The show wanted a home interview came the word from Mahalo’s video manager, Dallas. I walked Vivien around the block keeping an eye out for the crew for our 1:30 appointment on Wednesday. Somehow we’d crossed paths. Natasha called and said they were already inside – director Ben, shooter Samantha and writer David who did double duty on audio.
W’d cleaned up the place until the last minute, and I presented myself sweating profusely. My good shirt, spouse approved, was wet across the front. I brought my fat game. In all fairness it was hot. We had a lot of fun once we started shooting. Natasha said the reason she pinched my fat so hard was because she thought the fat parts didn’t have any feeling. She really thought that. She did it with a devious smile. The crew made it easy to relax and have fun. I wondered if they were going to edit it to make me look like an idiot. Ben told me we’d shoot a shirtless weigh in on Friday. At this point I was ready to let it all hang out.
Lights, cameras, action! Friday. Jason taught me how to make a healthy burger. It was pretty easy being talent as opposed to crew, which I had been on many projects before. No heavy things to carry. No important adjustments to make. Just don’t be dull. Not as easy as it seems as some of us are natural dullards. Jason carried the load in the dialogue department improvising off of cue cards about the nutrition of each ingredient.
A new Kate, not my fellow contestant, made sure the grams and calories were correct. This Kate was another writer and had recently lost forty pounds. I tried to look interested in the low sugar ketchup. A real makeup person prettied me up. We hadn’t started the diet part yet, so it was a happy happy joy joy moment. Easy shooting and a free lunch. Dallas had called in the morning to get my lunch order for a Tender Greens. Bar-B-Q chicken sandwich. When I weighed myself at home it was naked and before eating anything. For the official weigh in it was going to be after a full lunch! Why didn’t we eat the healthy burgers? We did. 92% fat free ground beef with low fat cheese. I was stuffed.
The Terrific Trio ; Mike, Martin and Kate before the weight in
We lined up for the weigh in and workout. Shoes on. Shirts stayed on. Two lunches in my belly. I ruined two takes not knowing when to leave the scale. Jason looked at me funny. I stood there in a food coma. Or it could have been the reading of 226lbs. Mike was 278. Kate was over 200. The excitement and ensuing routine must have shook loose a few of my smarts.
The workout wasn’t as bad as feared. I fretted a bit about my tender knees doing the lunges. And Jason needed a second to process that my lack of flexibility wasn’t a put on. We did obliques with a twenty pound exercise ball. “Grab your balls!”. Hard but fun. The exercises that is.
“Shirts off for the before pictures”. We all took our turn. I whipped of my shirt and got videotaped and photographed like a trophy fish. ‘Let it all hang out, baby’ was all I thought’. Oversized shirts never fooled anyone before. Let’s get the truth out there. Sometime there’s a good looking picture of me where I look like a guy, not a fatguy. But that hard belly fat crept all around my sides and up the middle of my back and in dense little pockets, to say nothing of my double chin. It might be tightly compacted. But all fifty pounds of it were there embedded in my body and consciousness.
We each received a bag of heathy burger and low calorie margarita ingredients, including a baby bottle of tequila. I walked out happy and called home to share.
From the first millisecond I knew Natasha was upset. An unpleasant incident with a client the night before went horribly wrong. The client drank too much. Third day in a row. Other pressures were in play. The client hit Natasha on her arm, hard. He thought, in his drunken haze, it was playful. Rightfully, Natasha was irate. She yelled at him and slammed the door on the way to the next room.
I should have yelled at him strongly and told him to get. Quietly, I wrapped the session thinking it best to keep a distance between him and Natasha. My nature is to chill things out rather than flare up. A little fire would have been better. Natasha and I talked that night and it seemed like we’d institute a no drinking rule and move forward. The next day, while I played around with dreams of being a fat-to-fit reality star Natasha went through a gamut of emotions processing what happened and how she was spending her life. This was as bad a moment as I’ve experienced in marriage.
From hope to despair in a moment. Natasha was the love of my life. I’ve dreamt of providing so much better of a life than I have. She was upset not only for feeling unprotected in her own home but for entrusting her life and existence with me.
The weekend was tough. We got back to functioning. Spending Sunday afternoon at the beach helped. Living only four blocks from the beach it’s ridiculous how rarely we’ve taken advantage of it. It shouldn’t take a crises to get there. Still, it helped.
I didn’t even look at the dietary and exercise instructions until Monday
Sunday night: no carbs, me hungry. Dinner was bok choy and three slices of low fat cheese. Natasha convinced me to skip cooking an entree. My tummy didn’t like it but it was a good call. I made us each a little cup of greek yogurt for the night time snack. In hers, granola and honey. I stuck with the plain. 7 grams of carbs per serving. That should be alright. Avoiding carbs at night is the hugest trick in this diet. It’s not meant to deprive. But eating extra light, as in making bok choy the entree was a good shock to the system to get the ball rolling.
Monday night: if I didn’t work out tonight I wouldn’t be able to get in two workouts before the regular Friday shoot/workout. It was 10:30 after a blazing hot workday. And a client brought over thick crust pizza, three pieces of which made up lunch and dinner. And the slice of cheesecake for desert. Hells bells, as my mother used to say. There was no makeup person in sight. I printed out the list of exercises and studied them, all the while gathering my forces – from the couch. If this show was going help me in way other than humiliation I had to do this myself.
The hardest part was getting out the door. I missed a few exercises because I didn’t know what they were. What on Earth are mummies? Once I made it out the door it was in the can. Twenty five lunges on each side got my heart pumping so hard I thought my ears would leak. No one really cared about the weirdo in the dark. The dog walkers, drunks, and happy couples went about their business. A pit bull smelled my ass. Kind of proud. Not about the pit bull.
This weeks’ presents were ground beef, condiments, Crystal Light powder and some veggies. Two shoots. Lots of fun. No pennies If you’re having fun sharing this journey with me please consider a donation or music purchase as part the good times.
“My Days On Being Fat Sucks: “Weigh In,” copyright © 2012 by Martin Blasick.
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