* Weighing in a day early as I’ll be without reliable Internet tomorrow. More importantly, I’ll be planting perennials because I am a GD gangsta. *

Wassup, homies? Have I told you lately how kind it is of you to pop by? Well, it is. Someone out there popped in from New Mexico last week. I figure it was Jesse Pinkman. If you don’t know who that is, we need to have a talk about our relationship… and how it’s over.

“Hey, Lori. What made you decide to start shrinking now? Besides your start date being the 30th anniversary of losing your V-card, was there anything else? Did you have a health scare or something?”

Great question. Let me be candid with you. Despite my sunny disposition and penchant for humour and silliness, being overweight is an albatross around my neck that kept getting heavier and heavier. For years now, every morning before I opened my eyes, I would think about how fat I was and start the day with a scowl and a healthy dollop of self-hatred. Every night, I would wait til everyone was sleeping, then I would binge til I finally went to bed. And despite what you might imagine, it wasn’t terribly sinful food. I don’t keep a lot of temptations in the house. It wasn’t a Haagen-Dazs and Doritos party; just too much goddamn food.

My hair looks like this on full moons.

People kindly say I’m brave to lose weight in a public forum. Maybe. But whether I shout it from the rooftops or not, weight loss and gain is public anyway.

• It’s brave to don a swimsuit at this weight in public. My eyes are down, I pray that people aren’t staring, and I quickly dive (yeah, that’s right – dive, mofos) in before I start imagining their ridicule or judgement. I’m of the opinion that anyone mocking a fat person exercising deserves a swift, steel-toed kick to the balls, in case you were wondering. I wonder if they’d laugh at an alcoholic ordering a soda pop.
• It’s brave to get on an airplane knowing that everybody’s thinking, “Please don’t sit next to me,” and then sitting leaning into the window or the aisle the whole way so you’re not in their space. God forbid it’s a small plane with shorter seat belts and you need an extender. Death by humiliation.
• It’s brave to start stand-up comedy for anybody. I was 40 years old and female (still am one of those things; you figure it out) as well, and it was the scariest thing I’ve ever done.  It’s brave to do comedy in a redneck, rigger town in Alberta, knowing that the drunks aren’t going to mistake you for the stripper and that you’d better be ready to defend yourself verbally. I start with self-deprecation hoping to take them out at the knees early. “Hey, I’ll mock myself so now you don’t have to, okay?”

Pardon me. I went off on a bravery tangent.

Why weight loss now? Because I’m terrified of being on a TLC show where they have to take down a wall of my house and crane me out to the hospital because I’m on death’s door. I’m terrified that the symptoms of an eating disorder will eventually win over and lead to that kind of isolation and depression. I’m terrified that I won’t ‘fit’ in the real world.

Roy Daye

Health scare? No. I am keenly aware and bloody grateful that none of the major risks of being overweight have physically struck me. Two things have struck though: About 7 years ago, I was diagnosed with a very mild case of asthma, i.e. I use inhalers on average twice a year; so seldom that I often forget to travel with them. One winter night at a gig in Revelstoke, I needed them and didn’t have them. At 1:00 am, I woke up comedian Roy Daye with a text and he came to my door, a black man in a white bathrobe holding an inhaler, like an angel of mercy and gave me the gift of deep breathing again. Despite what some of you think, this was not a well-engineered ploy to get a black man in my hotel room. Stop smirking. The other thing is that I had my gall bladder out 6 years ago which is likely due to too much weight and too fatty a diet. I don’t miss the attacks, but I pine for the Percocet.

Let’s all knock wood together when I say that I have dodged the bullets of: diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, heart attack, heart failure, infertility, stroke, sleep apnea, osteoarthritis, gout and some cancers. Yeah, that’s a lot of bullets to dodge. You might say I have more than a few horseshoes up my arse (clearly contributing to my weight). I attribute some of the ‘luck’ to being of hearty stock, drinking very rarely, not smoking much and having an extremely positive attitude.

For the record, I emailed my doctor of many years this past week. I told her I’m on this adventure and am eating less, moving more and seeing psych. She was encouraging and supportive and I’ll keep her posted on the results. She’s a gem. Anyone who’s helped get two humans out of my nether regions and is willing to talk openly about the different female orgasms is tops in my books.

This has been a “shit’s gettin’ real, son” kind of post, I realize. This shit is real. You know what else is real? I lost 3 pounds this week. Tell the crane operator to kill the engine. I’m going to be okay.

Love,

Lori

Twitter: @lorigibbs

My Fitness Pal: lorihasfun

Weight lost this week: 3 lbs

Weight lost to date: 11 lbs