Chronicles of a Late Bloomer

I hated The Twins the first time I saw them.

This is the story of how I cut them some slack.

I was a little late to my Weight Watchers meeting and was waiting in line, grumpily, wearing pajamas and flipflops and a 50-inch waist. The meeting had already started and so, as I daydreamed and drifted in and out of paying attention, my thoughts were peppered with applause and cheers. People behind me were sharing their victories and goals but I was just waiting to be weighed and hoping I hadn’t lost 12 pounds again, like I had during the first week of The Program.

I looked up from my thoughts, sorting through the people in the room as I always do, sizing them up: fatter than I, thinner, taller, shorter, whatever. I caught a few other people doing it, too — playing that old women’s game, “Who’s bigger?” No one wants to be the fattest person in the room, but those feelings are somehow intensified in a meeting full of women who gather together to clap about weight.

Then the door opened and two girls pranced through. I didn’t know at the time if they were sisters, or twins, or just best friends with matching inferiority complexes who felt compelled to use each other as mirrors. They were young, around 17 I’d say, and both blonde (but bleached blonder) with long, straightened hair. Both wore tiny little nylon shorts with a word splashed across the ass — “Hott” or “Princess” or something equally revolting. They were different brands of shorts on each girl, different colors, different cutesy words, but tiny little racing shorts all the same.

They wore trendy little tank tops under their trendy little hoodies and the wholly unforgiveable Uggs — different cuts, different colors, but Uggs. Four Uggs in one room. Four too many Uggs. God, I hate Uggs.¹

Neither of them could have weighed more than 120 pounds.

I wasn’t the only one who reacted. The other comparative-crowd-scanners also bristled when the girls walked in. “What are they doing here?” we all hissed, to ourselves. “This is our meeting.” But, the girls got in line with us. They paid. They got weighed. They bought some of the low-calorie snacks from the wall display, and then they left. They seemed oblivious to the invisible venom with which each of us would have killed them, had they only looked in our direction.

I spent the next week telling the story of The Twins to anyone who would listen. Then I’d roll my eyes and drawl, “God. Only in LA.”

The next Friday, as I pulled into the parking lot for another meeting, I saw The Twins again, crossing the street on their way to the building. When I saw them, I let out an audible groan. They were, again, in matching teeny-bopper costumes. Little shorts. Hoodies. Those. Damn. Uggs. As I slid past them, though, I noticed that they were walking with a middle-aged woman.

Their mother, I reasoned.

I parked and followed them through the glass doors, where I got a good look at the backs of all three of them. I had read Meta’s post about feeling the need to lose weight, even when the weight isn’t hundreds of thousands of pounds as it is for me. I had been thinking about it a lot, and about my bad-ish attitude towards other, thinner dieters. I watched the three blondes chatter cheerfully as I sized them up.

Their mother, a middle-aged soccer-mom type, could obviously lose weight. I’d say she could lose maybe 60 pounds, though I’m notoriously bad at estimating such things. Then, I noticed that one of The Twins (if they are in fact twins) was a bit pudgier than the other. She was rounder. She had fuller, lusher breasts and hips, even. She had a little double chin. I mean, don’t get me wrong — she is still adorable. Perhaps not thin, no, but definitely not chubby. Average. Perfect for a girl of 12 or 13, but as I said before, she’s probably 17. She was downright womanly and I’d kill to look like her but, as I walked behind them, I began to acknowledge: she could probably lose a few pounds without doing major damage to herself.

I started to have negative feelings toward the mother at that point. Who was she to suggest that this beautiful girl lose weight? Who was she to drag these girls to meetings and tell them they weren’t good enough?

In the meeting room, I watched as they approached the front of the weigh-in line. The meeting had started again, and I cringed against the applause. I wanted to feel sorry for myself; it didn’t seem fair. How am I supposed to try to live healthily if even my ideal is not satisfied with herself?

The thinner sister weighed first, and then the Fat Twin and their mother approached the weigh-in station together. I concocted a story, reasoning that the Fat Twin felt she hadn’t lost enough weight for the week, and wanted the receptionist to give the stats to her mother so she wouldn’t have to hear them. Maybe Mommy Dearest wanted to hear the stats for herself, rather than trust the teen’s report after she gets home. Make checks on a chore chart. Crack a whip. I don’t know… something heinous.

Then, the Fat Twin reached for her mother’s hand.

She leaned over the desk and said, in an appropriate and caring voice, “This is my mom.” I could only hear her because I was standing so close. “She hasn’t been here for a long time and she’s feeling bad about herself because she has put on weight. I’m came with her to be her moral support. Is it okay if I stay with her while she gets weighed?”

Wait.

Fat Twin is mom’s moral support?

An avalanche of thoughts fell on top of me, jumbling over themselves and drowning out my negativity and prejudice as they did.

Maybe the twins used to be fatter. Maybe they are at the end of a longer fat journey than I can guess by looking at them. Maybe they continued to attend meetings, week after week, without their mother because losing weight was something they wanted. Maybe they are supporting each other. Maybe they have goals, too. Maybe I am a terrible person.

How many times have I heard it? How many people — overweight, obese, or morbidly obese people — have reached a goal weight only to realize that, when younger, they had felt grotesque at the same weight that they now celebrated? How many people, like Meta, want to reign things in before they go too far?

How would my life have been different if my mother or sisters could have talked to me about their concerns about my weight? What if my pride hadn’t stopped people from stepping in and helping me, providing support and encouragement before I allowed my situation to spiral out of control? Where would I be now if I had started to eat better and exercise when I was only 20 pounds overweight instead of 140? 160? 175?

When will I learn the lesson that I am always wishing other people would learn about me?

That you can’t judge a book by its cover.

1. But I hate them most of all in Los Angeles, where they make no sense and girls always seem to pair these cold-winter clunks with micro-mini skirts or, as is the case, tiny little running shorts. [↩]