Page 1 of The Ground Beneath Our Feet
My God, my God. Why have you forsaken me?
I deserved this because I’d brought it on myself—the inevitable just desserts from all of the desserts. I looked up toward the sky. God, all the Oreos, chocolate chip cookies, and double fudge brownies!
With precision, I folded the paper in half. Then in half again, matching the corners. And half again. I slipped it into my purse, placing it carefully in the designated pocket where I organized my receipts.
26 yo obese Hispanic female with no significant past medical history presenting to clinic to establish care and for annual physical exam.
1. Obesity—discussed lifestyle modification including diet and exercise, recommended at least . . .
I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream, throw a tantrum, get help, get attention.
But I didn’t do any of those things. Instead, I buttoned up my embarrassment, waved a polite goodbye to the receptionist, and stepped out of the strip mall clinic. The bright, spring sunlight of Los Angeles slapped my face like an insult. How dare it be clear and sunny when I’d just received such horrible news? The good weather taunted me.
I was ashamed of myself. Ashamed to admit that I was overweight, even though I knew that was illogical. My weight was totally obvious. Everyone could see it. It was like admitting my age or gender. As much as I tried to hide, I carried my body with me everywhere I went, announcing to the world that I was too fat.
Or as the doctor said, “Obese.”
And now, as I’d just learned, my body announced, “Impaired glucose tolerance.”
That meant prediabetes.
Seeing those words in bold, black type hit me somewhere deep, with true aim. I had a medical condition that was severe enough to warrant a write-up by my doctor. Something was objectively wrong with me. If I didn’t change something, I was getting diabetes like my mom.
My thoughts raced, and I started to panic and to explain. Or blame. It wasn’t like I hadn’t known this could happen. I’d been the one shoveling food in my mouth. It was all my fault. I had no excuse.
The doctor’s report was a bad grade that I knew I’d get because I hadn’t studied. Since I was studious, however, a bad grade for me meant a C+, and this was much, much worse.
I could die. I could lose my vision or my limbs. At a minimum, I could live my life unable to go up stairs without breathing hard. But my body could starve itself without ever giving me any nutrients. I could be fat and always thirsty.
I needed to do something. Now.
I’d ignored my declining health and my bad habits, and I was the worst person ever for doing that.
But I couldn’t do it any longer. While I could put the paper in my purse, I really couldn’t file this news away in a drawer to never think about ever again.
Wake up, girl. Time to get your life together. Time to stop lying to yourself. Time to get serious about weight loss.
You’re no dummy. You know how to lose weight. Everyone knows what to do: less food, more exercise. No carbs. 1400 calories a day. Record it all on the app. Get skinny, finally.
Cookies count as calories!
As I walked down the sidewalk to the parking lot in my ballet flats, cars whipped past me along the huge boulevard, full of thin people with happy lives. This was L.A., land of personal trainers, identifying yourself by the type of diet you were on (“Oh, you’re paleo? I’m fruitarian.”), and plastic surgery for teenagers whose noses were too interesting.
Everyone looked good except me.
Everyone lived their lives right, except for me.
Despite the fact that I was a lawyer, I proved to be excellent at ignoring the evidence screaming at me: No matter what I did, my body grew bigger and bigger from my low-grade, constant weight gain. For years now, every time I went to Macy’s, I bought the next size up. That wasn’t supposed to happen, because once you reached adulthood, you were supposed to pick a size and stay with it. No one other than children outgrew their clothes.
But I’d been outgrowing my clothes every year. I didn’t think about what that meant, really. When I went from size 16 to size 18W, I paused before I walked to a different section of the store. From there it was just a matter of reaching for the hanger behind the size I’d previously been.
The transition from regular size to plus had sucked, but it hadn’t affected me like reading the doctor’s notes. Something about seeing those words—medical terms—written down, made me stop and focus on those five letters. O-B-E-S-E. Being called officially fat hurt worse than the threat of being diabetic.
I stubbed my toe on a section of the curb jutting out against the sidewalk.Ow!
Even the ground was out to get me.
As I limped to my ten-year-old Toyota, with my big toe throbbing, my cell vibrated in my purse. I fished it out of its compartment and saw an unknown number from the 805 area code, north of here.
