Psychological Warfare

There's a war going on. It's a big one.

What? You want proof?

You want weapons of mass destruction? You got it.

- The public
- Public transportation
- The three fat chick clothing stores out there (variety? pshaw, have a muumuu!)
- Floor boards

..........whut? I know, I know, floor boards threw you for a loop there, eh? Well, listen to a tale of woe.

On Saturday morning, after having not gone to bed until 1AM (or a little after), my alarm blared at 5, and I slapped it off so as not to disturb my houseguests (two friends stayed over). Exhausted and dragging, I filled up my water bottle and drank nearly a liter pre-run. I went out for my C25K run (still doing week 2, not comfortable moving on yet), came back, made breakfast, and we set out for the day's adventures.

After taking care with my lunch restaurant choices and recording the calorie counts from the menu, we went to a beach for sunset watching and Mario Party playing and then to an open front beach bar that I hadn't been to in years. It was nearly empty and the owners are very laid-back and cool and have (or had in the past) good relationships with the local foreigners, so they may have recognized me.

We ordered a couple of small things, a drink or two, and just chilled. The owners switched the music over to Michael Jackson and we seriously rocked out. We played ping pong. Here is where it goes bad.

Ping-pong is decent fun and I'm actually not bad at it (I'm not bad at most sports, actually... I'm just too fat to keep up with everyone else who's playing them). I went off chasing a rogue ball several times until one time when I stepped on a floor board... and went straight through it in my socks and landed on the bare ground below the bar.

How many 90 pound Japanese people have walked across that floor board? They could tap dance on a Faberge egg and the fucker wouldn't crack. It could have been either of the two girls I was hanging out with. It could have been one of the bar owners. But no, it was me, the 300 pound monstrosity chasing a damned ping-pong ball.

Everyone says, "Oh, the wood must have been rotten," "It could have been anyone, just a matter of time before it broke through," etc. The fact is that it was me, and I already feel fat enough on a daily basis in this country of walking bean poles without breaking through floors. Everyone was worried about me when it happened, thinking that I must surely have broken my ankle or something like that, but really, the look of horror on my face a mixture of humiliation and wanting to get my foot out of that hole as quickly as possible because I had no idea what was living down there. Visions of pre-historical insects crawling up my pants leg filled my head and I yanked myself out of the darkness immediately.

Anyway, we decided it was probably time to go after I broke the building and I left with as much dignity as I could muster.

I even managed to hold onto it at Mister Donuts and ordered the lowest calorie donut on the menu and drank my coffee straight and black.

At karaoke is when I lost it. I dove head first into the food menu and kept pestering my (not really hungry) companions to order something. Eventually, we ordered too much (pizza, fries, a cheese/cracker plate, edamame) and I ended up downing half of the pizza (3 slices), half of the fries, and a decent amount of the cheese. Two slices of pizza were left on the plate when it was time for us to vacate and I really, REALLY had to fight the urge I had to pick them up and jam them in my mouth. Not only is leaving food you've ordered a waste, it's also like lighting money on fire just to watch it burn. I hate doing it. But I did. A small victory, to say the least.

On Sunday, I made pancakes for everyone and had my own with butter and honey... I finished off the batter and refridgerated the two pancakes it made as leftovers. We went out for yaki-niku (generally translated as Korean BBQ... cook your own meat over hot coals at your table) and ate until we were all a little stuffed. After my houseguests went their merry way, I helped myself to those leftover pancakes that were just hanging out in my fridge.

SO, back to the psychological warfare of being fat... all it takes is one little nudge and I tend to run, screaming, back toward the comfort of comfort foods and the satisfyingly warm embrace of my glowing TV. Kids being assholes, falling through floor boards, being faced with a store full of ugly clothing - but the only clothing that fits, tensing every muscle in my body and squeezing myself into as small an area as possible on a reserved bus seat and still having the guy in the seat next to me complain to the driver so that he could change seats... being passed over by men again and again and again and again and again.

Dieting is like running through a field full of land mines while wearing clown shoes. Except in my case, it would be a food court full of hair-trigger activated pedastals holding greasy food and pastries.

This weight loss thing is hard. It's even harder when you're the fattest person for miles and miles around. Harder still when those miles are anything but friendly.


Anyway, I have a date with a Japanese rock star (well, a ticket to his concert, but he doesn't need to know I'll be undressing him with my eyes the whole time) this coming weekend, so I'm going to be on my best behavior. Maybe I can drop a few before I get there.