Doesn't Giving Credit (Where Credit is Due) Mean Someone Has to Pay the Bill...

All jokes aside, though...

I had a little chat with Chris on Friday about what he said last week and how I felt about it. Chris, again, has proved that intelligence and wisdom are NOT the same thing. He claims - and I mostly believe him - that he wasn't trying to make me feel bad, or denigrate my efforts. He also said that he had already decided, before I walked in the door, that he wasn't going to say anything to me at all if it didn't look like I'd lost some weight, which he said I did, so he did.

"Everyone in this group is so sensitive about their weight," he bemoaned. "It's really hard to say anything..."

"Yes, it is," I said. There really isn't any point in continuing down that line of thought. It's a sensitive issue. In our circle of friends, there's like two thin people, and at least one of those still thinks she's too heavy. And we've all got our emotional baggage.

In any case, I forgive him for being socially inept from time to time, and move on with it. Of course, I really had to tell Carol at that point. It's one thing when it's a secret from most people, and totally different when it's "she's the only one who doesn't know."

So, I did that pretty promptly at Saturday's cook out; explaining that it was probably entirely in my head, and that I'd built it up to be a big deal, but that I didn't expect it would matter much to her, etc etc. And with her own family issues, and her daughter showing up diabetic, I didn't think it was a good time to crow about the fact that my A1C this year was 4.7. (Last year it was 6.2) And I mentioned that sometimes there were just bad mental places for me, and I remembered how cross she gets when she's dieting, and that I didn't want to deal with that while I was trying to get established in a new habit, etc etc.

She said almost exactly what I thought she would. "Hmmm. Well, that's good for you." Long pause. "I should probably lose some weight. I've been doing some stress eating after this thing with Anne. I don't really want to eat when she's around, and the other day and I ate four Snickers bars in a row." I'm really good at not screaming out loud when I'm raging in my head. Just so you know that.

It's fine if she wants to lose weight. Or just eat better than she has been. What I want here is for her to want it because she wants it, you know? Not as a direct response to something I'm doing. Carol and I have been happy being fat together, you know. We're comfortable with it in a way that it's often hard for one heavy girl to be comfortable in a group of skinny women. It's certainly easier being overweight when you're not the only one who stands out. Thus it comes in with the subconscious sabotage. If we're comfortable with our weight, but only when the other person is also fat, we become uncomfortable with the idea of them losing weight. It's pretty vicious.

However, she accepted it in relatively good spirits, and while some things she's said in her blog today make me think she's been brooding about it since Saturday... that's not my problem. I'll be as supportive of her as I can be, but I can't change her life. She needs to decide if she wants to do that.

So, that's that, I guess. I did really well, points wise, being surrounded by grilled food (including some of the biggest goddamn hot dogs I've ever seen), but there weren't many vegetable options, (and no cheese, which annoys me because I'd thought about bringing our cheese slices and then decided not to) so I had to eat an enormous salad when I got home to help cover my base 8. I'll have to remember that for next time.

I've been having some trouble with my clothes recently; which is to say that most of what I own are sizes 24-26 and I have one pair of jeans that are 18W, which I've been wearing every day. I've been putting off buying any new clothes, though.

Thomas finally glared at me the other day. "Look at it this way... if you'd gained weight and nothing fit anymore, we'd be getting you some new clothes, right?"

"Well, that's a comfort issue," I hedged. "My too-big clothes still do their job of covering all the important bits."

"Come here," he crooked a finger at me. I hesitated, as this did not sound at all encouraging. He grabbed hold of my jeans, just below the hips, and tugged. Rather promptly, without unbuttoning, they came down. "Do you really want that to happen while we're out doing the grocery shopping?"

So, we got a few new clothes. A pair of jeans, a pair of capris, two shirts, and a hoodie. I absolutely drooled over one shirt but couldn't quite justify paying $50 for a low-quality t-shirt.

It was sort of odd, since I'm used to shopping at Lane Bryant, Catherine's and Torrid, this realization that I was not the heaviest lady in the room... Shopgirls ask me what my size is, and I say "I don't know, really, I've lost some weight." are eyeballing me and saying "You look like a 1 or 2, to me." Admittedly, Torrid and Lane Bryant have recently re-done their sizes to attach smaller numbers to their pants. It can get depressing to wear a 26. A 7 sounds so much better.

On the other hand, this means I'm skating close to the edge of falling out of being able to shop at Torrid or Lane Bryant. Which is also strange.