But I was 120. It was the day of the L’Oréal commercial shoot. I should’ve been happy and yet I felt disturbed. My stomach was protruding very badly. It looked distended, almost. Or as my mother would put it, it looked like a poisoned pup. I hated it when stupid phrases like that popped into my mind. I hated that I had no control over my thoughts. But I especially hated that my stomach looked bloated and yet the rest of my body felt thinner. What was the point of dieting like I’d been doing, if on the most important day, my stomach was sticking out like a sore thumb?
I walked to the shower and punched my stupid stomach as I went. What could have caused this? The night before I ate only 200 calories of tuna with butter spray and mustard. How could I still see so much fat on my stomach? I stood under the shower and watched the water run between my breasts and over my stomach, cascading onto the shower floor from just past my navel because of the shelf that the protrusion of bulging fat had made. I picked up inches of fat with my fingers. It wasn’t just bloat, it was fat. It was real fat; not something that I could take away by drinking water and sitting in a sauna. I’d ignorantly thought I wouldn’t have any fat at 120 pounds.
I felt sick. I felt like I couldn’t face the L’Oréal executives and the stylist again after what had happened last time. My suits were at least bigger, but with my stomach puffed out like this, I didn’t know if that would even matter. What if I didn’t fit into anything again? I started to cry. Stupid weakling that I am, I had to cry and make my eyes puffy to match my puffy body. I had finished shampooing my head when I realized that I used the wrong shampoo. With all the crying and obsessing about my stomach, I accidentally used cheap shampoo instead of the L’Oréal shampoo I was supposed to use the morning of the commercial. Now I would have red puffy eyes, a fat stomach, and hair that felt like straw to bring to the set. A derisive laugh escaped my throat as I realized that I was the spokesperson for the new shampoo but didn’t use the shampoo that I’m selling because subconsciously I didn’t believe the famous L’Oréal slogan, “Because I’m worth it.”
“Because I’m not worth it.” I said it out loud looking at a zit on my chin in the mirror using the same inflection the other L’Oréal girls use to tell the world that they are worth it: the same inflection that I’d use that day. It sounded funny so I kept saying it as I walked around the house.
“Because I’m not worth it,” as I looked for pretty underwear that I didn’t have among the ugly, stretched-out panties in my drawer. That I didn’t think to buy some pretty, new underwear for the shoot was unbelievable to me.
“Because I’m not worth it,” I said as I sipped my black coffee, wishing I were thin enough to have creamer in it because the strong black coffee tasted putrid and assaulted my taste buds. I skipped breakfast altogether because I wasn’t worth it.
As I picked up my cell phone and walked to the door, I was aware of the time for the first time that morning. I was late. I should’ve been at the set already, and I didn’t even know where I was going. With a surge of adrenaline, I rushed out the door and down the stairs, trying to decipher directions from the map. I was the star of the commercial and I was going to be late. All those people would be waiting for me. The L’Oréal executives, the director, the hairstylist and makeup artist who were both so renowned they had published books and signature product lines—all of them were waiting for me. Maybe that was a good thing. Maybe that’s what stars were supposed to do. They’re supposed to display their power by making other people wait for them. As I caught one red light after another, I had a choice to be in a frenzy of anxiety or relax into a character that keeps people waiting—like an R&B diva or a rock star. The lyrics of “Pennyroyal Tea” came to my mind. “I’m on my time with everyone.” It was easier to play that character than to care.
17
WHEN ANN arrived I was still not at my goal weight. Although I had worked hard and I was ready to eat and drink with her, I still had weight to lose. I was 115 pounds and my goal was 110. I still had big thighs. I still saw round bulging thighs when I looked in the mirror. I didn’t know if getting to 110 would take the bulges and the roundness away, but it was worth losing the extra pounds to try to make them straight. I just wanted them to look straight. Still, I needed to at least allow myself to have a drink with Ann Catrina, as it had been a while since I had seen any of my friends and I needed to have a little fun. Besides, I knew that depression caused weight gain because of some kind of chemical in your body that is released if you’re unhappy and that can slow down your metabolism. Cortisol? Something like that.
Eating 800 calories a day was difficult. Not because it was too little food but because it was too much. One thousand calories divided perfectly into my daily meals, but no matter how I tried, I couldn’t quite get 800 to fit. I removed the egg whites from the breakfast menu, opting to eat a serving midmorning, which left me with just the oatmeal. I had gotten used to eating the reduced portion of the prepackaged single serving of oatmeal and now it weighed in at 60 calories a serving. I added some blueberries, Splenda, and the butter spray so with the teaspoon of Mocha Mix I got my 100-calorie breakfast. I ate 60 calories of egg whites at around ten o’clock. One hundred and fifty calories of tuna with 50 additional calories for tomatoes, pickles, and lettuce was ample for lunch. Three ounces of turkey with butternut squash was around 300 calories and then an additional 40 calories for miscellaneous things—like gum or Crystal Light and coffee throughout the day—brought my total in at around 700. Quite often, if I was working and didn’t have time to prepare the egg whites, then the daily total would be somewhere in the low six hundreds.
I fine-tuned my workout regimen. On days when I didn’t have to go to the studio, I would begin my workout at exactly 6:00. On days I worked, I got out of bed at 4:15. I ran for forty-five minutes on the treadmill at 6.0 on a 1 incline. I didn’t like running uphill. It did something weird to my lower back, but I felt I had to run harder and with my stomach tight to make up for it as most people run on an incline. I did sit-ups after my run. I did exactly 105 sit-ups. I wanted to do 100, but the 5 extra sit-ups allowed for some sloppy ones during my ten sets of ten reps. If I had time, I would do leg lifts: 105 with each leg. In addition to my workouts at home, I went to Mari Windsor Pilates and got a Pilates trainer. A costar had gone there and I’d read about Pilates in magazines so I thought I’d try it. It seemed that most celebrities were doing it, and I felt it was a particularly appropriate body-sculpting workout for me because it was originally designed for dancers and I used to be a dancer. It was slightly intimidating, however, because the other clients there were so thin and toned. It was a new goal to be thinner and more muscular than the other women at the Pilates studio, which ultimately was a good thing, because I have always thrived on healthy competition. After I was confident that I had the best body of all the paying customers, I would set my sights on the trainers.
Round Three: I was in my corner and Ann was in hers. Ann, a featherweight from New York City takes on Portia, the middleweight from sunny Southern California. Ann rang the bell by saying:
“Okay, I understand that you want to lose weight, but you should have some perspective on how much you’re losing—like some way of measuring that isn’t necessarily a scale. I know for me, there are clothes that are tight when I’ve gained weight and a little loose when I’ve lost weight. Certainly you have that, too. Like if you can fit comfortably into your skinny jeans, or if they’re just a little loose, you’re done losing weight, right?” She took a sip of wine, stroked my dog sitting in her lap, and waited for my response. I could tell that this conversation wasn’t easy for her. And while I was quite chuffed that she’d care enough to have it with me, I wished she’d just shut up.