Fat Camp

Growing up a Fat Kid, I used read about fat camp in the advertising section of Seventeen magazine. The black and white fat camp ads were always strategically placed next to the girl with the pouty lips and the Farrah Faucet wings, "Be A Model...Or Just Look Like One!" At least if you failed Barbizon Model School, you had the promise of looking like a star. Whereas, fat camp ads just showed a chubby kid giving a thumbs up.

I didn't know what they did to the beautiful people in modeling school, but I imagined fat camp was carrot sticks and grapefruit with lots of weird exercise. Exercise to trick fat kids. Like hoola hoop competitions. Horseback riding. Archery.

Recently, I recognize that since the major overhaul in my lifestyle in 2001, I've let some things slip. Maybe it's stress, but I sincerely believe there's a direct link to nutrition. My friend in New York City, Three (Yes, like the number), gave me a book last year on organic health and raw fooding. I believe the concepts, but I don't understand how to apply them, so I made an executive decision. It was time. For. Fat Camp.

I'm going to a spa far away where I will be "detoxed" on green tea and algaes, wheatgrass and other stuff I'll plug my nose while swallowing. My exercises will be of the sitting variety: yoga. Days of it. This will be the hardest part. Because every time I've tried yoga in the past, my mind would race, and I'd just think about what was for lunch. Another friend turned me on to her Wholistic Foods Healer (they have those in California) and has very openly versed me in, uh, the language of digestion. (No one needs to hear about my colon.) Also, I'm pouring myself back into exercise. Even though I've had some trouble with balance, I really miss running. I dream in "running" the way other people dream in other languages. That has to be a sign.

I'll be gone for two weeks in early April. I'll have a midsize rental as a getaway car. And a cell phone in case anything gets weird or I get too hungry and need to order deep pan pizza. One of the advantages of going to fat camp at 31 instead of 13.