"don't be fat," said the rhino to the cat

Basically, this post is going to tell you how to not be fat. See, the problem here is that I may not be the best authority on the subject. Which makes me the rhino. And you the cat. Is that gonna stop me? Uh, has lack of expertise ever stopped me before? (or anyone else on the internet?)

So, before I gross you out let me give you some perspective.

This right here is pretty much my body status quo from age 13 up until the time I got pregnant. Not tiny, not huge. Just spastic and normal sauce. Also I suck at bowling. Which is weird, because I feel like my technique is solid.

So then I got pregnant. And I got fat, but like pregnant-person fat. It doesn't count as normal fat unless you can't tell you're pregnant. 

So, that was like 10 days before the longest hospital stay of my life (aka the beautiful and life-changing birth of my child). I was....ready. I was definitely rounder in places I hadn't been before (look at my arrrms), but I'm still chalking this all up to being pregnant.

And then here we are like a week and a half after I had her. Which, as coincidence would have it, was my 11th birthday.

And then this happened.

Yeah yeah, I know most of those are the same day. But I don't really have cause to take pictures of myself all the time, especially when my kid is hanging around being so photogenic. Gahhhhh. It's awful, isn't it? I was having so much freaking fun on that tire swing. Probably because I had more momentum than I had EVER HAD IN MY LIFE. Omgosh, internet. I am about to be so honest with you that I might throw up. I was sitting at about 160-165 in these pictures. Which isn't that much, unless you're only FIVE FOOT ONE. Anyway, on the day I had Reese I was about 167. Soooo. The reason most of these pictures are the same day is because I was travelling for work and we had nothing on our schedule for a day, so we went a-sight-seeing. And holycrapbatman, these pictures were a shock to me when I saw them. I think I am like the opposite of an anorexic person, where when I look in the mirror I see normal kaitlin, but the rest of the world sees the "ilovefood" kaitlin. 

When I got back from my work trip, I realized that those people I met and worked with don't know that I am actually normal-sized and what they are seeing here is like a temporary  "Please pardon our dust while we remodel" type situation. They think I am the rhino. And why would they think anything otherwise? It's not like I was really doing anything about it. Once I had Reese, I thought it would all melt away, especially since I was nursing, and I would be back to status quo kaitlin right quick. NOT. I got fatter. Which I did not realize. Until these rude pictures slapped me in the face.

So I got really motivated. I went running everyday for like two weeks straight. And then I got busy. In like one day I ruined a newly-forming habit. So then I really got strict with my yoga routine. For a while. Needless to say, working out two hours a day is just not a luxury I can afford.

And then I accidentally lost weight. Dave is such a good budget-teer, and I am more of a "it will all work out" type. Which is NOT a useful attitude towards money. Anyway, he sat me down one month and said, "We need to tighten up our finances. We have x amount of debt that I want to eradicate as quickly as possible, so we need to get back to budgeting and sticking to our budget." And I was like, "cool." So we did. He would just give me a a budget every week with no instructions on what to spend it on, but it was for any/all non-bill expenses. Gas, grocery, clothes, Tiger Beat magazines. So when I was at the grocery store, if I only had $40 that day to spend, you can bet I was not going to be sucked in by the guiles of a $4 package of oreos. Instead of being lazy and just getting whatever was quick, I ended up buying things that were cheap and would go far. Like chicken, rice, potatoes. So now, not only are we never eating out, but our food takes actual human time to make. So it's basically impossible to eat solely out of boredom, because you have to spend 30 minutes making it first. 

People have been asking me a lot lately what I have been doing to lose weight, and I mostly just grunt in response. Because it's not an exciting story. I have gone on workout binge after workout binge since forever and not really seen weight loss results. It's all about what I eat, apparently. We are also not psychotic health nuts. We don't count calories or only make the "skinny" versions of recipes. I even still drink soda (gasp).We just make food, eat at meal times, and try not to be sitting all day. We have both accidentally lost about 30 lbs each. Which is cool, because now that I don't wake up with achy shoulders, I actually want to rock the house with my mad yoga skills. And I look less like I will eat your family. 

the secret to actually liking the person you're married to

Prepare to be impressed. I am in such a good mood, because I finally got off my butt and spent the 30 seconds it took to set up my wireless router. So guess where I'm blogging from, minions? MY COUCH. I have been wondering for many moons how I could bother everyone with my opinions from a horizontal position. Who knew the solution was so simple?! Anyway, you came here for non-divorce advice, so let's get to it.

I mostly love my husband. I say mostly because there is no perfect relationship. Pretty much because men are hairy and smell AWFUL sometimes. Eliminate the hair and horrible smells and you have a pretty good shot at a perfect relationship (kinda makes me wonder if lesbians thought of this a long time ago, and they are just waiting for everyone else to figure it out). WAIT. There's one more thing. Something lesbians haven't thought of. The secret to a happy marriage is simple.

MOVE AWAY FROM YOUR GOSH DARN PARENTS. 

Seriously. Now I will support my argument.

Your parents have stuff. And lots of it. You may or may not have stuff, but regardless of your stuff amounts, you are used to taking of your parents' stuff freely. Even when you were at college and out of the house, you stole cans of food and they would feel bad for you and buy you dinner once in a while. But now you are MARRIED. Guess how much I care if you are married and still in school? NONE. The dynamic has changed now. Instead of your parents being the captains of your life football team, now you and your husband are (I am not going to mess with worrying about saying husbandSLASHwife. nonsense. I seriously doubt any men read my blog. My own marital co-captain does not). Your parents have been demoted to the cheer squad. So they are still at the game, they just don't have any effect on the outcome, and they sure as heck don't get to call any plays. They are there to encourage you and do backflips in miniskirts. Which is why you should move away from them. So that you HAVE to captain your own team. It's easy to defer to the leaders you've always had, but guess who is going to hate that? Your co-captain. 

I like visiting my parents. They have way nicer mattresses. My mom's conditioner smells like a minty jungle. They have a pantry perpetually full of fruit snacks. So I could see it being a temptation to ignore my life and live in theirs if I lived close to them. Because my life is full of mediocre conditioner, and spending my grocery money on actual foods, not snack foods. Which sometimes sucks. So sometimes I just want to sleep in their guest room and eat their food and complain about everything in my life to them...oh, hold on a sec. That sounds exactly like being a teenager. 

Which means you would be regressing.

It's a hard day when you realize that your parents have shifted gears from providing for you to simply sharing their stuff with you, out of generosity. But it has come, and you need to deal with it. 

The first year of marriage is not easy. Just look at Kim Kardashian and the guy we have already forgotten about! Seriously, if Dave buttered his bread differently than me,  I would burst into a million tears wondering how on earth  I could be meant for him if we couldn't agree on something as simple as buttering bread. But we are marriage superheroes, and instead of him leaving me when he realized I was bat crazy and (non-pregnantly) sobbed over butter, we worked stuff out. I am going to surprise you here with what I attribute our success to. It's because we LIVED FAR AWAY FROM OUR PARENTS. Don't pass out. 

When we would fight about anything/everything, it is sooo tempting to try and find someone in this world that will side with you. Guess who is good at siding with you? The people that created you. If we had lived closer to family I know know know that on multiple occasions we would've run off and spent the night separately. Buuut we couldn't. Which sucked at the time. Ugh. When we were fighting the last thing I wanted to do was watch him read in bed. How pompous of him. And HOLY CRAP, could he brush his teeth any more annoyingly?! But sooner or later the wizard of love would work his magic. I know there's that stupid saying that tells you to never go to bed angry. I would like to advocate the opposite. GO TO BED STEAMING MAD! Because when you are steaming mad, if you try to talk it out you're just going to get steaming madder, and you're going to want to throw your husband into the rushing herd a la lion king. So we like to go to bed angry. Inevitably, at some point in the night, the wizard makes us snuggle. Because my subconscious doesn't know when or when not to gift Dave with my touch. We'd wake up in the morning, steam dissipated, and be able to talk like human beings. Mostly. Which would be robbed of us if we woke up in separate beds.

So, imagine a scene where your husband is trying to decide if he should make his billion dollars by becoming a doctor, or being the alive version of Steve Jobs. It's important, right? And it affects you? So the two of you sit down and discuss that medicine is the way to go. Then he goes to his mom's house down the street, and comes waltzing home five hours later (with his belly full of the cabbage casserole that no one can make quite like his mom) and tells you he changed his mind. I hope I am not the only sociopath that would want to punch the cabbage out of my husband's gut. When you live close to your parents, it might help YOU keep your relationship strong, but you better believe that it's going to build up resentment towards your parents by your spouse. I don't care if you think you're the exception. YOU'RE NOT.  Parents are amazing at telling us how to live our lives, and our spouses don't have the love and admiration for our parents that we do. Making decisions with your parents is bad news bears for a marriage. See? This goes back to knowing whether people belong on the sidelines or on the field in your life. 

Basically, I like parents. Have nothing against them. But the time when you're first married is an important time for you to build the foundation relationship for the rest of your lives. So get away from your parents and focus on your husband. It will be harder, but it will also help you stay away from divorceville.

Criticisms and opposing arguments are welcome. But prepare to be crushed with my Spock-ly logic.