How Green Was Everyone Else's Valley

A classic by John Ford, of course, his was titled: How Green Was My Valley and it has nothing to do with my own. For some reason the grass can always be greener, still don't know why but other people's lives seem so easy and perfect from the outside, or do they?

I talked to one of my closest friends on the phone the other day, she's back in beautiful sunny California, and she was telling me all about her problems with her boyfriend. How he took her for granted, how he didn't call her everyday first thing in the morning, how she told me she missed him and that she wanted to marry him and that she was terrified of losing him. In short, she sounded as insecure as I've never heard her before.

As I said in "The Icebreaker", being overweight has been somewhat easy for me, of course there's always a rude comment here and there although I forget all about them as soon as I hit Starbucks, but generally speaking, people were cool with me being fat, they were used to it. I never really thought much about it but I realize that I've been surrounded by a lot of overweight people in my life. Most of my cousins were overweight, a lot of the friends I hung out with in California were overweight too, at least my closest ones; so I guess I always had that we're-on-the-same-boat kind of relief.

Well, it didn't last long. I don't know what happened, but it was suddenly an epidemic. EVERYONE was losing weight. I would hear things like: "Remember so and so how she used to be one of the heaviest girls in school? Guess what? She's like super skinny now, she wears a size 6!" That was only the start, these were people I knew incidentally, but almost never really saw. It got really bad when MY friends got it too, the let's-look-like-Paris-Hilton disease. I'm not kidding, 10 out of the 15 heavy girls I knew, all wear a size 4 or 6 now. Sooooooo unfair.

Yes, I feel evil. You know how people say how you're supposed to be very happy for your friends' newly-found happiness and all, and in part I was, don't get me wrong I was ecstatic for them, but I felt somehow betrayed, I was alone on my frickin' boat. Even though I knew how selfish and wrong it was, or it is, I feel alone. I feel like I'm now the freak that doesn't belong in their new world, and I've always hated the skinny behaviour: "No thanks, I'm full" "Are you seriously gonna eat that?" "You're hungry already?" "Oh, I had a super heavy breakfast (a bowl of fruit) and I can't really put anything in my mouth right now" " Oh my gosh, have you seen how fat I look? (she wears a size 4)" Gee, If you're fat then I guess that makes me Shamu. I've always hated how they can go all day without a bite to eat. How they never savor anything, how we're eating and all they talk about is how healthy are the choices they made and how they're going to spend the rest of the day burning them. It almost feels like we're from a different species. I feel like crap every time I hear these things, am I wrong?

I don't want to be the kind of person that envies her friends, but I guess in the end that's just the truth: I'm jealous. It's evil but it's honest. I'm jealous that they were able to do it while I never got the damn disease! And now it's so hard when we go out because we don't have that in common anymore, now they barely eat which makes me feel guilty every time I take a bite from my meal, then they go shopping and I can no longer shop at the same departments and sometimes not even the same shop! It's humiliating, I just don't feel part of my friends' life anymore and it's somehow ridiculous because we're friends! We're supposed to just forget about our now physical differences and just talk about something else, religion, politics, art, movies, WHATEVER! But as much as I want it to be the same it isn't. They can't seem to talk about anything else other than dieting, shopping for a size 4 and how proud they are of themselves. I'm happy to celebrate this because deep down inside I'm really happy for them and I really admire them for what they've accomplished, but come on, do we have to talk about this all the time? I don't know where I stand anymore, am I being too selfish? Could I be right? Should I feel evil? It's really hard to say.

Going back to my close friend, the one I talked to on the phone, she drove me nuts. She made me angry because she was acting like a wimp when she's everything but. She's one of my friends who used to be really heavy. Now she's a size 6 or 4 and she's going for a size 2. She of course looks beautiful now, she's always been, but she's even more radiant now, and I guess it's because she feels a lot better about her body; but to be honest, she sounded as insecure as she was when she was overweight and this is why I got angry. She used to complain about not having the body she wanted, she never went out, NEVER, she locked herself in her house and missed out on meeting great people and having some real fun. Now she's got this boyfriend who has her eating out of his hand! He calls the shots! He's the one in control! I wanted to kill her for giving him that power. She has EVERYTHING to be happy and to reassure herself, she's from a wealthy family, also has never had to worry about money ever in her life, she goes on trips, cruises, shopping sprees, anything, and she's beautiful, smart, has a stable job, I can't see any reason why she should feel that insecure. I lashed out, I told her that she needed to get a grip, that she was an amazing person and she could have any guy she wanted, even the shallow ones now that she's thin, the thing is, she seems to have everything and every reason to be happy, but then again does she?

Was I judging too quickly? Because maybe her valley is not as green as it seems, this is what I'm starting to learn, that we shouldn't look at someone else's valley, without knowing what really goes on inside and assume that just because they SEEM to have everything it means it's true.

There are so many valleys that seem a lot greener than mine, all these girls that finally won the battle against obesity, but what I'm forgetting is that it doesn't mean all your problems magically disappear with the lost pounds, life can still be a bitch even when it seems like you have it all, so I decided to be a better friend and just be there for her, not just assume that she's and idiot for not feeling like she's high on skinny-life all the time.

It all comes down to one conclusion: I have to do the work! I want to lose weight? Then I have to get to work, it took a lot of hard work for them too. So I guess I have to stop nosing around and focus on making my own valley green, right?

The Icebreaker

I moved to Milan, Italy recently to pursue a career in classical singing, a.k.a. Opera for most people. It turns out, it's not at all easy, I sometimes think it's even impossible. I came here with almost no money, to stay at my long-time Milanese boyfriend's house and to audition for a good music school. All these schools ask for so many things, things I didn't know I couldn't give them but as it turns out, I failed both auditions I took and I am now stuck here, without anything to do, considering I can't pay for any private lessons, and about to go out of my mind. I chose to do something I've always been really good at: overeating.

Yes. I've always loved food. You could say I'm an emotional eater; you know how you hear from most people that have meltdowns how they lose their appetite, yeah well, that has NEVER happened to me, and when I say never, I mean NEVER. So yes, I'm an emotional eater, which would be OK if I only overate whenever a meltdown turned up, but the major problem is, I'm always emotional, ALWAYS. I overeat when I'm happy, when I'm not happy, when I'm pissed, when I'm tired, when I'm sick, you name it, I just can never seem to stop eating.

As most dieters, I've tried just about everything: pills, weight watchers, the moon diet, the soup diet, the South Beach Diet, therapists (to deal with the emotional stuff...) going solo, just everything I can think of. There was nothing wrong with these diets, if you follow them they definitely work, that's their purpose, but I discovered that while I was on them I never came around to accepting the most important thing about me: I just LOVE eating. I do. I even have dreams about eating lots of cupcakes and stuff (embarrassing!) I always tried making everyone else believe that I didn't eat that much, that I was careful, that I exercised, that I might have something that's keeping me from losing weight, you know, a "mysterious" disease.....(I love this one) Anyway, I just kept filling everyone with excuses that only ended up hurting myself. So there, I'll just say it: I'm a faithful over eater.

So what's the problem? In America being overweight is not unusual, have you checked out our obesity statistics? It's crazy, we're the number one with the problem. And in a way, it's cool when you're fat, there's fat acceptance groups, people don't stare at you when you're walking down the street, almost nobody picks on you because obesity has become a part of our daily lives, it's more normal than ever so what's my problem? I refuse to accept myself like this.

No matter how much people go on and on about how appearance doesn't matter (sadly it does) and how they say you should be liked just as you are, and how you need to learn to love yourself no matter what and that being fat is not at all that bad. I don't believe any of this. I do believe everyone should love themselves no matter the size, but the rest are just lame excuses to try and avoid the truth: being overweight is flat out dangerous, that's just reality, it just comes down to that really. We are slowly but steadily chopping off years of living and living well for that matter.

Beauty is on the inside....
Yes, I'm also a faithful believer in this, I do think in the end it comes down to this but let's face it:
I care about how I look. Especially now that the whole "opera singers are fat" movement is completely over (look at Ana Netrebko!). It also feels awesome to look in the mirror and be proud of who you see. Everyone of you out there that has lost weight before, or has been successful on a diet, knows that amazing feeling. Why can't we just say it: looking good feels amazingly great.

So why do we let ourselves become food's faithful followers when we know how much harm we're doing to ourselves? that's the purpose of this blog.

I've been at war with overweight for as long as I can remember, I am 27, too young for some, not so much for others, and I gotta tell ya that at this point, after countless attempts on losing weight, it feels as though I'll never get there; but I don't want to give up, I refuse to do it, I want to fight this war and win it, I want to be healthier and be proud of who stares back at me in the mirror, I want to invite anyone who's out there to join me in this quest, I really need your support, I have no one here in cold Milan (being the capital of fashion everyone here is pin-thin!!!) and I'm just looking for anyone who will share their story with me so we can hopefully encourage each other in fighting this.

The first acceptance step: I'm fat, at only 27 I weigh 205 lbs. I'm 5'5. Do the math.
My question is: Are you in?