Fat Tuesday, Indeed.

It seems serendipitous to start my new blog off on this day, the high holiday of chubbiness, Fat Tuesday. It's a day that is tailor-made to my true nature: I am an indulgent creature, knowing moderation in no thing. I've wracked up insane debts (and have since paid them off), grown to immense proportions (and have since whittled down), and spent the ages from 13-30 drinking like a longshoreman (and have since pledged my abstinence).

It's the day before Ash Wednesday, when the fasting of Lent begins. Traditionally, we're supposed to rid our homes of fatty foods, eat them while we can-- enjoy, live it up, because tomorrow we'll start 40 days of wandering through the deserts of our deprivations.

To celebrate the day of indulgence, I treated myself like a queen, Molly Bloom rolling around on her duvet, chin soaked with butter and crumbs from her biscuit clinging to her sheets.

I did: I actually allowed myself to eat a Weight Watchers 2 Points Plus bar.

Did you think I'd actually eat something delicious? Did you think I'd head down to the cafeteria at work, mindlessly pick up some of the King Cake they were serving especially for the occasion, and have one last fling at the stir-fry station? Oh, you don't know me. We must not have met.

Nope, not me. For me, Fat Tuesday was very fat indeed. It was the day I weighed in at Weight Watchers with a whopping 2.8lb gain-- undoing the hard work of the three weeks preceding it. It was the day I swore revenge on the Sinister Scale, the evil entity that had ignored the runs I had gone on, the workouts I had endured, the sweets I politely declined for the past seven days. Fat Tuesday was the day I wandered into the cafeteria to get ice water to enjoy with my home-packed, calorie-counted salad lunch, only to see the King Cake on display and be brought back to my days in the dark basement of Camalier Hall, smoking weed with my friend from New Orleans.  Her mother sent her a King Cake every year at the start of Mardi Gras, as was the tradition, and in a pot-fuzzy haze we'd eat piece after piece until we found the plastic baby buried inside its sugary tomb. Whoever found the baby was lucky, they said. I really just wanted the cake.

This year, as I steeled myself against the onslaught of Fat Tuesday festivities, I thought about how Fat Tuesday embodied everything I was-- hedonistic, indulgent, uncaring, uncontrollable. And here I am, this year, like the six years preceding it that have followed my radical weight loss, wondering-- how did I end up this completely different person?

I can't shake it: yes, I'd like a Hurricane. I'd like crepes, I'd like buttery cake, sure-- I wanted to eat my way through Fat Tuesday. But instead, I counted my Points for my homemade salad and wondered if I should count my grilled shrimp as 3 PointsPlus or 4. In the end, I counted 4. There's one thing that hasn't changed, I still always go for more.  

Every day is Fat Tuesday.