Wedding Weight

Chapter 4 - The Shame Spiral

Passers-by could not possibly imagine the mental forces that were warring inside Robyn's head. She was under a red awning outside of a Cold Stone Creamery, staring through the heavily fingerprinted floor-to-ceiling windows at the refrigerated display cases. And in those cases was the most satisfying ice cream on God's green earth. Caramel latte, cake batter, butter pecan. Frozen sugar-and-cream salvation in a crunchy waffle bowl.

Her face was expressionless, like a workplace shooter on the cusp of a massacre, knowing that it was not too late to just walk away... but also knowing how great it would feel to burst through the doors and start shooting all those fucking assholes in marketing.

Decisions.

It should have been clear to Robyn that she was on a downward spiral when she started lying to her own food journal. But Robyn told herself that it really didn't matter what she wrote in her food journal, as long as she was actually losing weight.

Which, by that time, she wasn't. 

Her early success — those heady twelve-point-eight pounds that had melted away in the first two months — would have seemed miraculous had she not suffered mightily for every globule of fat she had shed.

When Debbie told Robyn she needed to be committed, she wasn't kidding. She called Robyn's cell phone every morning at the inhuman hour of 4:30, chirping motivational clichés at her until she finally dragged her exhausted carcass out of bed and into the driver's seat of her Prius. It was a short drive to the personal training studio and she spent the whole time fantasizing about suddenly jerking the steering wheel and colliding with an oncoming car, so she could go back to sleep.

At Tenacity's state-of-the-art facility, Debbie put Robyn through her paces like a sprightly martinet. Whether it was weights, cardio or core, the pattern was always the same. Debbie pushed Robyn until she had nothing left. And then she kept pushing, insisting that Robyn still had more, if she could only let herself believe it.

This was an ongoing source of conflict. Debbie's argument was based on a curious melange of squishy new age babble and cutting edge scientific research in the burgeoning field of sports psychology. 

Whereas Robyn's argument was based on collapsing to her knees and gasping for breath.

They did this every morning. And then, in the evening, they did it all over again.

As bad as the exercise regimen was, the meal plan was worse. Not only were the authorized foods disgusting or, if she was lucky, flavorless, but the minuscule portions always left her with a gnawing emptiness in her stomach. She was told that the best way to deal with this was to drink a lot of water, which it turned out did nothing to quell her hunger pangs, but did send her running to the bathroom every ten minutes to pee.

Over time, Robyn's willpower began to wane. And the weight she had so painstakingly lost began to reappear on her hips, her thighs, until she actually weighed more than when she started. But through determined rationalization, a powerful process that, unfortunately, burns precious few calories, Robyn managed to explain away her reversal. 

Initially, she slandered her bathroom scale, unfairly accusing it of starting to weigh heavy. It was only when the scales at the gym and doctor's office corroborated her bathroom scale's testimony that she was forced to move on to a new theory. Which was that she had been building muscle, thanks to her rigorous exercise program, and as everybody knows, muscle weighs more than fat.

But then she stopped exercising entirely, at which point water retention shouldered the burden. She retained water when she was on her period. Or about to have her period. Or had just had her period.

Or when she was stressed. Which she always was. 

Because, as anyone who has done it can tell you, planning a wedding is very stressful. She had always considered herself pretty level-headed, but she found herself in a screaming argument with Brian — the man she loved, the man she would spend her life with — about whether their processional should be accompanied by a harpist or a flautist. And not because he disagreed with her, but because he didn't have a strong enough opinion. 

She had stopped speaking with her mother over the preliminary guest list, and whether or not it should include her slutty, alcoholic second cousins from Florida. 

And she agonized for weeks — weeks! — about whether the bridesmaid dresses should be huckleberry or windsor wine, only to discover that they were the same goddam color.

All the while, of course, there were the incessant calls from Debbie, asking why she had missed their latest work-out session. At first, Debbie's tone was one of gentle concern, but as Robyn's truancy continued, and her excuses became increasingly implausible, Debbie began to sound agitated and then betrayed.

So Robyn let Debbie's calls go to voicemail.

The breaking point came only minutes ago, when she tried on what she intended to be her bridal gown. She came nowhere near fitting into the size that she hoped to wear. This was doubly depressing, considering that she had dutifully followed her diet plan. And she had a food journal to prove it.

"Screw it," Robyn said, and pushed on the door handle to the Cold Stone Creamery. When it didn't budge, she pulled on the door handle instead, and that did the trick.

The two-toned electronic chime sounded when her meaty thighs disrupted the infrared beam in the doorway, heralding her arrival and announcing her defeat. 

Ding-dong.

Lo-ser.

Perhaps if there had been a line at the counter, Robyn's sense of obligation might have had time to marshal its forces and launch a counter-attack against her cravings. And perhaps the androgynous teenager behind the counter, with the paper hat, emo hair and star field of acne, would not have been so quick to look up from his or her Android and say, "Hi! What would you like?"

But there wasn't. And he or she did. 

So now Robyn was committed. What choice did she have but to order something?

"Dark chocolate," Robyn said in a voice infused with self-loathing.

"One scoop or two?"

Well, Jesus, she had already blown her diet. What difference did it make now?

"Two," Robyn said.

"Sprinkles?"

Robyn waved her hand in a sweeping why the hell not? gesture. The teenager smiled, revealing nicotine-stained teeth. "You want gummi bears?"

"You bet your ass I do."

Whatever conflicting emotions Robyn had been feeling, they were extinguished when the first spoonful of ice cream hit her tongue. They were replaced by a powerful, visceral sense of happiness, warmth, security. A labrador puppy curled up in her arms. Running through the sprinklers on a hot summer day. Pretending to be asleep so her parents would carry her into bed from the car.

As she left the store, the electronic chime sounded positively chipper.

Thank. You!

Another spoonful as she emerged onto the sidewalk. The wave of creamy chocolate washed over her taste buds, then melted away like the receding tide, stranding a gummi bear on her tongue. She chewed it happily, oblivious to the black van with darkened windows that was pacing her on the street.

The next spoonful would be her last for a long, long time. Had she known what was coming Robyn would certainly have savored that last luscious glistening dollop more than she did. But she didn't. So she didn't.

The spoon was halfway to her face when they grabbed her.

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