A Piggy Update

Well, it's been nine days since The Incident.  I'm still in a lot of pain in my third toe and on the top of my foot, so I went to a podiatrist this morning.  She said that it was a sprain and possible stress fracture, although they wouldn't be able to see that on an X-ray until it began the healing process, usually after ten to fourteen days. 

Here's what my foot looked like on the 18th:

 

Here's what my foot looks like now:

 

She also gave me some more pain killers so basically it's just going to hurt until it doesn't hurt anymore.

Joy.

I tellya, I've been extremely upset regarding weight loss because it seems like everytime I get on track something comes along to knock me off.  This puts off my exercise routine possibly by another four weeks.  So I have been eating to spite fate.  I know it's childish and counterproductive, but it just seems I can't get a break.

And November doesn't look like it's going to be good for the diet either.  I once again decided to do NaNoWriMo, which is National Novel Writing Month.  It's a challenge for writers to attempt a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. 

It's a good writing exercise, and given I haven't been writing anything I thought I'd cut my teeth on this project. 

I was going to turn one of my screenplays into a novel, like I did last time.  So I started reading books, since I was laid up and couldn't do much of anything else anyway.  I read Waiting to Exhale (by Terry McMillan) and April Shadows (by VC Andrews), both of which included an overweight female character who was isolated by her weight.  While the other girls in Waiting to Exhale were dating and having loads of Mr. Wrongs enter their lives, the heavy set Gloria spent her time watching television and eating.

This annoyed me.

In April Shadows, April - the overweight main character - never had a positive boy experience and was consistantly told by her sister how she needed to lose weight, as if that would answer her problems.

None of this is indicative of my experience as a fat woman.  I cannot relate to those who go onto talk shows and cry into their hankies that they don't have friends or boyfriends because of their size.  Here I am, probably a good 50 to 100 more than what they weigh, I have great friends and have been married twice.

I decided to write a book centered around a fat girl, and her experiences - different experiences than what is portrayed in the mainstream media. 

Unfortunately, "Fatty" will probably also be autobiographical as I use my experiences on how I got fat and why I stay fat.

It's going to be a very difficult month.  I tried to talk myself out of it, but my best friend Jeff has encouraged me to write it anyway.  It was also the advise given to me by my therapist - to use my gift with words to exercise my spirit. 

I've come to believe that I'm never going to stop being this 300 pound woman until she has her say.  And this book may indeed be her say.

And even more frightening, I plan to blog this novel like I did my novel last year.  I was going to whitewash it a little bit to make it a book suitable for teen girls - but I don't think that will do the story or my character any good.  I need to look at this unflinchingly.  This will include the sexual abuse, this will include teen promiscuity, this will include religious abuse and neglect and all the other things that have molded me to this person who needs to be fat to be safe.

It's gonna be rough.  I could sit here and proclaim that I'm going to diet my way through it, but I won't even lie.  If it gets too much, I may fall - scratch that, JUMP off the wagon.

This next month isn't about how much weight I lose.  This is about Ginger...finding herself through Fatty, a girl who discovers that being fat didn't make her unhappy.  Being unhappy made her fat.  We gotta heal from the inside out.

So maybe that's why this all happened.  To make me stop and really look at myself the way I am now instead of fall into the trap of liking myself ONLY because I'm doing something about the weight. 

I'm giving Fatty November.  Then hopefully she can help me find a fitter way to manage my emotions.

Which reminds me, time to make that appointment for the happy pills...