She's Losing It!: A quirky little memoir about weight loss, bodybuilding and small children

try.

DEAR FORMER ME: PART I

Dear Former Me,

My heart aches watching you sobbing in your car at Rylee’s nursery school last November, tears spilling over your fingers and wetting the steering wheel you were gripping so tightly.

Of course you were crying—your life was a mess: 50 pounds overweight, your marriage on the rocks, business failing, stressed over the kids. The world was collapsing around you and you felt so lost and alone. Well, I want to tell you a few things. First, it gets better. Your marriage is strong again. You are in the best shape of your life. The business finally made a profit last month and the kids are just fine . . .

BLOGGER CHALLENGE:

HOW HAVE YOU CHANGED IN THE PAST 2 YEARS

In the beginning of 2009, I had a road map for life. After the birth of our second child, my husband and I quit our jobs, moved from California to Texas, and became landlords of a 27-unit apartment building, just as the Great Recession got into full swing. Though my official title was CEO, my husband ran the business and I became something I had dreamed of becoming—a stay-at-home mom.

I made friends quickly with other mommies and Regina became my new best friend instantly. Our house was the biggest we could afford; we had two years’ living expenses saved in the bank and life was good.

In 2010 life went to hell in a handbasket. I got lost. Turns out being a landlord is really hard, especially when you don’t speak the same language as your tenants, the building is falling apart, and you blow through your life savings without a profit in sight.

Being a stay-at-home mom was way harder than I thought it would be. While I loved spending time with my children, I hated the never-ending monotony of household chores, lack of adult conversation, and not making any money.

Resentments built between my husband and me. I was mad he made all business decisions unilaterally and never helped with housework EVER. He was mad that I suddenly had a flock of friends while he was isolated at a thankless job all day and that my down-time was spent on chairing a fundraiser for Rylee’s nursery school instead of clipping coupons for our family.

We should have talked but it was easier to watch TV and eat chips. I gained weight. I felt like I was useless. We hurt each other in ways that only married people can do.

By November 2011, I had had enough. I was tired of being fat. I was tired of feeling marginalized. I wanted back the power I had so easily given away. I decided to shock my system and try something radical: For my birthday gift to myself, February 2012, I was going to enter a bikini competition at age 38 and size 14.

I thought female bodybuilding would just mean lifting weights and eating healthy, but that’s like saying getting pregnant just means your belly gets a little bigger. It was a life-changing, jaw-dropping experience for me. Mentally, physically, sexually, emotionally—everything changed.

I never realized how many emotions were tied to my food consumption. I never realized how many lies I had told to myself to avoid facing hard truths about my life. It took a trainer to call me out on every single bullshit excuse before I broke though my own mental blocks.

Today, I’m back in the driver’s seat, the roadblocks of the past in my rearview mirror. At size 1, I’m in the best shape of my life. I stand tall, proud of my body, proud of my marriage and kids, and proud of the active role I reclaimed in our family business.

I feel like Rocky. Only in 5″ heels and a bikini.

Here’s my story.

NOVEMBER—THE TALK

Did your doctor ever give you The Talk? Although not quite as embarrassing as The Birds and the Bees Talk of puberty, it’s up there with top conversations I’d like to wipe from my memory. If you never received it, this is how it goes.

The doctor looks over your chart. The one with your weight on it. And everyone knows that doctor-office scales are at least three pounds heavier than home scales. Plus, you’re wearing clothes when the nurse weighs you, right? Clothes are at least 17 pounds . . .

Doctor: How is your nutrition?

Lisa: (Uh oh. . .) Fine . . . well, um . . . maybe I should probably be eating, you know, a little bit better.

Doctor: Do you eat fruit?

Lisa: I eat apples with my kids. (Maybe I won’t fail this pop quiz after all!)

Doctor: Every day?

Lisa: Uh . . . no? Like maybe every other day?

Doctor: You should be eating fruit every day. And vegetables?

Lisa: (Oh God!) Um . . . do potatoes count as a vegetable?

Doctor: They are carbohydrates. Any green vegetables?

Lisa: Sometimes I eat salad . . .

Doctor: Do you exercise?

Lisa: Well I can’t really make it to the gym, but I chase after my kids, you know, Rylee and the baby.

Doctor: How old is your baby now?

Lisa: Um . . . two and a half? (I begin to flush red. Oh no. Here it comes. The Dr. Phil moment.)

Doctor: Lisa, you’re overweight and it’s not from the baby anymore.

Lisa: I know.

I hang my head from embarrassment. I’m sitting on that cold examining room table and wearing a hideous blue robe that does not cover everything. Well, perhaps it covers most people, but not me, because the doctor has just informed me (and noted on my chart) that my BMI is 29, which is borderline obese. Obese? Really? It seems more like I’m just chubby.

Doctor: Have you tried a pedometer? It measures how many steps you take each day. You can wear it and aim for a higher number each day.

Oh God, I’m so out of shape he thinks all I can do is a pedometer? I thought those were only for obese people. Oh no, does he really think I’m almost obese?

SECRETS

My BFF Regina is coming over tonight with her husband and kids. We met at the nursery school orientation last year and really hit it off. She is a born and bred Texas Republican who goes hunting (Don’t Mess With Texas), and I’m a Jersey girl liberal who listens to 1990s gangsta rap, but we love hearing each other’s perspective on things and are in total agreement about being obsessed about our kids.

It is a very fancy nursery school—our toddlers had to take IQ tests to be accepted (IQ tests at three!). I loved this nursery school and totally drank the Kool-Aid, volunteering to be the fund-raiser chairperson and raising something like $34,000 for them. I had hoped that this would translate into a barter—I would do all their fundraising in exchange for my daughter’s tuition, which would be raised to about $8,000 once she started kindergarten, which (to my math) put them ahead by $26,000, but it didn’t work out. They don’t do barters.

The tuition for last year was $5,000, which we could afford. But then all hell broke loose with our real estate business, the economy kept tanking, and the bills kept piling up. This year, nursery school goes five days per week, so there was a rate increase. I had to ask my mother for a loan to send Rylee to school—$6,000. And that was a discount because she only goes half days! Rylee is the only student in her school who leaves at lunchtime; the rest of the kids stay until 2:30 p.m. She doesn’t understand why she has to leave early and sometimes cries when I take her home. I just try to distract her.

My husband, Henri, doesn’t like that we borrowed the money and neither do I. My mom says I don’t have to pay her back. I’m 38 years old and can’t pay for nursery school.

But Regina is coming over and I can’t wait! I used to see her a lot more last year because I was always at the school since I ran the fund-raiser. But since the job/tuition exchange didn’t work out, Henri and I agreed I wouldn’t do any volunteering. Plus, little Henry is quite a handful these days. I’m trying to get him potty trained but he’s not interested.

They finally get here and the kids run amok and the adults get to drink alcohol. Yay! I’ve baked about three dozen chocolate chip cookies—the good kind—with lots of extra love in the form of double bags of chocolate chips and walnuts. Henri has made his famous garlic dip, which is just cream cheese and garlic salt—which doesn’t sound so great, but trust me it’s amazing—to go with bags of wavy potato chips. Henri and I drink rum and Cokes and Regina and Payman are going for the Jack Daniel’s.

The men only last until around 1 a.m. (novices!) and then finally, finally, it’s just Regina and me. We have a ritual for these little get-togethers. Once all the kids and men leave us alone we let loose with the cuss words.

@#$%!$#%@!#$!!!!!!! we said, (only we used real curse words and not cute little symbols).

And then Regina really impresses me and cusses in French and Farsi. (What would @#$%! look like in Farsi and French? Probably القرف and merde!) She is my hero. We proceed to get tipsy and delight in the feast before us. After we get through the conversations about our kids and potty training and gossip, she talks about her work (she’s a lawyer) and I touch on our business, but I’m not in the mood to stay there, so I tell her about the newest story I’m writing. It’s a romance novel set in the late 1700s with the leading lady a banker’s daughter and the leading man a Scottish Highlander, but he has a secret reason why he’s marrying her.

But somehow in telling the story I tell my own secret: my husband and I aren’t getting along. At all. I tell her about my meltdown in the school parking lot, and the tears flow freely aided by alcohol and embarrassment.

Oh, Lisa, I’m so sorry to hear that, she says pulling me into a hug. She is crying too, but her tears are angry ones. I have to take a minute to compartmentalize the facts that Henri is my friend, and I like him, but I can’t believe he said that to you.

I talk about my weight, and how I can never seem to keep it off, but even when I am thinner we still are walking on eggshells around each other. My husband aside, I never feel totally good when I’m thin because I think people won’t like me.

What? That doesn’t make any sense. Everyone wants to be the cheerleader type.

"I know it doesn’t make sense, but it just seems like people are nicer to me when I’m heavier. Well, women are nicer to me. When I was living in New York and acting off-Broadway, I carried about twenty extra pounds. When I lost the weight I started booking more jobs. And then I moved to L.A. and got that gig on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I was one hundred seven pounds. And I said to my roommate, ‘OK, I’m off to my audition.’ ‘Good luck,’ she said and then after I closed the door I heard her say, ‘Skinny bitch.’"

She was jealous.

She was my friend, and then she wasn’t. I know it’s stupid, but I just want to be liked. You’d think I’d have outgrown this need in middle school but it’s always there. I pull out a chip from the bag and skim it around the dip bowl.

We talk about school and college and our past relationships. I don’t know any woman who made it out of college alive, she said.

What do you mean?

You know.

The fact was, I did know what she meant, and that’s another reason why I never want to get too thin—I don’t want the unwanted attention from guys. I’d experienced a truly horrific incident while in college, something I’d never told anyone, and didn’t like thinking about.

I’m entering a bodybuilding competition, I tell her randomly.

What? Where is that coming from?

You know the new 24 Hour Fitness that opened? Well they were offering a special—three sessions for one hundred fifty dollars. I didn’t tell Henri, he would just think it was a waste of money, but I took the last cash from my maternity check and paid for it. This trainer, Chris, used to work in an office and lost a ton of weight, and she said she was entering a bodybuilding competition as a challenge, so I think I’m going to do that too.

You want to be a bodybuilder?

"Well, she said there was a bikini division where you didn’t need to have a ton of muscles, just look soft and toned. Regina, I’m tired of feeling fat; I’m tired of feeling useless; and my stupid twentieth high school reunion is coming up. I’ve got to do something."

A beam of sunlight shot in through the window and we both squinted.

Holy shit, what time is it?

Five a.m.? Quick! Eat the last cookies before the kids wake up!

We break into fits of laughter and it’s the lightest I’ve felt in years.

CELEBRITY CIRCLE

What on earth were you two talking about that you stayed up all night? Henri asked. He’s sitting on the couch, watching football, eating popcorn and drinking beer. We have the best popcorn ever. Two years ago I bought him an old-fashioned popcorn machine that uses coconut oil and it tastes like real movie popcorn, because we put a ton of butter and salt on it.

Everything, I said sitting down next to him. I’ve been in the office, working on my novel. Whenever I’m really trying to work through something I write. I put my characters in similar circumstances but in different time periods as me and then play what if? games. What if the leading man pushed her too hard? What if the leading lady stopped pretending nothing was wrong? Would things get better? Worse?

I begin to eat out of his bowl. Who’s playing?

Patriots versus Giants.

I hope the Giants win. Not only because they’re a better team, but also so I can soothe Tom Brady after the game in a way his supermodel wife, Gisele, never could.

Without looking at me, Henri picks up a handful of popcorn and throws it at me, shaking his head. That’s your outside voice, you know.

Hey, he’s in my Celebrity Circle*.

We continue watching for a few minutes and I move a little closer and begin to kiss his neck. He shifts away a bit. Honey, I’m watching the game.

We watch in silence.

A Victoria’s Secret commercial comes on. The woman is impossibly thin and beautiful. I never cared about those ads, but I can’t help but feel inferior. Henri is leaning forward, drinking his beer.

Henri, I know what I want for Christmas.

What? he asked, slightly annoyed.

Henri, my grandmother called. She wants her underwear back.

What? That pulled him away from the screen.

I’m entering a bodybuilding competition. I won’t be able to do it on my own; I’ll need to get a personal trainer who can give me a diet. I know the diet is supposed to be really intense or something, but I don’t know what they eat. I spoke to the manager and he said if I buy ten sessions they could give me a super discount and only charge me seven hundred dollars minus one hundred dollars for another side promotion, so it would only be six hundred dollars.

Six hundred dollars? Are you nuts?

Hear me out. That’s only sixty dollars per session. I can stretch out the sessions too. The competition—it’s called Shredder, isn’t that a cool name?—it’s in April, so if I start the training the same week as my birthday in February, and maybe do it every other week or something, I can stretch the sessions to last until then.

He’s sitting with his arms crossed over his chest, pretending to listen and subtly shaking his head ‘no.’ Whenever I hear someone tell me ‘no’ it just means I’m not explaining it right.

Don’t you want me to look hot in a bikini?

That perked him up.

Lisa, I used to bodybuild in my twenties and the women who did it overbuilt their arms and looked like scary gorilla women.

"That’s why I’m entering the bikini division. See, the point is to just look toned and soft. Like a Victoria’s Secret model."

He is seriously considering the ramifications of that possibility.

How did you even come up with this idea?

I have something to tell you.

You already signed up for this.

No. I took the last of my maternity check money and bought three trainer sessions and the lady, Chris, said she was going to enter the competition.

So now you have to? And—

I didn’t want to tell you I did the trial session because I know we’re tight for money right now. But it was my money and I’d rather spend it getting healthy than just going out to Starbucks.

"How come the maternity check is your money but the money I make is our money?"

Henri, we’ve been through this. I went back to work when Rylee was three months old while you got to stay home, with the occassional babysitter who did the laundry, by the way, while I worked until Henry was born. I didn’t bug you about your money/my money then. Look, I don’t want to fight, I just want to lose weight and look good for my reunion, and what I’m doing clearly isn’t working. I ran the half marathon last year, I did the cayenne pepper lemonade cleanse, I tried Nutrisystem®, God you know I’m trying, but nothing is working, Henri.

I exhale. This isn’t going like I planned.

Victoria’s Secret model, huh? he says.

I smile.

OK. Merry Christmas and happy birthday. And happy Valentine’s Day. Seven hundred dollars? Christ.

*Celebrity Circle is an agreement we made up one night while watching TV. It goes like this: "In the unlikely event that we are stranded on an island with a hot celebrity, we give each other the right to totally make out with said celebrity provided their name was on the pre-approved list of celebrities. Henri’s list includes Brittney Spears (but only when she’s not crazy), Kate Upton and Taylor Swift, among others. We are both totally cool with this.**

**If you are my mother reading this: It’s a JOKE, Mom! Of course we wouldn’t cheat on each other, even with a celebrity. Duh!***

***If you are Henry Cavill, aka Superman, or Tom Brady, please disregard that last note. We have a Celebrity Circle.

HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS

The four pounds I lost while working out with Chris throughout November were easily put back on and then some by December. We’re at my mom’s in New Jersey and the kids are on one giant sugar high from all the chocolate and Christmas cookies. Thank God my older brother, Dennis, is keeping them occupied so I can socialize with my friends from high school that I still keep in touch with.

I had warned them that I had gained weight since the last time they saw me, but my best friend since childhood, Meghan, can’t hide her surprise. She hands me her son and takes off her coat, the cold air still on it.

Oh, Lisa, what happened? she whispers.

It’s been a tough year.

How much do you weigh?

One hundred fifty pounds, I mumble sheepishly. I’m hugging her baby, not just because he’s adorable, but because I’m using him as a human blocker to hide my body from her.

She sees how upset I am. We go inside to the living room where Deirdre and her husband, David, are talking to Henri. Their daughter, Jayden, is now BFFs with my daughter, Rylee. My other friend, Jenny, is on her way.

I’m doing a bikini competition in April, I announce.

Wait, what? asked Deirdre.

This whole, ‘I’m going to be healthy eventually’ thing is not working out for me, so I need something specific to work toward.

Don’t bodybuilders eat boiled chicken or something? asked David.

I don’t know. I know the diet is important, but the trainer I worked with wouldn’t tell me anything about it. I’m not sure I want to train with her, though, because I’d have to compete against her and wouldn’t that be weird? Do you think I’m weird for wanting to do this?

No. I think it’s cool, said Deirdre. She used to have crazy long curly black hair, but with raising Jayden, it got to be too much and she cut it off. It looks cute.

I cut my hair off, too, only with less appealing results. Nothing really seems to make me look better these days. My pants are too tight so my mom loaned me her stretch pants with the elastic waist. I know I should buy clothes that fit me, but I don’t want to. I’m 5′2″ and my size 14s are getting tight. I never got rid of my maternity clothes.

Hey, how’re your book sales going? asked Meghan.

My husband snorts.

OK, last year I wrote this children’s book called Mind Your Manners Minnie Monster and I did the illustrations too. Everyone I showed it to said it was really good, and I should submit it to publishers, but I was too afraid of getting a rejection letter, so I decided to sell my old Mustang and use the money to self-publish. One of the moms from Rylee’s nursery school did the design layout for me and set up a website. But I was so focused on breaking through that mental block of getting it published, I never considered what to do with it once it was done. I set up an Amazon account, but my book was on page 9,000. I didn’t have a distributor, so I couldn’t get it into libraries or bookstores. I went to this book expo in New York with Henri and these people called The Book Doctors said that the book was really good but I needed to start a blog to develop an audience. The whole blogging idea scared me. Who would want to read what I wrote? And what would I even write about, anyway? The one bright spot here, though, was that my book won a silver Mom’s Choice Award. So I don’t know how to sell anything, but at least someone other than my family said I could write. That was nice.

Meghan’s baby, Cameron, is exploring the Christmas paper, which is apparently far more interesting than the gift inside. Meghan looks great. You’d never know she had a baby.

I’m eating Hershey’s Kisses and Henri is watching me, mildly pissed off. I think he’s calculating all the money he’s about to waste on this little bikini project of mine.

That said, he also gives me my Christmas gift after everyone leaves. I’m not expecting anything other than the training sessions. I open it to discover a giant pink Victoria’s Secret gym bag with pink sparkles all over it, filled with pretty undies in every size between XL and petite.

Whatever size you are, you’re too pretty to be wearing granny pants, Lisa, he said, and he kisses me.

It’s two o’clock in the morning and everyone is asleep. The Christmas lights are blinking on the tree. This is the first year since my dad died that my mom put up a tree. I told her that a poinsettia plant wouldn’t cut it this year; the grandkids were coming.

I used to put up the artificial tree with my dad every year. We would lay out the branches into different piles. There was red, yellow, blue or white paint on the metal tip of each branch. My mom and brother hated putting it together so they would watch football. My dad and I would talk about politics and world events. I’d tell him how I was going to be an Academy Award winning actress some day and he believed me.

As I sit on the couch, going through old photos of my father, the lights are blinking. And I’m blinking back tears.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Part of my gym membership means I get to take free classes, so I signed up for a 5 a.m. boot camp and a Body Pump class. I am wearing my husband’s T-shirt because my shirts no longer fit me and I refuse to purchase fat clothes when I know that I’m going to have a totally rockin’ size 5 body in four months.

The gym is mobbed, even at 5 a.m. It makes me happy when I see I’m only mid-range heavy compared to the other people. Some women are wearing cute yoga outfits with matching hair accessories. Who does that? At 5 a.m.?

My hair is just long enough now to put in a messy ponytail. The lights in the class are super bright fluorescent and the music is really good, but I have no idea who’s singing it. It occurs to me that I haven’t listened to anything but kids music for the last half decade.

The warm-up consists of running from one wall to the other. That took out about one-third of the class. I run at the speed of walking, but I won’t stop until I’m done. I learned how to push through that when I ran marathons before having the kids.

As I exit the class, the personal trainers begin to arrive at the desk, waiting for their clients. They all wear red shirts and black shorts or sweatpants and carry clipboards. Some trainers actually look like they could use a trainer themselves. They kind of have pot bellies. I guess even trainers eat too many holiday treats. But most are super fit and muscular.

When I go home I eat one of the leftover meals from my Nutrisystem box. It’s corn flakes in a self-contained bowl. Just add milk. It doesn’t really taste that good, but I lost weight when I was on the plan. But I’ve eaten all the good ones, so now the sucky ones like turkey hot dogs and meatloaf are the only meals left. There are a few cans of chili too. The split pea soup, surprisingly, is pretty tasty. Maybe I’ll have that for lunch. I’m trying to lose some weight before I go to my first training session.

IT GETS EASIER

Later that day, it’s time to leave nursery school, only my kids don’t want to go home. We are in the common area with all the other well-behaved children and their ubermoms who have stopped by to have lunch with their kids.

The other children were making advanced robotics and speaking fluently in Chinese and Farsi. My kids? One was having the mother of all temper tantrums and the other was literally running in circles holding a Lego.

Bending over to try to get the one child off the floor, it began to rain Cheerios from the overstuffed (and apparently open) diaper bag on my shoulder, and my shirt flew up, exposing to the world that even though my baby was two years