Sunday 22 April 2007

The Secret Is Out

My sister shares a name with a princess – in middle school, I enjoyed calling her a royal pain – and she’s hardly the queen of subtlety. She was particularly bad today, as we were discussing our upcoming trip to LA, asking things like, “So when’s the last time you wore that dress?” and “Have I seen that dress?” and “Which jeans are you wearing?”

“What are you trying to ask?” I finally said.

She sputtered a little, then said: “I was just telling Dad yesterday that I think you’ve got a surprise for us.”

Why don’t I tell my family when I’m trying to lose weight? I’m this way about talking dieting with almost anyone – it’s like ”Don’t look! Work in progress! Not finished yet! Not discussing it means not being asked about it, which means no one but me has to know if I fail. Besides, I’m always reluctant to discuss weight with my sister, mostly because she can be competitive about these things, but also because she has a way of making me feel like a freak. I remember trying to explain my binge eating to her, and she just stared at me and said: “I just don’t know how you could buy all that food in public – I’d be too embarrassed to do that.”

I tried to explain that I was embarrassed, but that at the heart of the binge was an urge for food that overrides everything else. “I just could never do that,” she said.

In the spirit of doing things a bit differently this time around, I have been slightly more open about my weight loss efforts. I told a couple of friends, and I even told my sister I was trying to stop binge eating. (Knowing her penchant for questions that make me feel uncomfortable, I requested she not ask me about it unless I brought it up first – a condition she didn’t like.)

I asked my sister what clued her in that I’d lost weight.

“Well, the last time I asked you what dress you were wearing you said you might wear your bridesmaid dress from my wedding,” she said. (I did think about it – the wedding we’re attending is black tie, and I’ve been rather cash-strapped lately.)

Then my sister, who with time and distance surprises me more and more often with how wise she can be, added:

“And you keep saying how excited you are to see us. Not that I don’t think you are, but you know how when a big event comes around and you’ve known about it for months and you’ve meant to do something about your weight and you just haven’t, you just don’t want to see anyone?”

Um, yes. In fact, that feeling and I are disgustingly well acquainted.

I wasn’t happy that my secret is out of the bag, but her words were a nice reminder of one of the fringe benefits of all this work: Looking forward to things that deserve looking forward to, instead of dreading them because I want to hide -- and because finding any clothes, let alone the ones I know are appropriate, is such an ordeal.

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