada for Labor Day. What a blessing! What a gift!
I have to learn how to stay on track while traveling, what opportunity. I am excited.
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