The FP/SP Theory

You may have noticed that my weight plays a major role in my life. I'm always thinking about how exactly I ended up gaining this much weight and how to lose it - kind of like the people in the ad who walk around with their scale chained to their leg - I'm always thinking about it. I exercise and lose, and then I eat and gain it all back. Yo-yo dieting has been my life. The so-called experts want to scare you into belieiving that if you yo-yo diet for many years - as I have - that you'll eventually end up permanently fat and unable to lose weight. Which, of course, is bullshit - as any dedicated yo-yo dieter will tell you who has gained and lost the same 20 or 50 pounds over and over again. They also say that fat people have to figure out why they think they don't deserve to be thin. Come on, who doesn't think they deserve to be thinner? I would think that if anybody thought they deserved to be thinner, it would be us fat folks.

Here's what I think. I have a better theory about why we just can't keep the weight off: Dual Personalities.

You see, there are essentially two people living inside of a yo-do dieter's brain: The skinny personality (SP), and the fat personality (FP). When we're the fat person (FP), we remember our old skinnier selves wistfully. We tell ourselves "Oh, if only I could be that person again, everything would be so much better," or "If I could just wear a skirt that didn't make my ass look like a couple of cats fighting in a sack, my life would be Capital-G Great!" So we diet and exercise for weeks and months until we finally lose that 20 or 30 or 50 pounds and we're our normal, thinner selves again. And that's when the skinny personality (SP) takes over. See, while FP remembers everything about SP, SP seems to have no memory whatsoever of FP. SP thinks she can do whatever she wants to do. SP is just plain arrogant. SP makes a feeble stab at working out for awhile, but she eventually just stops. SP also thinks she can eat chips and ice cream again - like every single day. SP does not want to believe that FP is just waiting to come out and take over the personality again because SP doesn't really remember FP. FP is just some vague memory which could possibly not be her at all, but some other person altogether. But eventualy FP does emerge again - stronger and sometimes even fatter, but always remorseful. Why oh why couldn't have SP just hung in there and stuck with the program?

Why does she always screw things up?

I think the trick is to do what any good psychoanalyst with a dissociative patient would do - merge the personalities. If you could merge FP's memories into SP's body, then I believe our nation's weight problem could be solved. Just think, you could be a normal weight person about to stuff a few cookies in your mouth and suddenly, there it is: The memory of your former FP's chaffed thighs rubbing together. Horrified, you stuff the cookies back into the bag and quickly drop to the floor and squeeze out a few dozen sit-ups, just for good measure. That would be great, wouldn't it? You know, with that kind of negative reinforcement, no one in their right mind would ever go back to being fat!

Now, I know most people can't afford the months and years of therapy required to merge their personalities into one lean, mean, fat-burning machine so let me just say that my new book, Psychoanalysis for Dummies, will be published soon. I felt especially qualified to write such a book because 1) I know a lot of psycho-babble bullshit and 2) I write stuff all the time. And just because my own personalities haven't been successfully merged into one, doesn't mean I don't know what I'm talkin' about.

I'm working on it, folks.
(cue inspiring background music)

I've got my new (in)stability ball and a DVD on how to use it that truly makes a complete fool out of me on a regular basis (and there's nothing like an overweight woman trying to stay in a plank position on top of a big rubber ball to bring a smile to my otherwise-sullen teenage son's face - and that's worth every penny, believe me). I've got my super duper diet. I've already lost a few pounds, and I HAVE A GOAL:

To be an SP again (please, I'm begging now) with a FP's memories.
(inspiring music fades)

Will I make it? Will I be able to successfully merge my FP with my SP? Stay tuned. If I succeed, you will be the first to know. If I fail, we'll pretend that we never had this conversation - agreed?

And no, I will not be offering refunds on the book.