Disclosure: I received an advanced copy of this book to review for free. I also have the same literary agent as the author, whose name I will guard with the ferocity of a mother lioness. ROAR! So don’t ask. I ain’t telling.

I related a lot to author Kim Brittingham as I read her new book, Read My Hips: How I Learned to Love My Body, Ditch Dieting, and Live Large. We both moved a lot as kids. We both had frizzy unmanageable hair that I have only recently learned how to tame. We both thought we might be having a heart attack at 23. We both have old “fat” photos from our teen years in which we don’t appear fat at all. And after weight loss and weight gain we’re both at places where we’re basically cool with our bodies. (Well, cool with the weight thing, anyway. I have numerous complaints about the chronic headache, crooked teeth, bad vision, flat fleet, five wisdom teeth, etc., etc.)

You might have heard of Kim after she got some media attention for riding the New York transit system while reading a book with a fake cover called “Fat is Contagious: How Sitting Next to a Fat Person Can Make YOU Fat.” (View a Today Show video interview here.) Each chapter in Kim’s book could probably stand on its own as an essay or narrative short story, but they’re linked together with the common theme of the book. That theme is Kim’s shifting attitude about her weight throughout life, detailing the sadly all too common stories of body self-loathing in her younger years to how she came to a place of self-acceptance in her 30′s and 40′s.

The most fascinating chapter describes her experience working as a weight-loss counselor for a company called Edie JeJeune. (I think this is a pseudonym to protect the innocent and the guilty since Google couldn’t turn up anything on it.) The company sold people diet plans that required pre-packaged foods and encouraged clients to buy motivational audio tapes. Most people know that the weight-loss industry exists to make money, but it was eye-opening to see how sales-oriented Kim’s managers were. The cutthroat atmosphere and pressure to meet sales goals at the price of compromising your morals sounds eerily similar to stories I’ve heard from friends with other sales jobs. This is frightening to contemplate since selling someone a new bathtub doesn’t affect their health like selling a diet plan could (unless they slip, fall and break a hip, I guess). The emphasis wasn’t on helping people either, just meeting sales goals. The counselors weren’t required to have any kind of certifications or degrees, and some were secretly binging on the foods in the warehouse, making the whole debacle seem like a case of the blind leading the blind.

On the positive side, Kim gives a speech during a work seminar that urges people to go for what they want now instead of waiting for something else first (like losing weight) that was so inspirational two of her co-workers decided to quit that day. Sounds like she could have a career as a motivational speaker if the writing thing doesn’t pan out.

The other chapters cover topics such as the fat prejudice she was subjected to from a PR company that represented a line of plus-sized clothes, the fat-person stereotypes she had to fight while filming a video with a major media corporation, and enough stories about the New York public transportation system to make me never want to ride the subway again.

Kim was kind enough to take the time to answer a few questions I had after finishing her book.

One idea you stress in the book is that you shouldn’t wait until you’re thin to do things, that you should “Be. Do. Have.” instead of “Do. Have. Be.” That’s a philosophy I believe in too, but sometimes I find myself slipping into old thought patterns, like recently thinking that I should wait to take a martial arts class until I’ve lost some weight. Do you ever find yourself slipping into old patterns like this and if so what do you do about it?

Sure, I notice it happening all the time. I think it’s like anything else, it takes practice to change. The more you stop and recognize your old patterns and interrupt them, the easier it gets. For myself, I find I notice those patterns more readily now than I ever did before. It’s not as easy for negative self-talk to worm its way in and take hold. At one point I was frustrated and asking myself, “Well how the heck do I remember to remember to not have these thoughts?” I think it takes more than a single decision sometimes, and more effort than reading one good self-help book. You need to seek out multiple resources. Several books. Podcasts and videos, workshops. Reinforce those lessons for yourself in a variety of ways, then it becomes more second-nature.

Early in the book you talk about Glory Davis, a girl at school who lost weight over the summer. You try to get her to reveal the secret of her transformation, but she doesn’t seem to understand what you want and acts nonchalant about the change. It was at this point in the book that I thought you were going to reveal that you later discovered Glory Davis had an eating disorder. That doesn’t happen though, and it made me do some uncomfortable self-reflection on why I would assume that. Did you ever wonder if Glory had an eating disorder? Whether you did or not, do you have any thoughts on what it means about our culture that my mind immediately jumped to that conclusion?

You know, that’s an interesting point. No, it never occurred to me that Glory had an eating disorder. When she returned to school thinner, she had also blossomed in other ways. She had a self-assurance about her that transcended mere weight loss. It was like she’d discovered who she was. And I never saw any signs that her relationship with food itself had changed. She was always very much at ease with food, which is never the case with an eating disordered person. There’s always a tension. Guilt, resistance, desperation, uneasiness. All kinds of thinking about the food. Glory just seemed more interested in…well, boys than food, to be frank! And before she lost the weight, I never saw her overeat. So maybe for Glory, her chubbiness was a classic case of baby fat that sheds itself in good time. I remember a lot of kids like that, which is one reason I’m really disturbed by this growing trend of casting a floodlight on fat kids and stigmatizing them. From Michelle Obama framing her Let’s Move campaign as a fight against childhood obesity instead of a campaign in favor or healthy habits for children of ALL sizes, to billboards in Georgia making fat kids out to be freaks and their parents in denial. It’s going to cause a lot of damage to kids who would otherwise be fine without this holier-than-thou societal “intervention,” and we certainly won’t embarrass or shame any child into eating better and exercising more. If anything, we’ll accomplish the opposite. We’ll isolate fat children even more from their peers, and they’ll likely seek comfort in the one friend who’s always there: food. That is, if they don’t discover drugs first.

But I’m getting way off topic here, aren’t I? The fact that your mind jumped to that conclusion about Glory might say something about our cultural beliefs, I don’t know. We do cherish our preconceived notions about people and weight in this country, don’t we? Fat people are portrayed as unlovable, antisocial gluttons, whose greed must be condemned. Women who are rail-thin are assumed to be anorexics or purgers. Weight loss itself is always assumed to have been orchestrated on purpose and is uniformly praised. I remember seeing Tyra Banks’ show one day in the laundromat, and a guest mentioned she’d recently lost X number of pounds. The audience immediately took that as a cue to applaud. And I remember thinking, what if she fucking has CANCER, for God’s sake?

You recount a story about Marilyn Monroe in the book and how she could change from being almost invisible in a crowd to being the subject of attention simply by changing her body language and attitude. You have similar success attracting people to you by exuding an aura of confidence, though you admit it is hard to keep up all the time because it’s not 100% natural. Do you have any advice for other women on how they can try to access their inner Marilyn?

Well, it might be that we all have to be clumsy about it in the beginning. Like learning to ride a bike; like me when I first learned to carry myself with confidence. I could only sustain it for so long before it felt exhausting to me. Because it was unfamiliar. It felt like an effort, almost like an act. But after a while, if your experience mirrors mine, you’ll start to recognize who you really are, and you’ll fall into your own natural “strut,” so to speak. You won’t have to live every day of your life like you’re portraying a woman with better self-esteem than your own. You’ll simply have found your stronger self. Also, it’s not your job to put on an air of fabulousness if you’re feeling angry, frustrated, or otherwise unhappy. But giving yourself a chance to find your own inner Marilyn will help you find more presence when you’re in a shitty place, too. You and your feelings have every right to their space. You’re just as entitled as anyone else to every last inch you need.

You got a lot of attention for reading a book on public transportation with a fake book cover called “Fat is Contagious: How Sitting Next to a Fat Person Can Make YOU Fat.” Did you ever considering using that title for you book instead of “Read My Hips” to see if it’d generate more sales, since as you say body-loathing seems to be more popular than body-acceptance?

I did. Not from a sales-generating perspective, but I did shop my book to publishers as “Fat is Contagious.” But Random House suggested “Read My Hips,” which was the title of an essay I’d written for iVillage, and which wound up being a big part of the book’s introduction. It really seemed to fit — no pun intended. Much more so than “Fat is Contagious.” Because with “Read My Hips,” you really are reading my hips — everything that went into the creation of my hips. Everything I did to try and fight my hips and eventually accept them, along with every other part of me.

In the bio sent with the book it says you dream of “finding an affordable fencing school.” Have you taken up fencing like Inigo Montoya like you mentioned thinking of doing in the book? My brother started fencing in the past year and says they never have enough girls. He’d be happy to recruit you!

No, I haven’t taken up fencing and I’m heartbroken about it! The cruel truth is, there’s an excellent fencing school just fifteen minutes from my home, and they even have female instructors over 40, which I think is so cool. But their fees are well out of my league. Someone told me I shouldn’t be surprised, that fencing is one of those sports of the wealthy, like polo. Gee, I didn’t know! I did get a Wii gaming system, though, and my friend Peter gave me a Wii light saber for Christmas. It’s not quite the same thing, of course. You don’t get to perfect all that crisp footwork, and you don’t develop the same defensive instincts you would in working with a real person. But it’ll have to do for this pauper, for now. My pen will be my sword!

You can catch up with Kim on her site KimWrites.com and read her blog here. She can also watch her video series, Kim Weighs In. Watch the book trailer for Read My Hips below.

I know many of you were waiting to hear about my experiences on week three of The Beck Diet Solution, but after putting off the entry for longer than it would have taken to complete the first three weeks over again, I realized I have no desire to continue the plan. I think it has some merit, but I don’t want to spend that much time thinking about my weight, my food, and my fitness every week. Not right now, anyway.

Beck burnout seems to have occurred to other people before. It makes me wonder if there is a secret chapter in the middle featuring a wonderful surprise. I heard of a software company that offered a free $100 bill to the first person who actually read their terms of service to find the offer. Dr. Beck might give away free ponies in chapter 32! I’ll never know. If you’re looking for someplace to discuss the book, it looks like Prior Fat Girl has a discussion page set up.

After ditching Beck, I read my One More Time in 2010 post again and thought, “Man, I was really fired up! Did you see how fired up I was?!” That’s all good, but I’ve simmered down from the fireworks and transitioned into a slow burn instead. I am content to do it the slow way, or even the super-slow way. I was listening to the Two Fit Chicks podcast this weekend, and Shauna, aka DietGirl, mentioned that she spent five years reaching her goal weight. That made me stop and look at my iTunes for a few seconds thinking, “If it takes me five years to lose fifty pounds, that’s fine. As long as I keep heading in that general direction, I don’t care how much time it takes.”

Back when I hit 235 pounds in 2006, which is a bit higher than my current weight, but not by much, I wrote:

“I could never lose another pound and I would honestly be happy with my body. Wow. There are girls who look 10 times better than I do who wouldn’t be able to say that.”

And amazingly enough, that’s still true. My current size doesn’t limit my lifestyle. I can buy clothes. I can walk around without getting winded. I probably have a higher risk for diabetes and other obesity-related diseases in the long term, but, well, no one’s perfect and I have to die of something. I’m going to hold the line and slowly push towards a lower weight, but it CANNOT be the sole topic on my mind night and day. And lately, it has been on my mind way more than I’d like for it to be.

When I first lost weight, I was doing it for myself, to make my life better. This go round however, it’s been more about other people. There was a man at my old workplace, Joe Anonymous, who had lost a few hundred pounds via weight loss surgery, but had recently gained back seventy of those pounds. A few of my coworkers and I passed him as he got off the elevator. As soon as the doors closed, one person said, “That was Joe Anonymous. He had weight loss surgery, but he’s gained a lot of weight back.” Immediately, I felt sorry for Joe Anonymous, not just because he’d gained back some weight, but because I doubted we were the first group of people to talk about him in the elevator. He wasn’t morbidly obese anymore; he was much thinner, but evidently not thin enough. I didn’t want people to talk about me that way in elevators, focusing only my body and comparing it to how big or small it’s been before.

The only bad thing about my current weight is all the time I spend thinking about what other people think about my weight. It’s a problem caused only by itself, like a snake eating it’s own tail. It’s a cyclical worry cycle, and I’m getting dizzy spinning around and around in my head all the time. I’ve wasted so many hours worrying about food, the scale, what I ate, what I should eat, and nagging myself to exercise, all because I’m worried people might be disappointed about how big I am if they meet me. Aaaaaaah!! It hasn’t been about about me and my health, it’s been about other people.

That’s why when I’ve gained a few pounds, I freak out a bit and feel like I should do something drastic, because WHAT WILL PEOPLE THINK?! When really, I should just chill out, and get over myself. People don’t think of me half as often as I think they do, and people who judge me on my weight aren’t people I want to like me anyway. I should just get my slow burn on and take care of myself for my own sake, not because I want people I don’t know to like me. It’s so easy to make up a reason that I should be ashamed of my weight. At my thinnest, I worried I was still fat. Now that I’m fatter, I worry that I’m not thin. It’s got to stop. There’s no way to win.

Lately, I feel like I’ve been running for mayor of Crazytown. I’d really like to retract my bid for that office because I don’t want to fritter my life away worrying, especially worrying about what people think of me. I don’t want to get ginormous again either, so I’ll always have to monitor my weight to some extent. I wish I could magically maintain my weight without thought or effort, but that’s not going to happen. I’d like to find a happy medium where I’m spending some time thinking about my healthy living habits, but not so much that I wind myself up over it or feel like I have to justify my choices to the rest of the world. I would like my weight to be between me and myself, not me and the world, but I also know it’s my own damn fault for writing a book and a blog about it.

Which is all to say, The Beck Diet Solution isn’t the solution to my problems right now. Chilling out and getting over myself, probably is. If I lose weight, it has to be for me, not for you. You can talk about that in the elevator if you want to.

I did eventually look into these lists thingys, just so I’d know what everyone was talking about, and I can see how they would be useful. A Twitter list is a group of people you have put together under a particular label. Then you can go to the list page and read all the tweets from just those people. It is a good way for you to discover new Twitter folk you might want to follow who have similar interests as you. I’m not sure why they call them Twitter lists instead of Twitter groups. Whatever. I didn’t name them.

What I find most interesting about this new feature is that you can see what public groups lists other people have put you on. Which means you get to see how other people see you and what labels they are slapping on your forehead. As of this moment, I have been but on 45 public lists, which you can see here.

• By far, most people have categorized me as “health” or “weight loss” or “diet” or “food.” (Uh oh, please don’t eat me!)
• Indiana bloggers have put me on a few “locals” or “Hoosiers” lists
• Some people have labeled me as “cool” and “sexy.” (Right back at ya’!)
• I’m also on a few “women” lists or “blogger” lists or just “online” lists.
• Inexplicably, someone also put me on a “political” list, which has got to be an error on their part.
• One person labeled me as an “author” which I find very cool. Thanks!

I’ll probably be checking my lists page in the future just to see how other people see me. It’s interesting how it compares to how I see myself.

I was never a skinny child. I never had a thin version of me to compare myself too. I only had the morbidly obese Jennette who spun herself into her own world of possibilities, one that exists in a parallel dimension from the skinny version. When I was losing weight, I would compare my current body to the fatter version of me. I could hang out with this fatter friend of mine in my mind where she made me feel skinny in her shadow. Even at 230 pounds I was 140 pounds lighter than the fattest me.

This year I’ve been dealing with chronic pain, the stress of a book release, and a variety of other happenings that are not ready for blogdom. Eating well and exercising shifted from being my top priority to being number four or five in my top ten life priorities, so I gained 20 pounds. On the way down I compared myself to the fattest version of me, but on the way up I compare myself to the thinnest version of me. Instead of seeing myself as 170 pounds lighter, I see myself as 20 pounds fatter.

I know this is silly. I know I’m not obese. I look in the mirror and think I’m pretty. I’m grateful that I can run and squat and cross my legs. I’m in better health than I’ve been for most of my life. But sometimes I resent making a slightly more perfect version of myself. I hate that I judge myself against her. I hate that other people compare me to her. I hate that I know I could be her again if I worked harder or cared more. I hate that she’s out there, existing as a possibility I one day made flesh, but faded out of reality and into the mirror world of what-ifs.

Then I lost about 200 pounds and I totally understand where they were coming from. I present exhibits A, B, and C.

These three photos were all taken on the same day, which is odd because it looks like I gained 10 pounds and then lost it again before noon. I ran a half-marathon that day, but running 13.1 miles does NOT burn 35,000 calories, nor could the lasagna I had for lunch make me that much fatter.

In the first photo, I’m striking the “skinny pose.” I have one foot placed in front of the other. I’m turning at the waist, but rotating my shoulders towards the camera. I’m jutting my chin out slightly. I read how to do this online and at first I felt silly and awkward arranging my limbs and torso like this, but then I noticed it actually works so I do it often. If you watch starlets on the red carpet, they use these tricks too. I’m also wearing a dark color on the bottom and a light color on the top to balance my bottom-heavy pear shape. All in all, I look pretty thin.

About 2 minutes earlier, the second photo was taken right after I finished my race. I eagerly downloaded it from the official race site online and was crestfallen when I saw it and immediately thought, “I look so fat in that photo!” I don’t know if it’s the angle or the lighting or post-race bloat that evaporated 120 seconds later, but I think I look fat in that photo. Which sucks, because it’s supposed to be my proud, victory photo and I don’t feel particularly victorious when looking at it.

Then, there is photo number 3, taken a couple hours later at my book release party. My face looks the thinnest in this photo to me and I’m rather satisfied with my size. Maybe the dark lighting helps? :) I’m sure some of you will comment that I look great in all these photos (or that I look like a bean bag chair if you’re a hater), but it doesn’t really matter what you think, it’s what I think.

It seems odd that all these photos were taken within hours of each other and yet I look so different in all of them. I know my face and my body better than anyone else, so I’m probably the most critical of my appearance, noticing the smallest variations. It’s amazing how different I can appear, not because of my size, but because of the way my body is turned or whether I’m wearing makeup or whether someone turned on the overhead light.

I might not be the best judge though. There are times when I don’t think I look particularly good or bad in a photo and other people compliment me on it. For instance, I got several compliments on my Jamba Juice photo, but when I saw it I thought it was far too dark and that I looked a little bit irked. I would caption this photo with a thought bubble saying, “Have you taken the photo yet? I want to pick up my orange dream machine!”

The worst was when I was still morbidly obese and I’d look at a photo in horror and someone would say, “What a great picture! It looks just like you!” Geez, really? That’s awful. Not only would I feel bad about an ugly photo, I would feel bad that I evidently looked like an ugly photo all the time.

Photos confound me. I like living in a technologically advanced society, but if I’d been born in the 1700′s without running water or electricity, at least I wouldn’t have to deal with the head game that digital imagery now provides on a daily basis. Am I fat? Am I thin? Who knows?

Somewhere all those skinny girls I never understood are laughing.

It was a good reminder, because someone snuck into my apartment and switched my dumbbells with heavier ones. I know that eight-pounder was not that hard to lift last month. I’m sure neglecting my upper body weight routine has nothing to do with it at all. I’ve been distracted with my new YMCA classes and my running schedule, but I do not want to lose my beautiful upper body muscles. I’m quite pleased with the way everything above my belly button looks (yes, even the underarm flab). I don’t want to lose the definition I’ve worked so hard to build.

There are times at home when I look in the mirror and think, “You really could stand to lose those last 10 or 20 pounds. If you wanted it more you could actually do it.” But thankfully there are also days when I go to Target claiming I will only buy a pair of socks and end up buying $80 worth of sportswear because I think I look cute in it. This may very well be the secret to exercising. Buy yourself cute activewear! Run outside so everyone can see how cute you look in it. It was rather ridiculous how long I stood there striking poses and admiring my biceps and punching towards the mirror. It was completely vain and self-centered and self-indulgent and telling this story will only make me sound like a Narcissus to be loathed by the entire Internet, but I’m glad there are days that I like what I see in the mirror. I hope every girl or boy has days like that, no matter how fat or thin they are.

Soooooo, in conjunction with Everlast, I’m offering you the opportunity to win a free tank top! I know, this has gotten rather ridiculous. It’s the 3rd giveaway in two weeks. You either think I’m a total corporate whore or that I’ve started stealing things off the backs of trucks. The latter is not true and hopefully neither is the former. When people ask me if I want to give away free chicken and water filters and tank tops, I can’t think of any good reason not to. I didn’t even write the first few paragraphs of this entry for the contest. I just started writing an entry and suddenly realized it would make a good segue.

Everlast sent me three double ribbed tank tops in the above photo, a small mint rush (green), a medium berry blast (pink), and a large legend blue (purple). (They did not send me the models, which is good because I cannot afford to feed and clothe them.) The price tags say $20.00, but they are normally priced at $16.99 on the Everlast site (though it looks like they are on sale for $9.99 this week). To enter, leave a comment telling me about an outfit that made you feel pretty. Contest ends 11:59p.m. on Thursday, February 14th. One entry per person, no duplicate entries please. This is open to international folks as well. Please specify what size you would like. If you want more than one size, post them in order of priority. For example, if you say you only want the small and are drawn after a person who already grabbed the small, you won’t win anything and I’ll draw another name. If you’d said you want the small first and the medium second, you’d get the medium. This is the last giveaway I’m going to do for awhile, so get posting!

I’m writing a book about my weight-loss experience (in bookstores Spring 2008!) and I know the first two things people are going to do when they pick it up is 1) read the back to see how much weight I lost and 2) flip to my author photo to see exactly how thin I look. Normally, I don’t care that much about looking thin in photos. I prefer to look thin, of course, but I focus more on standing up straight, brushing any crumbs off of my shirt and gluing my eyes open so I don’t get caught mid-blink. However, since this is a book about weight-loss, I would be naïve not to admit that I have to look thin in my author photo. No one wants to read a weight-loss memoir written by a fat girl. The reverse is true too. I once picked the book Fat Girl: A True Story off the shelf at the bookstore and was disappointed that the author wasn’t very fat at all.

I could hypothetically chose not to have an author photo, but that wasn’t really an option either because 1) people would think I secretly regained the weight and was too ashamed to show my face and 2) I’ve spent almost a year writing this thing and almost three years losing all the weight, so you’re going to take a look at my pretty face.

So, I had an assignment: Find a flattering, high-resolution photo of myself smiling naturally in good lighting with a contrasting background. It is much easier to glare at a camera convincingly than to smile without looking like your faking it, but I had to be smiling because this is a funny book and no one wants to read a funny book by someone with glaring issues. I decided to have my picture taken professionally. I set up a photo sitting and even scheduled an appointment for makeup application because I don’t know an eyelash curler from a potato peeler. I thought it would be fun to dress up and look glamorous and have my picture taken. I was looking forward to it.

The day before the photo shoot I went insane.

I started to obsess over what I should wear. I wanted to show off my collarbones, so I needed to wear either my green or black shirt. However, we were shooting on a white background for my full-body shot, so I needed to avoid black or navy. That left the green shirt. All my pants were black except for a brown pair, but they had blue embroidery on the bottom that did not match the green. I had a flattering red and black patterned dress that showed my collarbones, but I didn’t think it would read well on the white. I hadn’t found a pair of jeans that fit my tush right yet, so I was left with my skirts or a dress. I could try buying something new, but what if I decided I hated it next week? I ended up taking a dozen test shots in my kitchen wearing different combinations of shoes, tights, skirts and tops. And jewelry. Should I wear jewelry? I never wear jewelry but a pendant might look pretty against the scoop neckline. Am I being dishonest if I accessorize?

Then I looked up tips online about how to look thinner in photos. Yes, there are whole entire articles just on this topic. If you look at lots of celebrity photos, you will find most starlets are experts at this. You can put one foot in front of the other and turn from the hips to make your silhouette slimmer. You can suck it in a little, but don’t suck it in too much or else you’ll look like you’re sucking it in. Wearing monochromatic colors is supposed to help too. You can push your chin up and out to make your neck fat look smaller. Neck fat, who knew?

I practiced smiling in the mirror.

I woke up early on a Saturday morning, styled my own hair, and got my make-up done. After that I headed down to the photo studio with a bag of extra clothes, just in case I changed my mind about what to wear. Then I sat in front of the background, looked at the photographer and froze. What was I supposed to do here? Smile? Okay, I’ll try to smile even though I feel really uncomfortable turned sideways on this stool, and oh I’d better remember to sit up straight, and don’t forget to stick my chin out! But smile like you’re enjoying it too. Oh no, are my upper arms pressed up against my body and making my arm fat look bigger? And does my hair look cute? It looked cute in the car but it does not look cute in those proofs. And why did it not occur to me that the corduroy mini-skirt would wrinkle in the car? Aaaaaaaaah!

Finally the shoot was over and I got my photos on a CD which I promptly took home and obsessed over on my computer for an hour. My smile was great in this one, but my eyes were half-closed. This one would be great, but my hair looks funny. I forgot to take off my watch! Moron, you specifically reminded yourself in the car to take off your watch. Why did I think I could style my own hair? I can’t even style my Barbie’s hair. The mini-skirt was a bad choice because it is not as slimming as a pair of jeans would be. Why didn’t I just go buy a pair of jeans instead of waiting for the sale next weekend?

At which point I turned off the computer and decided The. Madness. Must. End. This was what it was like to be one of those girls, those girls who obsessed over fashion magazines and never thought they were thin enough and complained about their flabby tummys that were as flat as Kansas.

It was AWFUL.

I feel so sorry for those girls who look in the mirror every day and obsess over their image like I had been obsessing the day before my photo shoot and for the hour afterwards. I hated putting importance on how thin I looked through a camera lens, because it’s not very important at all (unless you’re trying to sell a weight-loss memoir). It’s also a massive time suck. I spent hours upon hours scheduling appointments and picking out clothes and having foundation expertly applied. I have to give models proper respect because looking glamorous is hard work. I only went through it because I didn’t want there to be a nagging voice in my head a year from now saying, “Well, PastaQueen, you could have sold a bazillion copies of your book and be lying on a sandy beach in Tahiti right now instead of sitting in the gutter on a pile of cigarette butts, if only you didn’t look so FAT in your author photo.” I don’t regret doing it, but I never want to do it again. (I didn’t want to obsess over it for the next couple days afterwards either, but the madness had a lot of inertia and took several days to stop.) I thought having my picture taken would make me feel pretty, but I felt so much prettier before I started focusing on all my flaws. I’m the type of person who will go to the grocery store covered in cat hair and really doesn’t care. When I created a situation where I decided being thin and pretty mattered, it messed up my head. It’s so much better living a life where being thin and pretty is nice, but not all that important.

Ironically, I’m going to use another photo for the back of my book that was taken when I wasn’t freaking the f%$# out. It looks more natural and my hair looks pretty decent. The photographer did do an excellent job even though his model left something to be desired. We got a great shot of me in one leg of my fat pants. I love being the girl who can stand in one leg of her fat pants, even if I still have arm flab and neck fat and have absolutely no future in modeling.

(Note: I know someone will suggest that this should be my author photo, but I want my close-up, Mr. DeMille. I’m going with a headshot and you can see it when the book comes out.)

In other amazing body news, I’ve noticed that I can squat all the way down to the floor and then stand back up without grasping for the kitchen counter. After I’ve been sitting on the floor stretching, I can bend my knees, put my arm on the floor and fling my back up into a standing position. And when I’m sitting on the couch watching TV, I can curl my legs up in front of me and lay sideways against the arm and a pillow very comfortably without a huge belly getting in the way. All very basic maneuvers and all movements I have not been able to complete since the 90′s. I can even cross my legs and hook my leg behind my ankle without having to lean severely to the left. Every time I bend my body in these new and fascinating ways I feel so grateful and amazed and think, “This is totally awesome.” You’d think that feeling would wear off after awhile, but no. This ain’t morphine. I haven’t built up a tolerance yet. Half the reason I do Pilates is because I am continually amazed that I can lay on the ground and bend my legs at a 45 degree angle from my body. It’s completely mind-blowing.

I think I’m going to try a drop-in yoga class during lunch next week just to see what other pretzel maneuvers I am capable of and have not yet discovered. Maybe soon I’ll discover I can open a can of tuna with my untrimmed toenails. I’m pretty sure I can’t bend my legs behind my head, but I do feel head over heels in love with my body these days, bony ass and all.

(This is totally disgusting to read, isn’t it? You all hate me, right? There are so many women out there who hate their bodies, so on behalf of the few women who love their bods, I feel like I’ve got to represent. My body rocks! So my skin may sag a little. If I wanted to, my arms and thighs leave plenty to bitch about, but why focus on the negative? As Ani DiFranco said, “It looks a little rough, but it runs good anyway.”)

The feeling itself isn’t that new though, because it’s how I’ve felt about my body for the last couple years. After the first nine months I found myself startled whenever I put my hand on my hip and realized I could feel the edge of my pelvic bone. A couple months after I started weight-lifting I reached behind my neck to rub my shoulders and was surprised when I felt the hard mass of muscle beneath my skin. And lately when I’m standing in the kitchen stirring my oatmeal with one hand, the other is usually pressed hard against the side of my chest where I can actually count my ribs with my thumb. Don’t worry, you can’t actually see my ribs beneath my skin, but the layer of fat between my epidermis and those curvy bones is finally thin enough that I can detect their presence with a little pressure.

It never ceases to amaze me how malleable the human body is. There are so many different ways I could look, fat or thin, toned or flabby, wearing glasses or de-spectacle-ed. The possibilities grow wider when I think of the rainbow array of hair dyes available, the thousands of make-up counters across the country, the millions of possible tattoo designs from Tweety Bird to a bed of roses on someone’s back, and all the different places the human body can be safely (and unsafely) pierced. You really could completely reshape your visual identity if you wanted to.

I was searching for old high school friends recently on one of the many social networks available today and it was strange to see photos of people almost 10 years since I last saw them. One guy looked exactly the same in his red flannel shirt hugging his dog. I was glad another had her name posted with her picture because I barely recognized her beneath her dark-red-dyed hair and thick cranberry lipstick. I have no idea if people will recognize my picture or not. I’m about 80-60 pounds lighter than I was in high school, so I’m definitely thinner, but my college professors would consider it even more shockingly thinner. Either way, it’s nice to know that we can change if we want to, but if we want to stay the same that’s a perfectly reasonable option too. I doubt the make-up salesmen trying to sell me 10 shades of lipgloss would agree on the latter though.

Heroes is a show on American television about characters with special powers. A recently introduced character, Candice, has the ability to cast illusions to make people see what she wants them to see. She frequently uses this ability to make herself look like someone else, but when she’s not tricking people she’s played by Missy Peregrym who looks like this:

Last night she was having a conversation with another character while munching on junk food. What follows is not an exact transcription of their dialogue because I can barely remember what I had for lunch yesterday, never mind the exact words of fictional characters on a TV show. He said something like, “I have a cousin who eats like you. He’s really fat.” To which she replied, between bites, “So am I.” At which point my eyes boggled out of my head. Candice is a fat girl and we didn’t even know it!

Which makes me wonder, if you could make everyone else see you as a skinny person while still being a fat person, would you do it? Is the incentive to be thin only so other people will think better of you or do you have other motivations such as your health and feeling fit? I’m at a point now where I am really digging my fitness. I love the ability to run and ride a bike and complete the entire kickboxing aerobics class while other people whimper and whine on their mats. However, if you’d offered me this option 190 pounds ago I’m not sure what I would have said. I certainly would have liked to look thinner even while I was working on making it actually happen. But if I could fool everyone, would I have lost my incentive to make the real thing happen? Back then I doubt you could have ever convinced me that I would someday enjoy running and eating healthy. Maybe I only did it because I had to.

And what does Candice see when she looks in the mirror? Can she fool everyone including herself? I love checking myself out in the mirror these days. It would be a bummer if everyone else saw me as thin but I didn’t get to see it myself.

I don’t think Candice is morbidly obese because there are some things you can’t fake with illusions. She wouldn’t be able to move around as agilely as she does on the show. One of the side affects of my weight loss is that I am now a fast walker. If I’m walking with people fatter or more out of shape than me, I have to noticeably slow down so they can keep up. She also wouldn’t be able to slip through narrow spaces or fit comfortably in small chairs with arms. I can’t imagine she would feel very good either if her diet is composed mostly of refined carbohydrates.

The fact that Candice is a fat girl pretending to be a thin girl brings up some uncomfortable social undertones. What if she’s also a black woman pretending to be white? What if she’s a man? It seems she’s chosen a form that gets the best reaction from other people. I can only think of Mystique, a shape-shifting character from the X-Men movies, whose true form is blue and scaly. When asked why she doesn’t stay in disguise all the time she simply replies, “Because I shouldn’t have to.” If Candice’s character ever gets killed, I hope we get to see what she really looks like. No one should have to spend their whole life in hiding.