Three Fats and A Skinny: A Thousand Splendid Suns

Sunday, August 19, 2007

Sporty: A Thousand Splendid Suns

I just finished bawling my eyes out.......A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini is a heartwrenching novel about survival, hope, love and lost. The story, as told by two women, is set in Afghanistan during the last 30 years, has opened my eyes to a world I do not know. I was filled with emotions of guilt and gratefulness for the freedoms I am fated with ... feelings of kinship, hatred, horror, helplessness .... a desire to do.

A Thousand Splendid Suns is gutwrenching, tragic, revealing and relevant... with similiar themes to those in Rohinton Mistry's A Fine Balance...a must read.

The Story of Us

Here's a story,of a lovely lady
And three of her very be-est friends...
3 of them were overwe-eight--
The other one was thin...
(To the tune of the Brady Bunch Theme)

We've been friends for 20 years...yeah, we feel old. Back in the day, I (Posh) was the skinny one. I had this gaunt I need more food look. Fortunately, I had some padding in the right places so in the moment it wasn't so bad, in retrospect I looked hungry. Wasn't really into sports but I used to hike a lot (mountains, parks, waterfalls) with the family. Anyway, had a kid and I'd like to say that the whole pregnancy thing triggered off a latent hormone cycle that spiralled me, in the last 11 years, to 209 lbs...but I can't... It sounds a lot nicer, though, than I like to snack a lot and that great food can be the highlight of my day and that I go through intense cravings for cheese curls and macaroni pie and roti & curry (island food) and lemon crunch cake with vanilla ice-cream and that my concept of a "hike" now is my walk across the parking lot to get to work....and well, you get the picture. So that's me.

Then there's Sporty. Since back in the day she's been saying that she was fat. I don't think her size ever really registered for the rest of us. Most we may have thought was that she was "big boned"...cause she is... Think her height (5ft) may have accentuated what was or wasn't there. She's 235 lbs now. We looked at some home videos recently, though and realized that she had a really nice normal size...not too skinny...not fat...Didn't even realize it at the time. She's been the most avid weight-loss attempter. She can organize a weight-loss plan with the best of em... Weight Watchers, Body for Life, Random Weightloss clinic, Weight watchers, Exercise Boot Camp, Weight Watchers... She's gone through a couple of cycles. And when she's on, she's on! Dieting & Exercising Demon... She lost over 50lbs one year....only problem...she gained it back the next! She keeps on trying though...This year's gonna be a weight-loss year for her. She's a good inspiration!

Scary. I guess you could say she's always been the "fat" one... remember when we were really, really young her grandmother making a comment about how she drank too much juice...not sure if that was the actual case, but several years and glasses of juice later she's 238lbs. I think out of all of us though, she's the most comfortable and secure with her weight size. Not that she wants to stay that size but she's comfortable in her own skin. She's been focusing on the health issues of being overweight...diabetes runs in her family...ever the logical one though, she's given herself a deadline...this coming July, I believe...if she hasn't gotten it together and started losing weight, she's gonna get Gastric Bypass Surgery. She says she'd rather deal with those side effects than deal with Diabetes. She wants to choose her health issue!

And finally Ginger (aka Miss Skinny who went from a size 10 to a size 8 because she decided to embrace veganism as a healthier life style and who doesn't drink soda 'cause it tastes so artificial and who likes to wake up in the mornings and go for walks or even a nice afternoon walk....). Yeah, so Ginger...she was always a regular size I would say....had a moment in college where she put on some weight but she became a vegetarian and lost all the weight (just have to insert bitterly that I've been a vegetarian all my life and I'm still 209lbs...but oh yeah, I forgot I have the whole hormone thing going...) Anyway, I think she's been talking about how she's having problems fitting into her clothes so she's trying to do the whole exercise thing (more) this year. I don't even know how much she weighs... Who cares, anyway-- she wears a size 8!! I'd love to fit my size 18/20 self into her jeans! But anyway, in the spirit of best-friendliness: Go Ginger! Go Ginger!

So that's the gang.

Of course we have a few peripheral characters: Scary's husband who wants to be wearing a speedo, with six pack abs on a beach this November (No he's not even close to speedo wearing); Mimi,Ginger's friend and workout buddy (who would never think of using this blog as a way to distract herself from her dissertation writing); Sporty's cousin, Jill, who thinks she can take sexy back from Justin if she loses 20lbs; my skinny active sister, Spice, who always wants to exercise and "lose weight" (yeah, she gets the same kind of bitter comments as Ginger); My son who started reading food labels last year, to remind me of my caloric intake and weight-watcher points (even though I never asked him to, but he says he's just trying to help); and my villainous mother who notices every plate of food I eat and the number of cheese curl bags in the trash and just knows that I'm gaining weight, even though the scale says I'm maintaining and who says that I need to dilute my juice with half a glass of water...

So yeah, The chronicles of our weight-loss begins!

Three Fats and A Skinny

Sunday, August 19, 2007

Sporty: A Thousand Splendid Suns

The Story of Us

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