Bump!
Wondering if anyone else has any titles to add? I've been making a list, and am deciding to find some of these.
BTW, thought you gals might enjoy a little excerpt of something that this thread inspired me to write (so excited, because I've had the worst writer's block, and although it's FAR from perfect it's seriously the most I've written in weeks!) I hope this isn't inappropriate.
***
"
This is it, thought Santana as she marched up the driveway, arms weighed down with plastic bags,
I'm finally going to do it!
She had been in town all day, hopping from one store to the next. Sure, there had been many temptations … especially when she had passed by the bakery and gave one fleeting glance at the warm, flaky rolls and doughnuts with their sweet fillings, but it was much easier to say no when they didn't belong to her, when she had to pay money in order to get them. Santana's main problem lay in her inability to refuse food offerings from her friends and family.
Although Santana never felt her friends and family purposely sabotaged her diets, they certainly never made them easy. Once she had brought up the topic of dieting to her mother-- she occasionally visited her through the week when her husband was at work--who had immediately curled her upper lip and made condescending remarks about how she could still eat the same foods, but just in smaller portions.
“Even good food can be bad if eaten in big amounts. Portioning is the key to success. You can't eliminate everything,” Santana's mother would say, sighing. “What's life without the little pleasures?” Then she would pass Santana a plate of cookies, and of course she would accept.
“Well … it is only one,” Santana would say with a timid smile, but she could never just eat one.
Yes. Food was definitely a pleasure for her. She had used it for stress relief, as a reward, and to relieve boredom. She even found it hard to enjoy a movie without a bowl of chips, a slice of pizza, or even a couple blocks of chocolate at her fingertips. She just needed that fix, something to go into her mouth, something to chew and swallow. How she loved the process. It filled a void inside of her that nothing else could reach.
Suffice to say, food was definitely a pleasure for Santana, but its hold on her was far from little. Apparently her mother knew nothing about her struggles. After all, her mother had never dealt with obesity.
Santana could only hope that this new plan would work. She had dreamed of being skinny for so long, ever since she was in school. One of her favorite fantasies was to envision her new toned, whittled body clad in some tight outfit. She would move with a dancer's sashay as if she had been fit and graceful all her life, and attract the stares of both men and women as she passed by.
But Santana knew that these fantasies were just that: fantasies. She only envisioned them; she didn't actually get off her butt and work out, and she never ordered salad or fish when her husband took her out to eat. Sometimes it felt hopeless. She never had energy, so she only sat there, eyes far away, focused on the visions in her head, visions that would never be.
But that was all about to change, or at least Santana hoped it would. She had read numerous forums and blogs online about how the desire to succeed had suddenly clicked into determination for some people, allowing them to go through the process of shedding their extra weight. Santana could never recall a time when anything like this had happened with her, but that desire was there. She hated the way her body looked. She wanted to change. She just hoped that was good enough.
Santana pushed through the doorway, her arms at their breaking point.
Come on, she urged, clenching her jaw,
you can do it; Just make it to the kitchen table.
At last, she heaved the bags onto the table, and gave a relieved sigh as she stretched out her arms. The 8 bags sat before her, catching rays of sunlight from the nearby window that exposed the bright-colored vegetables and fruit inside of them.
She frowned.
Tonight's dinner would be vastly different than what she was accustomed to. She just hoped the task of preparing and cooking it wouldn't be completely draining. It was so easy to just pop a pizza into the oven at the end of the day. She couldn't remember the last time she had even looked at a recipe, let alone chopped up fresh ingredients.
Santana dropped onto one of the kitchen chairs, and let herself cry. She was so afraid of failure that it was instinctual for her to turn away before even taking the challenge. She felt overwhelmed, and Santana had only ever found one cure for that: eating.
“No,” she said, knowing that she had to hear the rejection aloud. It was like talking to a child, telling them that they can't have a sweet before dinner. Santana squeezed her eyes close, and took in a deep breath. “This is going to work. I'm not going to let myself fail again.” "
