Month: April 2010

Do you remember that ad for a bank in which a guy was calling his financial adviser twenty times so that he would repeat the amount of credit on the guy’s account, just to get revenge for years of harassment about his overdraft?

I loved that ad.

Especially as, at that time, I was in the phase hide your head in the sand and filter calls from your bank.

Last week, I felt like doing a remake of that ad. With Philippe, the ski equipment rental guy.

And ask him every day to have me try on one of his pair of ski shoes. Come on man, these ones there, bring them on? Huh yeah, I can close them too. And you won’t believe it my foot is IRRIGATED. Bring on the red ones while we’re at it? Same, as comfortable as sleepers! And what about those ones which look narrow, he? Well, not that much, boy, you could fit two other in there, let me laugh, you don’t mind my Philou if I stay a bit more, do you? I’d like to try on one or two other pairs, just like that, for the enjoyment of it.

In short, you get me, my week has been ENLIGHTENED by the simple fact that I could fit into ski shoes without risking an amputation of some of my toes.

Now dare telling me that losing weight is about respecting society norms. Those who think this have NEVER known how humiliating it is to choose a size 7 pair when your actual size is 5 just to get an extra 3 millimeters on the last hook. Neither to have to tell your weight – slightly minimized – to the ski rental guy in front an astounded crowed (= my children who had never managed until then to obtain the damn number).

In short, I won’t bullshit you, having lost weight has simplified my everyday life. And not only a little bit. I know I’m not younger, not necessarily prettier, I didn’t turn into a sex on leg for all that. But not a day goes by without the thought that ‘this’ I couldn’t have done it so easily a few months ago.

‘This’?

– Put on that slightly out of fashion ‘flare’ pair of jeans, size 10 from Gap, which was sleeping in my closet since 2004.

– Run up the stairs at the Opera metro station without having the impression to have lost someone on the way. My left knee, as it happens.

– Tie the strap on these delicious Salomés bought an arm and a leg only for the pleasure of… tying the strap.

– Put on a belt my mother forgot at my place. Until now I could at best use it as a necklace.

– Have a bath without the fear of getting stuck (yes, it happened to me, thank you soap, my saviour)

– Sit on a fence to eat my sandwich without thinking in the back of my head that it could give way.

– Planning to sit on the Churros’ laps, just like that, without getting cramps trying to make myself lighter (one of my big regrets from teenage hood, all my friends were sitting on each other’s laps, it might have happened to me once or twice but usually people sat on MY LAPS.)

– Sidle in a row of seats in a cinema without hearing people breathe heavily or moan.

– Almost not hear these obsessive voices that shout « fatty » when I try to enter a crowded metro.

– Pass a group of guy with my head up high and be surprised not to feel my tummy getting tight. Not walk faster and be astounded they didn’t even notice me.

I know very well all these are insignificant. I also know that some are the fruits of an ill imagination.

I know as well that I give it too much credit. And it’s indeed the proof that I’m still half way through the river, torn between the fear of gaining weight again and being aware that this is what will ruin me. But here you go, here and now, I have the feeling of being miraculously in equilibrium…

Edit: It became a tradition, a ‘blogger like’ picture, because I’m worth it, am I not? Ok, I look like I’m pooping. Or that I need to. Come on, I’m leaving you with a few pictures from my holidays…

We were talking about the moment when doctor Z told me he was about to have me savour a Mars.

– Are you hungry now?

– No, not really.

– Good, the goal is that you eat without hunger. Are you stressed?

– Currently I’m stressed 24/7 so yes.

– On a scale from 1 to 10, how would you rank your stress level?

– I would say…5

– We can do better?

– Easily

– So we’ll be a bit masochistic and we’ll raise your stress level

And here I am, eyes closed, a mini Mars in front of me, listening to my good doctor playing Cassandre and, just like a telepath, explaining how the subject of my anxiety could have indeed stressful and negative consequences on my life. So much insight actually made me think that despite a high number of patients, he obviously scrupulously took notes of what I’ve been telling him for the past months, indeed, my mother, my sister, my Churros or my Zaz could have said the same thing. Disturbing. I tried to create a diversion by teasing him with “I’m glad I came, when I leave I jump off a bridge, and you’ll have it on your conscience” but it didn’t work, he looks nice mister Zermati but you don’t want to look for trouble too much with him and the glower he threw me did calm me down. After five minutes visualizing how my life could turn, in the coming months, if everything would go wrong as I have a tendency to imagine, that’s how optimistic I am, tears started rolling on my cheeks and you can say that if the objective was to make me panic, it was a success.

“On a scale of 1 to 10, where is your stress?” he asked again

– 12.

Of course, doctor Z, alias mister Hyde was delighted, we could start the experiment.

He thus asked me to concentrate on my breathing, without trying to modify it, simply think of the air flowing through my nose, my trachea and my chest. “Thoughts that are coming to your mind, you make a note internally and you come back to your breath”. After a few seconds, he gave me the mini Mars, which I took out of its wrapping. He told me to look at it, to smell it, to touch it and then to have a bite. “ Now, you make the piece turn in your mouth, you enjoy the different textures, the smell. You take notes of the tastes you perceive, the sweetness of caramel, the softness of chocolate. Now you can munch it, chew it and then swallow it. You linger over its passing in your throat and you open your eyes again only once you have completely absorbed what you had in your mouth”, he intoned while I was getting, clearly, a shoot of Mars.

When I opened my eyes again, it seemed that my pulse was slower than a few seconds before. I munched only a few milligrams of chocolate but it felt like I had the entire piece. The doc had me take another bite. Following the same ritual.

– So, what’s you stress level now?

Stress? What stress? Gone, disappeared, in a totally temporary manner, I was aware of this but the fact remains that I felt lighter, though stuffed with a good dozen of calories.

In the meantime, I just understood why I like Mars: simply because it’s awesome, fuck, this crunchy chocolate, this soft caramel, oh lord, hung me high.

“The difference with what you just did, savouring food with the objective to calm down an anxiety, and a compulsion is that when it’s a compulsion, stress is not reduced after eating, it rises, which causes the intake of another biscuit, another piece of chocolate, another piece of bread. The difference is the full awareness with which you have eaten this piece of Mars. And even if you have a full Mars every day at the moment because circumstances are so that you need it, it is FINE. Because you also know that you can regulate yourself. That you’ll probably eat less at the next meal. Two bites of Mars or so won’t have any impact on your weight. On condition that you do it the right way.”

I left with new homework: make a note of my emotions during the day, name them (anger, anxiety, culpability, sadness) and grade them from 1 to 10 and assess how the food taken in case I wanted to has managed to make the tension drop.

I admit I am rather perplexed, even after this session. I feel that, indeed, complicated things are getting started, and not only because I have a good reason to worry. Time for prowess and perfect student has passed, it is now about living in the long term, accepting the idea of gaining weight again (inevitable because life is not alas or so much for the better always a flower paved journey), realizing that it won’t change the love my kin have for me and stopping to demonize all temptations which inevitably punctuate my days.

I’m not there yet but at the same time it’s so reassuring to know that nothing is forbidden…

Edit: No panic, I’m not ill, neither are the Churros or our children. I don’t want to give more details, because not everything should be told but no worries, nothing that is irreparable.

Edit2: The picture is a souvenir of a massage at Nuxe on Montorgueil street, a gift from my dear friend Mimi. More expensive of course than a Mars but zen effect guaranteed. During the hour I spent in the expert hand of the therapist, I thought of NOTHING and it was really NICE.