I play on like 85 sports teams now. Honestly I’m basically Jillian Michaels with my workout schedule. I play on my volleyball team. I start ballet tomorrow (SO EXCITED). My neighbor offered me a permanent spot on her dodgeball team (SOOOO EXCITED). I work out once a week with my fabulous trainer Kristen. I work out twice a week at the gym in my building. I basically have the fitness level of an Olympic gymnast at this point. But at least I can be certain that I will, at no point during any of this, lose weight. Why? Because my body is fundamentally resistant to weight loss. It’s also fundamentally resistant to weight gain. My weight will never, ever change for as long as I live, no matter what I do. Only three things are certain in this life: death, taxes and my weight.
At last, it is consistently cold and rainy in Seattle. I’m delighted about this. But I’m getting pale, and that depresses me and makes me look fat. So I’ve decided to be a typical Seattlite and use the tanning salon as my sunshine. I’ve been getting spray tans for years and years, but I haven’t actually been in a tanning bed since probably college. My Lord, these things have come a long way. When I was a teenager, they were just claustrophobic, boring, hot steel traps. They all looked exactly the same. These days they have mp3 jacks and speakers and fans coming from eight directions, and I swear they come in so many varieties you can basically choose which color you want your tanning bed to be. I was flabbergasted and confused. They also give you little stickers to put somewhere on your body before you climb in so you can see how tan you’ve gotten. It all feels very advanced. I feel old. I feel like a grandparent, like, “Why do we need all this cable television? What was wrong with the first four channels? Nothing at all, that’s what.”
I’m still on a lower dose of my meds, and so far it’s going well. I definitely feel more creative energy, and I’m sleeping much less, although I’m also sleeping less soundly. You’d think the constant exercise would help me to sleep well, but so far, even with my sleep meds, I’m not really doing much sleeping. But in general I do very well during the day, but then sometimes I’ll get a little spike of anxiety and it’ll scare the shit out of me. It’s like taking off the training wheels. I’m trying not to get panicky about it. It’s so weird, because for like 90% of the day I’m doing great and I’m feeling awesome about myself and independent and fantastic, and then all of a sudden I’ll be all like “Oh my God my life is going nowhere and I have no idea what I’m doing and everyone else is getting married and I’m going to be alone forever and I have no idea how to fix it.” And then I basically hyperventilate. And then twenty minutes later I’m fine again.
My dad had really good advice about the sugar binges. See, he’s a nutritionist, and I have been basically begging him to put me on a diet plan, and he keeps just telling me to exercise more. Last night I was like, “Will you please tell me what to eat?” He was like, “Look, Sasha, I know you. If I put you on a strict diet, you’ll go into an emotional tailspin when you can’t stick to it. And, trust me, you can’t stick to it.” Heh. So he said to make sure I eat three healthy meals a day and then to eat whatever the hell else I want in addition to it. He said not to count calories or sugar or anything. He said as long as I make sure to eat three solid, nutrient-containing meals a day, I can also eat an entire box of donuts and it’ll be fine. And you know what? It kind of works. I think it’s a good plan for me psychologically, and I didn’t go on a sugar binge tonight for the first time in awhile. Don’t worry, though. I still won’t lose any weight. My body doesn’t do weight loss.
