A lot of people claim they don’t know how they put on weight. They subsist on a diet of arugula and celery juice, then catch a Dunkin’ Donuts commercial on TV, and they gain twenty pounds. Well, I know exactly how I got so fat. I ate my way here. I don’t even have a slow metabolism. It’s fairly fast, but I eat to keep up with it: appetizers and ice cream and cookies and wine and Boston Cream doughnuts. (Do you have Dunkin’ Donuts in your region of the country? They were popular in the ’seventies in Pennsylvania, then they kind of fell out of favor. Then I moved to Massachusetts, where the Double-D is practically a state religion. Husband and I have started calling a drive-through run “services”; coffee and doughnuts are, of course, “Communion.”)

I have never been skinny, but I have always had a body that looked pretty much the same whether I was up or down 10 or even 20 pounds. I carry most of it in my abdomen, which can usually be camouflaged, except in a bathing suit. I have always felt fat, even when I wasn’t. I think I must have porked up a little in elementary school, leading to some teasing from other kids and anxious admonishments from my parents, so even when I got to high school I felt very self-conscious. I look back now at photos, and think of a typical day: cross-country practice, marching with the band, cheerleading practice, a game of tennis, working, studying…I could not possibly have been fat. Could I? I definitely wasn’t as skinny as the other cheerleaders, even though I tried desperately to develop an eating disorder. I think my body image must have been completely distorted. I remember what I weighed back then, and I remember what my body was capable of doing–seven-mile runs! High kicks! Something called an “illusion,” where I twirled around like a pinwheel!–and I don’t think I could have been that fat.

Well, pity I never enjoyed it. Over the last few years — since moving to Massachusetts, in fact — my weight has been creeping upward, holding, and then creeping some more. Every once in a while I start a new exercise plan in an effort to kick my metabolism into higher gear. I’ve had to face facts: I’ve been exercising steadily for a year, I can run five miles, my cardiovascular output is phenomenal, I can hold most yoga poses…but the weight is not budging. Fat is getting in the way (literally, figuratively) of things I want to do, clothes I want to wear, and how I want to see myself.

I have to eat less.

I am not a big fan of diets, except when I was in the Peace Corps when claiming to be on a “regime” was a convenient excuse for escaping the molokia proffered by my hosts. (The early Peace Corps years, incidentally, were the only time I didn’t feel fat, but I had a little help from my friends shigella, giardia, and entamoeba histolytica. Good times!) To juggle this whole work/life/baby/dog thing, my life is pretty regimented; the thought of imposing a bunch of rules on my food intake makes me want to weep.

I have to do it.

I’m going to try to tackle the food issue like I’ve tackled the house. It’s just a matter of substituting good habits for bad. Water instead of wine; apples instead of ice cream; coffee instead of doughnuts.

Forgive me, Dunkin Donuts, for I have sinned…