past. It protects you from the external distractionsâthe critical comments, the probing questions, and the spoken and unspoken doubtsâso that you can focus on the task at hand: getting healthy, getting fit, and getting stronger and more confident. But what about your inner critic, the voice inside whose favorite words are âyou canâtâ and âneverâ? The next chapter will reveal the secret to dealing with the saboteur inside.
Chapter Three
Secret #3: Adopt INO: Itâs Not an Option
I had a mantra before I really even knew what one was. Hereâs how it all started: I was a pretty good student in high school, getting mostly Aâs and Bâs (except for that completely unfair D in trig that Iâm still bitter about). I wasnât quite as smart as âThe Brains,â as we called the kids at the top of the class, but close enough that I counted some of them as friends.
What kept me from superstudent status, I think, was less about pure ability and more about my study habits. Oh, I did my work (a good girl wouldnât slack on homework), but I wasnât the kind of kid who toiled away at the kitchen table late at night agonizing over a paper on some obscure historical event or drilling myself on the anatomy of a fetal pig. No, by 10:00 P.M . I was snoozing.
I just didnât have the drive to excel. Maybe, I think now, it was because of my desire to stay invisible. I couldnât be the kid who won first prize at the science fair or who was chosen to read her A+ essay aloud to the class or who was singled out in any way. I held myself back, afraid of that blinding spotlight that would show every little failure and flaw.
In college, though, I learned to appreciate the value of the all-night study session. It was partly an image thing. I was the only one in my senior class headed to the 2,500-student campus in Austin where Iâd chosen to spend my undergraduate years. I saw college as a chance to start over, to shed some of the nerdy image Iâd been saddled with since grade school. After all, no one knew me. Oh, anyone could tell by looking at me that I was a Fat Girl, but other than that, there was no preconceived idea of where I belonged in the social structure of the place. At my school there wasnât even all that much of the typical college caste system where the lowly freshmen are not to fraternize with upperclassmen. Plus, no one knew my history. They didnât know, for instance, that the guy who took me to the senior prom got my name off a list of girls who were still dateless three weeks before the dance. (Anyone who was anyone, of course, had a boyfriend or was paired up months in advance.) They didnât hear about the time I started my period in the most obvious way, all over a pair of pale green elastic-waist pants, and walked around the school, oblivious. They might have noticed that I was a Fat Girlâhad to, actuallyâbut they didnât seem to quite get what that meant. And that was just fine with me.
Itâs not like I all of a sudden did a 180 and became some uninhibited, outspoken, take-charge kind of girl with a social calendar as packed as Paris Hiltonâs. But I did feel more comfortable reaching out to the girls in my dorm and was more receptive to their efforts to reach out to me. It didnât hurt that most of them were in the same situation as I was. They were from all overâNew York, Virginia, Florida, and other towns in Texasâand didnât know anyone, either. We all needed one another, so there was less risk of rejection than Iâd experienced trying to navigate my clique-heavy high school.
Even so, the last thing I wanted to be pegged was as a nerd, and only a nerd would be organized and conscientious enough to be finished studying in time to get eight hours of sleep the night before a test. No, the cool kids had to cram, and I wanted to be one of the cool kids.
There was a more practical
Chapter Three
Secret #3: Adopt INO: Itâs Not an Option
I had a mantra before I really even knew what one was. Hereâs how it all started: I was a pretty good student in high school, getting mostly Aâs and Bâs (except for that completely unfair D in trig that Iâm still bitter about). I wasnât quite as smart as âThe Brains,â as we called the kids at the top of the class, but close enough that I counted some of them as friends.
What kept me from superstudent status, I think, was less about pure ability and more about my study habits. Oh, I did my work (a good girl wouldnât slack on homework), but I wasnât the kind of kid who toiled away at the kitchen table late at night agonizing over a paper on some obscure historical event or drilling myself on the anatomy of a fetal pig. No, by 10:00 P.M . I was snoozing.
I just didnât have the drive to excel. Maybe, I think now, it was because of my desire to stay invisible. I couldnât be the kid who won first prize at the science fair or who was chosen to read her A+ essay aloud to the class or who was singled out in any way. I held myself back, afraid of that blinding spotlight that would show every little failure and flaw.
In college, though, I learned to appreciate the value of the all-night study session. It was partly an image thing. I was the only one in my senior class headed to the 2,500-student campus in Austin where Iâd chosen to spend my undergraduate years. I saw college as a chance to start over, to shed some of the nerdy image Iâd been saddled with since grade school. After all, no one knew me. Oh, anyone could tell by looking at me that I was a Fat Girl, but other than that, there was no preconceived idea of where I belonged in the social structure of the place. At my school there wasnât even all that much of the typical college caste system where the lowly freshmen are not to fraternize with upperclassmen. Plus, no one knew my history. They didnât know, for instance, that the guy who took me to the senior prom got my name off a list of girls who were still dateless three weeks before the dance. (Anyone who was anyone, of course, had a boyfriend or was paired up months in advance.) They didnât hear about the time I started my period in the most obvious way, all over a pair of pale green elastic-waist pants, and walked around the school, oblivious. They might have noticed that I was a Fat Girlâhad to, actuallyâbut they didnât seem to quite get what that meant. And that was just fine with me.
Itâs not like I all of a sudden did a 180 and became some uninhibited, outspoken, take-charge kind of girl with a social calendar as packed as Paris Hiltonâs. But I did feel more comfortable reaching out to the girls in my dorm and was more receptive to their efforts to reach out to me. It didnât hurt that most of them were in the same situation as I was. They were from all overâNew York, Virginia, Florida, and other towns in Texasâand didnât know anyone, either. We all needed one another, so there was less risk of rejection than Iâd experienced trying to navigate my clique-heavy high school.
Even so, the last thing I wanted to be pegged was as a nerd, and only a nerd would be organized and conscientious enough to be finished studying in time to get eight hours of sleep the night before a test. No, the cool kids had to cram, and I wanted to be one of the cool kids.
There was a more practical
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