CAUTION! Cinching Capris and Celebrations Conflict!

Well nuts, or better yet, ice cream cake, tenderloin medallions topped with blue crab meat and béarnaise sauce, freshly steamed asparagus, baked sweet potato loaded with butter, sugar and cinnamon, and let’s not forget the cheese cake, chicken salad, pimento cheese, and ah…celebratory beverages. Admittedly, the cheese cake WAS low carb, it didn’t have a crust, but oh that creamy dream of dairy! No one can have just one slice. This is what was consumed, along with a breakfast or two, over a period of forty-eight hours at the best friend’s house while we reveled over her birthday weekend. As the old Alka-Seltzer commercial used to proclaim, “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing.”

I earnestly believe my capris were in a state of shock on Monday morning, and my digestive tract cursed me fluently with gurgles and moans. I’m not sure I’ve recovered yet.  The scales still show a four pound weight loss, but no more. Celebrations can bring your best laid plans to a standstill. Every congratulatory moment seems to abound with heaping amounts of tempting FOOD. Have a birthday? Here’s your cake. Anniversary? Dinner for two. Kid's party? We have pizza. Getting married? Here’s your reception with the sit-down dinner. Oy! Even if I didn’t have a love affair with food, how could I resist, it’s all around me. (Yes, it is indeed all around me, on my hips, my thighs…you understand.)

Here’s the deal. Since I’m not on a planned weight-loss regimen like Weight Watchers or Jenny Craig, it’s imperative that I make healthy choices and work out as often as my mad, mad world will let me. I really don’t want to pay to weigh in somewhere, or have different food in my household for me and something else for the rest of the family. There will always be celebrations accented with heaps and heaps of food. I should be able to step up to the plate, and load it, if you will (‘cause you KNOW I will), with a reasonable amount of decent choices.

The key is balance. I’m still teeter-tottering, but I won’t stop trying. I took a bit of a downward slide this past weekend and I’d be a liar if I told you I didn’t enjoy it. Still, the best part of the entire weekend was being with my friend, and I want to share as many celebrations with her as I can. If I can keep the perspective as to what is important, maybe I can keep a little cake too.

Forever On the Hips

In the movie “Steel Magnolias” the characters of Clairee and Truvy are discussing the state of the Mayor’s wife’s features as she is dancing at a wedding reception. The conversation goes as follows:

Clairee: “Looks like two pigs fightin’ under a blanket."

Truvy:   “I haven’t walked out of my house without lycra on these thighs in twenty years.”

Clairee:  “That’s because you were brought up right.”

I think I may have been channeling that scene this past Saturday. I was honored to be a bridesmaid (at my delicate age) at my lovely friend Lea’s wedding. I wanted to do her proud and look my best. Given that I’m nowhere close to my goal weight, I thought I’d give Spanx a whirl. This supposed light-weight girdle has been the talk of stars and TV anchors for quite a while, and so encouraged, I bit the bait. I think it would have been less painful to have had liposuction without an anesthetic, but what do I know?

At 8:30 in the morning my hair was done, make-up in place and my dress was pressed and ready to wear. I had to be at Lea’s home by 9:00 to help her with her wedding gown, and I had saved the putting on of the Spanx until the last possible moment. I should have given myself another two hours. Confidently placing both legs into the Spanx, I began to pull, and pull, and strain and, did I mention pull? By the time I had them to my waist (and these were the “high tops”), I had sweat all of the make-up off my face and was close to passing out. When I finally had them completely on I felt like a trussed chicken. To top off my um…torture, I had decided to wear the minimizer bra. I couldn’t help but wonder where all this suppressed flesh had gone. I kept turning in circles like a cat chasing its tail while I looked in the mirror. Surely there was a balloon of fat sticking out somewhere.

I couldn’t find evidence, or any bubble of fat escaping from the sides or tops of the devices I was wearing, but I did notice changes. My dress seemed to drape a little looser, but what had happened to my derriere? Instead of having buttocks, I had gone to BUTTOCK! IT looked like a shelf had attached itself to my backside. I was close to hysterics! As I started to bend over to put on my shoes, I was reminded of something my girlfriend Evelyn told me. My Mama once told her, “Don’t ever wear a girdle, once you start, you’ll never stop.” Funny, Mama never mentioned that to me. I was puffing like a steam engine and I couldn’t bend over. This was going to be one interesting day.

The wedding went off without a hitch. It was lovely, just like the bride and I was proud to have been included in her most special day. I have to say I walked down the aisle before her with my head held high, mostly because the Spanx give you excellent posture. If you try to bend, something will snap. That presents a problem with the whole sit down and eat portion of the reception. And eating while wearing Spanx? Not sure that I would recommend it. The food felt like cannon balls being stuffed into too narrow a shaft. Going to the bathroom was out of the question. It would have taken me an hour to undo and then "do-up" my trusses. I’d have missed all the good parts of the reception. I looked longingly at the knife when the bride and groom were cutting the cake. I imagined the relief I would feel if someone would just cut me out of the vise encasing me.

For seven hours I wore the Spanx. When I returned home it took almost as much time to get them off as it did to put them on. I had seam lines permanently etched on my body. I can say without a doubt that I’ll be redoubling my efforts to lose weight now. I never want to shove, pull, push, or stuff my body into a pair of Spanx ever again. Breathing is seriously underrated, not to mention sitting down. I think I’ll go burn those suckers now, but the seam lines look like they’ll be forever on my hips.