Day 74: Monolith Syndrome

And the results for this week's comparison are in:

Days remaining: 149
Pounds remaining: 141.5
Inches lost/gained this past week: 0.0
Pounds lost/gained this past week: -3.5
Percentage weight loss this past week: -1.19%

Total pounds lost: -11.5
Total inches lost: -15.5

I realized an interesting fact today. For a while, I have suspected that I have been suffering from Monolith Syndrome and today it was completely confirmed.

This evening, I stepped SO far out of my comfort zone and joined a Zumba class at the YMCA! I have been avoiding any class exercising for months now because I have been so afraid that I will be the only one in class who can't keep up or who will look like a total idiot.

Now an observation... for overweight individuals, the current exercise dress code seems to be an expression of either the Monolith Syndrome or the Popped Biscuit Can look. The Monolith wears extremely baggy and long clothing that obscures every single lump... or so that individual believes. The horrible truth lies buried in the comfort baggy clothes provide; deceptive comfort. It's so easy to feel slim and muscular beneath a t-shirt two or three sizes too large... mirrors have a nasty way of popping that bubble.

The Popped Biscuit Can look involves wearing "normal" workout clothing that would be fine for a normal-weighted individual. Regrettably, these people seem to pay no heed to the rolls of extra that slip out from under the sports top or the puffiness that spills over the top of those "cute," skintight exercise pants.

Which style am I? I wish I could say Yuppie Slim, but when I entered the Zumba session, my sight was assaulted by what appeared to be a single, black monolith. There were mirrors everywhere, surrounding the room with multiple reflections of that impressive sight; even the largest person in the room was half my size! My monolith wasn't some point of personal evolution as I wrote in a previous blog post - I WAS the monolith!

I suppose this would normally have daunted me, but I really wanted to participate in the Zumba and focused on the instructor while attempting to coerce my overtly-Caucasian body into swaying gracefully with the Latin rhythms. At various points, I would feel as if my form was extremely good and I was really getting the steps... then I would glance back at my reflection and would see the most absurd sight I have ever seen. Plump white arms protruding from rolled-up black sleeves and swaying hips that were barely seen beneath the drapery of the way-large black t-shirt.

Now, I've always enjoyed seeing the pure joy some large people exude when dancing all out; as if they completely forget how large they are and who is watching - they simply have fun. So this was the path I chose to take. And I had fun. I tripped and stumbled, missed the beat and alternately forgot to add arms to my steps (and vice versa)... all the while wondering who that goofy person in the mirror could possibly be imitating.

The shock would set in every once in a while.

As I walked away, I realized that although I was so absurd in my performance, I had such a strong desire to master the Zumba steps and moves. I will be back and I look forward to winning the approval of the instructor and the other rhythmic/experienced participants with my masterful display of awesomeness... I hope. Besides, I can't complain about an hour-long session that burns up to 1000 calories and which flies by so quickly, I don't notice how long I've been exercising!

I also realized I should get different clothing for working out. I'm very comfortable in my HUGE black 3x t-shirt and I feel smaller inside, but the mirrors surrounding every room in the Y keep broadcasting an extremely uncomfortable picture back to me... something I can change now.

Now, to find the balance between evidencing the Monolith Syndrome and resembling a Popped Biscuit Can.

Week Three: Fat People Are Harder to Kidnap

Taking a sip of her lemonade from a mall kiosk, she glanced at the many people strolling by. So many people... so many attitudes and styles... so many different body types... so many overweight individuals... plain, cotton knits and patterned polyesters alike clinging tightly to every curve, showing every bulge and highlighting each fold of fat.

Puffy arms and dimpled elbows protruding from sleeves too small to contain them. Rotund knees overshadowed by excess heaviness topped by shorts which constantly rode up the legs. Plump no-longer-waist lines overflowing the desperate attempt of pants' waistbands to contain.

How could any self-respecting person display themselves in public when they looked like that?! Didn't they know how sloppy their appearance was? Didn't they care at all?

Well, at least she would never look like that... never in a million years!

And yet, here it is but a few years later and I am coming to grips with that very mindset I once held.

How is it that morbidly obese people can go out in public looking the way they do? I know now. How can one get to such an alarming amount of extra weight? I know now. Do the overweight care how their clothing doesn't fit? I know now they do.

In less than one year, I came to learn just how it is that a self-respecting human being can accumulate so much excess weight, how they can go out in public wearing ill-fitting clothing, and the utter secret shame that accompanies such a state of being.

I am always shocked every time I see my reflection in a mirror. In my mind's eye, I am a little overweight, but not that bad. Clothing is a little tight in some places, but it covers all the undesirable bulges. Anything I can't see behind me is never thought of - i.e., my derriere is not THAT big. Of course, not having a full-length mirror for two years only aids and abets the existence of this mentally-smaller state of being.

About a year ago while in my car, I had turned around to deal with something in the back seat. As I redirected my gaze to the front of the car, I glanced over my still-twisted body. There was a large pile of black cloth tucked next to me and I idly wondered where it had come from. It was then, in a truly surreal moment, that I realized that unknown lump of black cloth was ME!!

My most recent (and most sobering) shock occurred this past Friday. The ever-loving companion of my heart had desired that I purchase some article of clothing in which I would feel beautiful. Later that day, I found myself trying on a handful of tops in front of a - you guessed it - full-length mirror.

As a person who has always had a horror of wearing clothing that showed any undesirable bump, lump, or roll of fat, I was shocked to realize that I was judging the tops, not on the basis of whether they completely masked my various lumps, but on which one looked less tight and thereby, passable.

I had accepted all my unnecessary bulges and rolls as a norm and had given up on the idea that some item of clothing existed which would veil them all (unless I were to take up wearing bedsheets). In that moment, beholding the mass of drooping skin, dimples, and fat rolls reflected so coldly in the mirror before me, I realized I had become one of the generic obese people with ill-fitting clothing I had so often observed and pitied.

I now no longer wonder how people get to this state of excess or how they can live weighing that much or how they can appear in public looking like that... I am living it.

Hopefully, the difference between me and that generic obese person is what I am DOING about the situation. I am not a victim and this state of being CAN and MUST be changed.