Weight Loss Secrets: Breakfast to Bed.

Please to enjoy Cat. I love me some Cat. I met me some Cat when I was in NYC. Please to enjoy Cat.

Hi. This is me. I’m Cat and I blog at Breakfast to Bed

This is also me.

Yeah, I know it’s blurry, but it’s a cell phone picture from 2004. For those of you that don’t remember those cameras, it was basically an elf, living inside of a box, with a hammer, chisel, and pastels doing the photography.

As you can (barely) see, I wasn’t healthy. I was the quintessential “smiling on the outside, crying on the inside” type of person. I was the boisterous, funny, friend of everyone. I was the friend everyone wanted. Whatever you needed, I was there. The only problem was, I wasn’t very good to myself.

I would spend hours making elaborate dinners or tutoring friends in Biology or Shakespearean English; and then come home to my husband and make rich, fat filled dishes that we would eat on the sofa. It sounds wonderful, but I was miserable.

I am an actor, so of course I was also eleventeen other jobs, including that as a studio singer. Long hours on my feet singing wore on both my feet, and my lungs. At the end of the day, I felt every breath, every high note, and every footstep. It felt like the entire chain-smoking cast of “Mad Men” lived inside my lungs. I would get home, look at myself in the mirror in the end of the night ashamed, and I just didn’t know what to do.

Over and over again, my husband would tell me that I was beautiful and that he loved me, and that he didn’t care if I was 300 lbs or 110. He was with me for me. I didn’t; I couldn’t understand why he wanted me, I didn’t want myself.

I ended up doing what so many desperate people have done; I had gastric bypass surgery. I found a surgeon who was known for giving you a “quick” surgery date, and the whole process; start to finish, took 5 months. The process is supposed to take over a year and a half.

Something I didn’t know about having a particularly aggressive surgeon is that he would make my stomach pouch only .5 oz. This is half of the size of the normal gastric bypass pouch. That is only one tablespoon of space.

I became violently ill. I didn’t eat anything for weeks and months and had to be given iv nutrients and fluids. The iron in my blood became so low that I required blood transfusions, B12 shots, and eventually-a second surgery.

If I was depressed before; I was practically comatose at that point. I was down 100+ lbs in four months. I couldn’t physically get out of bed for any length of time, until 7 months post-op. My weight loss finally slowed, and that is when I made the change. I read an article (more like an ad) in BackStage Magazine about actors meeting other actors at the gym. It spoke about important contacts that were made, and our collective self-esteems being lifted. (If you don’t know this already, actors are notoriously insecure. Wouldn’t you be if your job was 95% rejection? We are also notoriously vain, hence my blog-all about ME!!)

So I went to the gym. Jiminy Judas, I hated that place. Why on EARTH would you go there voluntarily? People grunted, sweat, stared, huffed, puffed, and blew me over with their perfume. It didn’t take me long to figure out that this little piggy was at the wrong.damn.gym. It only took me THREE more gyms to find one I liked. Apparently, I like quieter gyms with really perky desk people and a juice bar that also serves whisky. Whatever works. (Seriously, my gym served booze. I never drank it, but I liked knowing the option was there.)

I shocked the hell out of myself at this point, because guess what, I effing loved it. I loved the elliptical (not anymore), I loved dance class, I loved lifting weights, following a program, and I ADORED seeing results. I even loved finding healthy alternatives to my previously decadent dishes! Who knew a pound of butter WASN’T necessary in mashed potatoes? Go figure.

Guess what? I know now that my legs are strong, my back is strong, my body is strong. My body is beautiful.(-ish I have a few, regrettable tattoos. Hellllo, 1999) I can make healthy and beautiful food, and make my family healthy and beautiful.

After I had my son, I didn’t want to spend the money on a gym membership anymore. There were too many cute things I wanted him to have. (Hey, he NEEDED that pair of linen overalls with the skull on it!!) I fell into a funk. I didn’t know what to do with myself. I walked, sure, but I wanted ACTION. I wanted my heart to race for something other than almost knocking over freshly pumped breast milk.

Someone I knew told me I’d like running. I told them they must not know me. For some reason, I agreed to go running with them anyway. I didn’t have anything else to do. Well slap my ass and call me Flo-Jo if I didn’t love it. I could run ANYWHERE, ANYTIME. I had to get better shoes, but other than that, you can run in practically anything. (or practically nothing.)

I ran and ran and ran. I ran 26.2 miles. 13.1 miles, and more 5 and 10k’s than I can remember. I was born.to.run. My son was too. He loves running with me more than anything else in the world and I with him. Out of everything I have learned, the most important thing is that I want to pass down this love of health and fitness to my son, and now my baby girl. I never want them to be in the position that I was in. I want them to grow up strong, healthy, and full of confidence.