from the archives ... A Quiz: Are You Fat?

I haven't been talking about it, but I've been hanging out at the gym a lot lately. Something like five or six days a week. I've also been watching what I eat. And to get a sense of where I'm coming from, I've been re-reading my own old blog posts about dieting and working out. I thought this one was pretty good, so in celebration of my 8th blogaversary, and because I've picked up a few readers since I first published this in 2007, I'm reposting it.

The weird thing about getting fat is that it seems to happen overnight. You're going along in your usual not very exciting, certainly not very dramatic way, and someone takes a picture of you at BlogHer, and boom! You're fat.

And you think, "What the hell happened?"

Trust me. You didn't get fat overnight. No really, you didn't. You know how long it takes to lose weight? Well, it takes just as long to gain it. You have to have been doing a lot of wrong stuff for a long time before you get to be 40 or 50 pounds overweight. Ask me how I know.

So how does this happen? ("Sleep-eating?" she asked herself hopefully.)

No, not sleep eating.

So here's today's insight: just as alcoholism is a disease of denial, so is fatism. Fat people have all the body dysmorphic problems that teeny tiny little anorexic people have. You know how Mary Kate Olson looks at herself in the mirror and thinks she looks hot? Well, fat people do the same thing.

We think we look fine, even cute, when hello? We're fat. We think we don't really eat that much, when hello? We do.

Yes, we really do eat that much. Trust me on this. Spend a single day on Weight Watchers measuring every bite of food that goes into your mouth, and you will discover two things: the first is what being hungry feels like. The second is that you have been eating massive amounts of food.

To help you escape the cloud of unknowing that you may have wrapped around yourself like a puffy down comforter made of blubber,* here is a quiz! It's extremely scientific, having been tested on a well-known blogger whom I shan't name, because I've done myself enough damage, OK?

1. When someone starts to take your picture, do you flip them the bird, even if your hair looks great?
2. Do you have to lie down on the bed--and possibly use various non-clothing-related household implements--in order to zip your jeans?
3. Have you accused your dry cleaner of shrinking your clothes?
4. Are you convinced that your clothes dryer is running too hot?
5. Do you remain faithful to your spouse in part because it's impossible to remove your wedding ring?
6. Would you describe yourself as big boned, voluptuous, or buxom?
7. Do you have no idea how much you actually weigh?
8. Do you suspect that your actual weight is completely unrelated to your driver's license weight?
9. Are you considering a new career as a department store Santa?
10. Do you want fries with that?

If you answered "yes" to any of the questions, you are my new best friend and are now a dues-paying member of the Poppy Buxom diet support group.

* What a metaphor! That, my friends, is two degrees in English literature talking.