The Skinny on Sam – Six Packs and Beer Bellies (Week 2)

The Skinny on Sam

By Samantha Childs

One Client’s Journey with Nutritious America

Ever since age fifteen, the age when I first experimented with drinking, my mom reminded me, “There is nothing more unattractive than a woman who is drunk.”

Every time she said this, I was infuriated.

Why did it matter that the person was a woman?  And why was it ok for men? Why was it that women had to worry so much about being attractive?

Apparently, it was my duty as a feminist to get wasted. I needed to get drunk and sloppy and I needed to do it as a matter of principle. Unlike most men, I might have to tie my hair back in a ponytail first, but I had just as much a right as they did to end my night hugging the toilet. And I would be hugging that toilet as a woman with beliefs. In my opinion, there was nothing more attractive than that!

Now twice as old (at 31) and twice as knowledgeable (at least in theory), I had somewhat tapered down my crazy ways. (Again, at least in theory. At least I was less close with my toilet than I had been in my twenties.) Although, I still held firm to my beliefs. (Many of those beliefs were still feminist ones.) Another belief of mine was that it was important to have fun in life. This sounds simple enough, but to me, having fun was at least as important as working hard.  That was one of the reasons why I had left behind a career in law (I had a JD from UCLA and had passed the California Bar) to pursue writing.  The former would have sounded more impressive and definitely would have been more lucrative, but it wasn’t fun.  Life was short.  You only got one. I didn’t want to die (or live) as a lawyer. I thought about death- or, more precisely, the quickly approaching lack of life- constantly. Further, the older I got the less I felt the need to satisfy what I thought others- including strangers- wanted from me. (I cannot count the number of times strangers have chided me for not following through with law. One woman accused me of being anti-feminist. Anti-feminist?! I should have told her about how drunk I got…) Anyway, fun needed to be a priority. In all areas of life. No one was going to write an “A+” on my grave for being perfect, so why did I need to live that way? (And what’s so bad about a B+ anyway?)

Therefore, when Abra, one of the co-owners of Nutritious America and my personal nutritionist, called me on Thursday for our phone appointment, I had some bad news for her. It was our first full week with the blog. Our first week to kick off the very short stretch of time I had to lose weight before April. Our first week with everyone I cared about reading about my progress.

“I’m going wine tasting,” I said.

She took it surprisingly well.  Much better than the rehab group that I had accidentally joined a week earlier had taken it.  (That is a whole different story for another time.) Anyway, as Abra said to me, “You have to be able to live.” This was important to me. I wanted to be working with someone who understood balance and that, while I really wanted to get thin, I also wanted to be able to do things like take a weekend trip with friends from law school. I had been thin with no life before. That was no fun. I wanted my cake and wanted to eat it too. (As a side note, I hated that phrase- what is the point of having a cake if you can’t eat it?)

Beautiful Santa Barbara

So we sculpted out a plan for the week.

Number 1: Alcohol. I would drink over the weekend in Santa Barbara and was allowed one drink during the week (I had a date already set up) but that was it. No more. (Abra called it my weekly “Alcohol Bank.”  A bank with one drink in it. I felt really poor.)

Number 2: Exercise. I was going to go hiking three times during the week for cardio and going to set up two personal training sessions at my local gym for muscle building.

Number 3: Food. I was going to eat breakfast. Every day. (I have a tendency to be hit or miss on this one.) Abra and I went over acceptable choices. Apparently, salt-and-vinegar chips did not cut it. And, we decided that when I went out to eat (which would be the entire weekend) I would always get a vegetable as a side.

For the most part, the weekend went well, diet-wise.  With our meals at the resort, while the other girls were drinking champagne, I drank Bloody Marry’s. (That counts as a vegetable, right?) When we went out for Mexican food in downtown I rejected my usual quesadilla (mmm…. pure cheese) for a rice, vegetable, and bean-filled burrito. And I never skipped breakfast- even when it meant getting poached eggs to go (and I ate the yolks- just like Nutritious America told me to!) as I ran through the lobby to meet the wine-tasting tour van and cute wine-tasting tour guide.

Unfortunately, my mom will not find this picture "attractive"

However, the problem with food for me, and once again this problem reared his warty head, is that food is so much more than food. I use it as emotional support. I eat when I’m lonely; I eat when I’m sad; I eat when I’m stressed; I eat when I’m bored. (I don’t know if bored counts as an emotion.) Well this weekend I felt stressed. Aside from some drama on the wine tour, which steered me into choosing the pumpkin ravioli with cream sauce (amazing) over a salad, Henri (my French Bulldog) had an operation coming up on Tuesday morning. He had an elongated palate, which needed to be fixed, and tiny nostrils, which needed to be widened (a doggie nose job). And I was terrified.

So how did I soothe myself? I have a couple of ingenious methods. One is I Internet shop. (Etsy, Overstock, and Amazon are personal favorites.) Another is that I pour myself a glass of cider or raspberry Iambic. (This is slightly problematic and I am working on it. Did I mention I was in rehab?) Another is that I go to sleep. (Ironic because most stressed people cannot sleep. Problematic because I can virtually sleep all day.) And another is that I eat. Bingo.

I ate starbursts. And I ate sourdough toast smothered in, worst of all things, I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter- Abra had even cautioned me against this during our session. (“I Can’t Believe It’s Sold as Food” she called it.) But it was what was in the house, so it was what was in my mouth. Slathered onto piece after piece that I pulled from my crammed, tiny toaster oven.

Did it make me feel better? Maybe a little, during the feeding frenzy. But it definitely didn’t help my waistline. I don’t want people at the reunion to look at me and think, “Oh, she must have had a hard time with her dog.” I want them to look at me and think, “Wow, amazing body.” (And maybe, “Gorgeous face.”) I can tell them about my dog later.

And I would like to learn how to not need food except for when I need food- i.e. when I’m hungry. The same goes for my other vices. Poor Abra- she has a tough client!

It is hard making excuses for not hiking when the trails at Torrey Pines have views like this

As for the exercise, I was pretty good. As soon as I learned that Henri’s operation had gone smoothly, I went for a hike in Torrey Pines with my dad. (He goes every day.) I felt like I could finally breathe again.  And I love the contrast of the limestone cliffs and dry tundra with the blue water. Also, I have made sure that I am slotted into weekly personal training at The Gym in Del Mar. Every Tuesday and Thursday. I hate going (working out for working out’s sake is not fun), but I hate my thighs touching more.

It was all about balance. Balance and that damn scale…

Samantha Childs is currently writing her thesis for her MFA in Nonfiction Writing at Columbia University and posting her blog, The Skinny on Sam, every Thursday on www.nutritiousamerica.com.

Follow her on Twitter @theskinnyonsam