Danger: Approaching Hard Hat Area

A friend of a friend who's a trainer at a super-fancy gym I could never afford offers to put me through an arm and ab workout.

As I'm sitting on a stability ball tugging and twisting pulleys, we trade reviews about instructors at a spinning studio we both go to (as does the friend we have in common).

Then she says: "Do you find you're having to cut your food back not to gain weight?"

I can feel myself becoming flustered. I have no way of knowing what she will say after I respond, of course, but I find myself wishing I knew a polite way to shut down that line of questioning. It's not that I think she's going to give me advice; she just seems curious.

I want to cut my food back, of course, and I can't help thinking that I should, but I tried a couple of times and I was hungry. Which I have been most of this week – not only eating all my usual food but also eating a snack in the evening.

 The answer to her question, of course, is that I don't know. I don't weigh myself. And most of my clothes already don't fit so I wouldn't necessarily notice if a pound or two had crept on in the eight days I've had this cast.

But I struggle to answer her question politely, because I suddenly feel defensive and embarrassed – and ridiculous.

I start to say three things I can't quite remember, to try to explain all of this, and then stop and say: "The short answer is no, I don't."

She looks at me and says kindly, "You know, I had a client I trained for a year. And after a year she told me she was bulimic."

I imagine I looked defensive or wary as she was speaking, maybe even indignant. I've just met her – does she think to train me once she has to know?

But she's not finished. " When she told me I thought: 'You waited a year to tell me this?' But what I'm trying to say is people are ready when they're ready."

What I understand this to mean is that she knows there's more to the story, but that I don't owe her any explanation.

Then she changes the subject, peppering me with so many questions that I don't think about the food for the rest of the session.

But when I left I couldn't help wondering, as I often do, why simple questions about food fluster me so – why I feel so defensive, or why I feel the need to explain myself to people I hardly know. I suspect it's a corollary to the jokes about my own weight I used to make when I was overweight – attempting to blunt my own embarrassment and shame about my size. Making jokes about your own weight is a bit like gossiping, isn't it – a cheap way to try to make yourself feel included that just ends up making you feel empty?

Anyway.

I think these days I feel the need to explain myself because what I really wish I could do is hit the pause button. Almost every person I meet I want to say, "Actually, could we first meet in three to six months when I am hopefully a little thinner and dressed better?" But because I can't I want to let them know that I'm under construction – "Don't worry, I know I need work, and I'm working on it!"

Except I realize more and more that the thing that needs even more work is my brain, for thinking I need to say these things in the first place.

***

Tomorrow I'm going to see a nutritionist. I am terrified.

Terrified of what she will tell me I can and can't eat, or should and shouldn't eat. Terrified of how little she will tell me I need to eat to lose weight. Terrified I will catch sight of my weight when she weighs me, which I suspect she will need to do to figure out what I should eat. (I don't want to know the number.)

I am paying actual money to go and see her because I'm honestly not sure any more what and how much I should be eating. Since 2006 I've tinkered and tinkered to the point where I can remember the structure underneath it all. It's like editing a photo when you play with the color a little too much and you need to go back to the original saved version. Except apparently I didn't save mine.

I know that I don't have to do anything she says, and that she is not the only nutritionist in the world. But once you know certain things you can't go back to not knowing.

Day 36.