Ten minutes after we checked into Cal-a-Vie, Jan and I went back to the front desk. We had an emergency, we told them.
Medical.
Personal.
Vaginal, our eyebrows implied.
They gave us our car keys. We jumped in the car and drove away.
I’m not going to talk about what happened out there.
I’ll never talk about what happened out there. I’m just going to tell you that we arrived back at the spa an hour and a half later reeking of shame and the grease of fast-food drive-thru.
We’d panicked. The fear of the oncoming diet was too much.
Now I wait for the panic. But it doesn’t come. I am ready.
I get a piece of paper and tape it up on the back of my closet door. I climb on a scale. I stare at the number. I let a string of expletives that would make a sailor cry fly out of my mouth. Pen in hand, I walk back over to the paper on the back of the door. I write down the date. I write down my weight. I stare at the number. Then I rip the paper up and throw it in the trash.
I don’t want to see that number ever again.
yesyesyes
I gave myself a choice. Which yes did I want to say? There were two options:
I can say yes, I want to be successful at this. I want to be healthy. I want to live a long life for myself and for my children. I want to feel good. And once I say that, I have to buckle down and do the work and not complain and accept that the work is going to be hard. Because that is what it is. Work. Hard work.
But I will be able to buckle my seat belt on the plane. I won’t have narcissistic fears of a karmic plane crash. I won’t have a giant coffin and wear a tent for a dress.
If I say yes, the life I save will be my own.
Or: I can say no. Screw losing weight.
Screw you, Skinny!
I can say I do not want to be successful at this. I want to eat the fried chicken. I want to be veal.
But if I say no, if I say that I do not want to do the work? Then game over. I have to shut up. I don’t want to hear me whining ever again about not buckling that plane seat belt. I don’t want to listen to a monologue on the pain of not touching my toes. Do not come crying to me about how I hurt my own feelings when I didn’t recognize me in the mirror. Because I made a choice. I said no.
Wait.
I said yes.
I said yes to fatness.
And if I say yes to fatness, then I need to be fine if I’m rocking size 24s. I need to embrace who I am as I am. I need to buy my own seatbelt extender and pull it out of my purse, loud and proud, when I get on the plane. And dare the idiot next to me to make a comment.
The problem with the fatness isn’t the fatness.
It’s me.
If I am not going to change, I have to move on. I can’t waste precious time hovering in the “I wishes” and the “if onlys.”
That is being a dreamer. Dreamers never say yes to anything.
I HAVE TO DO.
FAT OR THIN.
I have to DO.
I don’t know why I ever thought this was going to be easy. Nothing good is easy.
At work, I am a badass warrior. I’m competitive. I work hard. Hell, I’m a badass competitive warrior at croquet with my kids. I got competitive knitting once. KNITTING. Which is why I am not allowed to knit around other people. Sharp objects, a bloodlust for victory, balls of wool . . . it’s not a good mix.
I work hard—that’s how I succeed. That’s how ANYONE succeeds. So why in the world did I think weight loss would be any different?
Somehow, this idea is a lightbulb for me. The idea that this is not fun—this is badass warrior work. The idea that I am NEVER going to enjoy losing weight. That I am ALWAYS going to want the fried chicken. ALWAYS. FOREVER. I will always prefer curling up on the sofa with a book to running on a treadmill. For the rest of my life, my blood will pump a little bit faster at the scent of dark chocolate and bacon mixed together. Cheesecake will always taste like love. Oh, I am never going to like losing weight. Losing weight is not fun. It will never be fun.
IT WILL BRING ME NO JOY.
IT WILL KICK MY ASS AND STOMP ME TO THE GROUND.
Somehow, this knowledge makes me feel so much better.
The beauty of lowered expectations.
Once I stopped expecting to like it, once I stopped demanding that losing weight be easy or pleasant, once I stopped waiting for the band to start playing, paying attention to what went into my mouth became tolerable.
Because I wasn’t waiting for it to get better.
It’s NEVER going to get better. It just . . . sucks.
I said yes to losing weight on March 8, 2014.
When I stepped on the scale on March 1, 2015, I had lost almost one hundred pounds. As I write this in the summer of 2015, I’ve lost more. Unexpectedly more. Then again, anything over fifteen pounds was unexpected.
More than a few pounds.
Unexpectedly more.
But saying yes is a powerful thing.
Now. I’ve told you how hard it was. How much I hated it. And how I did it anyway. And still, reader-friend, someone among you is going to ask the question anyway. Someone among you is going to ask—
“Shonda, what diet did you go on? What program did you use?”
Did I not just say it was never going to be easy? Never going to be quick? If things were easy or quick, would there be anyone left out there who talked about struggling with their weight?
Now, I’m betting all of those big-time programs you see advertised and recommended by your doctor work. But only if you decide that YOU are going to do the work to make the programs work. Meaning, nothing works if you don’t actually decide that you are really and truly ready to do it.
Are you ready? Here’s how you know if you are ready or not: Three years ago, if someone had said something to me like “Nothing works until you are really ready for it to work,” I would have force-fed them butter until they weighed one thousand pounds. Because that sounds like crap. Everything sounds like crap until you are in the right mind-set. Everything sounds like crap while you are still busy listing reasons you should get to eat that whole cake.
You should get to eat that whole cake. Yes. You should. And you can. You can eat the whole delicious cake. You just have to accept that it will make your belly fat. And that is okay. But then do not complain about having a fat belly. Stop berating and shaming and hiding yourself. Become one with your fat belly and love your body for all its gifts. Spend your valuable years on this planet thinking about something other than your weight.
Now. Moving on to—
“But Shonda, what diet did you go on? What program did you use?”
Sigh. Fine.
I did not go on any specific diet or use any specific program. And I did not have any kind of weight-loss surgery. But I will tell you what I did. And I’m not a professional of any kind except a fake TV doctor writer, so remember that I know absolutely NOTHING about weight loss. Because I’m a WRITER. Which means I highly recommend you do the very first thing I did, which is:
1. Start by seeing a licensed physician. I went to my doctor and I said, “I don’t wanna be fat anymore. Help. Me.” My doctor literally applauded me. Eva’s cool that way. I asked for and got a complete physical. I did this so I knew where I was starting out because I wanted to know what I was working with. I wanted to be able to see progress in even the smallest ways. I also did whatever my doctor told me to do.
After that:
2. I thought about exercise. I promised myself that I would never do any exercise that I did not like. So I didn’t. In the beginning, I didn’t exercise at all. I was too busy trying to convince myself to not eat everything I could get my hands on. But when I was ready, I called a trainer. I’d worked with Jeanette Jenkins before. Well, mostly I’d complained and wheezed while she tried to get me to move my body. Now, I was ready to do what I was told. Jeanette got me doing Pilates and I loved it. I mean, who wouldn’t? It’s exercise you
do lying down. For real. It’s like the universe finally decided to cut me some slack. Okay, it’s also really hard. But still. YOU LIE THERE.
3. I made myself drink sixty-four ounces of water every day. Which is just A LOT of water. But it made my skin look fantastic.
4. I decided—and this was the most important rule for me—that no food was off-limits. I could eat anything I wanted. As long as I ate a reasonable portion. Also—and this was the hardest part of this important rule—I could only eat exactly what I was craving. Try doing that for a day. I’d been so used to eating simply because it was breakfast time or lunchtime or dinnertime—I’d never stopped to think about whether or not I was hungry, let alone craving anything. I had never actually listened to my body before. I know, I know: a phrase like “listening to your body” sounds suspect. Like synergy. But it works!
The actors on my shows seemed to know what I was doing before almost anyone else. Perhaps because as actors their bodies are their work instruments, because they are stared at all day, because they must be so physically present, they could tell instantly that something had changed for me. They got it and they seemed to understand instinctively how hard-going my weight loss was. They were all over me with support. Katie Lowes, Scott Foley, Kerry Washington and Ellen Pompeo in particular felt like my weekly cheerleaders; every time I saw one of them at table reads, they had some encouraging word or a hug. As I began to make progress, Ellen told me sternly: “Be careful. Do not lose the booty, lady.” Not possible, Ells.
As I started to really lose weight, something interesting started to happen. I stopped thinking of my body as a mere container for my brain. I became more aware of it. In every way. How it worked, how it felt, how it moved. I noticed how the muscles in my back tightened up in response to stress. I stretched more often. This is gonna sound weird but I became obsessed with my skin and making it perfectly smooth and soft. This meant a LOT of moisturizing of knees and feet and hands before bed.
And I started to feel strong. Like, truly strong. When I power posed now, I didn’t just feel confident like Wonder Woman. I felt like Wonder Woman. Fifty pounds in, I put my daughter Emerson on my back and galloped up and down the halls of our house with her hanging on to my shoulders and squealing. After I put her down for her nap, I sat down on the steps and burst into tears. Four months ago, there was no way I would have been able to haul myself down the hall even once with a child on my back. Not even at a brisk walk. A gallop would have almost killed me. Now I wasn’t even winded.
For the first time in my life, the woman who had to be dressed like a child and told to stand still to wait for Oprah began to care about clothes. Dana Asher had been my stylist for years. But dressing me for events had always been like dressing a fat mannequin—I had no opinions, I just wore the clothes. I didn’t give a crap what she put on me as long as I felt invisible. Not that it mattered—the variety of clothing choices for plus-size women had always been sparse. It was depressing.
Now, I had the opposite problem. I had my pick of designers. The choices were endless. Overwhelming. But I had never shopped in the non-plus-size section of the store before. I felt awkward. I had no sense of what looked good on this new body I was now settling into. Dana literally cleared out my closets. Everything I owned down to my undies no longer fit. The good stuff went to charity. (I managed to hang on to all of my Grey’s Anatomy T-shirts—they swam on me but I wasn’t letting them go.) Not much else remained. We started over. Dana taught me how to dress, introduced me to colors I’d never considered, coaxed me into form-fitting clothes. I got to know designers. Nothing I wore made me feel invisible.
Inside this body, I now felt okay about being seen.
By men. I’d been seen before. But I wasn’t paying attention to it. I was in the pantry. I was writing. I was busy hiding. And lately, I was too busy protecting myself from what had been happening to my life.
Slowly, I am coming to realize that is part of it.
The shyness.
The introversion.
The layers of fat.
I’m a quiet nerdy writer who seemingly overnight became . . . well, famous. Being famous, even if you are an actor, is considered the toll you pay for getting to do your job at the highest level.
For a writer?
The unexpected shock of it was . . . shocking. And a little bit terrifying. Most writers do not set out to become famous. They set out to sit alone in their pajamas in the back of the pantry and dream. They set out to tell stories. They set out to create worlds. That is who they are.
That is who I am.
Was.
And then lightning struck in the craziest, most amazing way. And people began to know my name and recognize my face. And with that comes a lot of attention. From all kinds of places.
From people who never before looked in my direction. Now they were ALL looking in my direction. And they were smiling. And being nice. And offering me things.
I didn’t want to be looked at. I didn’t feel okay being seen. I just wanted to write and hang out with the same friends I’ve always had and be left alone.
How do you accomplish that in this town?
Your body becomes a container for your brain.
It was a damned good security system.
Now, though, I am seen. And I am getting comfortable being seen. I’m getting used to being seen. I am realizing that there’s a part of me that wants to be seen.
And that it’s okay to want to be seen.
That it’s okay to want to be seen.
It’s okay to like being seen.
I’m being seen.
When I walk past a mirror, it still happens. I catch a glimpse and I think, “Who is that?” The girl in the mirror is a size she hasn’t been since she was sixteen years old. And she looks younger, like her genetic lottery ticket just won a second time around.
But it’s me. I’m seeing me.
And I like what I see there.
That girl looks happy.
All it took was the right kind of yes.
And salad.
Oh, yeah. It turns out?
Betsy was right.
It does help to train yourself to love salads.
I hate it when she’s right.
9
Yes to Joining the Club
About a year into my Year of Yes, Chris #1 calls to tell me that I’m being awarded the Hollywood Reporter’s Sherry Lansing Award at the annual Women in Entertainment breakfast. He keeps his tone soothingly soft, the mellow tones of a psychiatric nurse, as he informs me that I will have to give a speech.
Then he waits for me to freak out.
This speech is not your average speech. The Dartmouth commencement was a big deal, yes. But this. This is not a crowd of Dartmouth graduates looking to the future, looking for wisdom. This is not a gaggle of hopeful and happy parents just thrilled they are done paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in tuition.
It’s right in the title: this speech is for women in entertainment. These are powerful women in entertainment. You know how I know this? The Hollywood Reporter releases a list to go with this event. It’s called the Power 100.
Some of the women who will be in that room listening to my speech are legends. Sherry Lansing herself will be in that room.
Chris waits for me to start yelling. He waits for chicken-bone-Janet-Jackson-Boob-fear-snot hollering in his ear. I’m quiet a long moment. Then:
“Okay,” I say.
“Okay?” He sounds confused. “Okay like . . . okay, fine?”
“Yeah. Okay, fine.”
Chris thinks perhaps I do not understand.
“You have to GIIIIVE A SPEEEECH.” He says it slowly. Loudly. Like my hearing is going. Like I really am old.
But I heard him. And I am nervous. But it is time.
This is a room full of women. Powerful women. I am on the list. Theoretically, I am one of these powerful women. Theoretically, these are my peers. And yet . . .
I don’t actually know
a single woman on the list. What this really is? Is a room full of strangers. Powerful strangers.
I have been enjoying this year in a way I haven’t enjoyed life in a long time. I’m excited and I’m vibrant and I’m feeling alive. I’ve made progress, I’ve gotten so much better at this but I have no friends in the industry outside the ones who work on my shows. Everyone I know works for me or with me. I am a powerful woman who knows no powerful women.
I am on the list but I am not of the list.
Chicken bone, Janet Jackson Boob, fear-snot, y’all.
I have too long been a turtle in my shell with my sisters in the industry.
It is time to stop standing at the edges of rooms. Hugging the walls. Living in my head. Wishing I had something to say. If there’s one thing I have learned from all of Chris’s Sisyphean pushing and all of this saying Yes it’s that if I don’t poke my head out of my shell and show people who I am, all anyone will ever think I am is my shell.
It is time to take my place on the list.
HOLLYWOOD REPORTER WOMEN IN ENTERTAINMENT SPEECH
Delivered December 10, 2014
Los Angeles, California
ON CEILINGS MADE OF GLASS
When my publicist called to tell me that I was receiving this honor, I screwed up my face and I said, “Are you sure? Me?”
And he said, “Yes.”
And I said, “Why?”
And then I said, “No really, WHY?”
And I made him call and ask for some written reason why I was getting this award. Because I really and truly was worried that there might have been some kind of mistake.
I want to pause for a beat here to say that I don’t say these things to be self-deprecating and humble. I am not a self-deprecating, humble person. I think I’m pretty fantastic. But I also think that the Hollywood Reporter Sherry Lansing Award is extraordinary—as is Sherry Lansing herself.
So . . . no, really, WHY?
They sent a written reason why I was getting this award. It said many nice things but the main thing that it said was that I was getting the award in recognition of my breaking through the industry’s glass ceiling as a woman and an African-American.
Year of Yes Page 12