I'm sure all of you fabulous (and soon-to-be even more fabulous!) folks have great pictures of yourselves hiding around your computers - maybe you use the "chubby" picture as additional motivation, or maybe you look at photos of you in those skinny jeans to remind you why you're doing it...or maybe you just have facebook albums of that time you all went skinny-skiing.

The point is, I want them all! I'm sure most of you have checked out E. Jean's Dope Astrology before - now you get to be the subject! Send me a picture of your significant other dressed up like raggedy ann for halloween, or of the time you all painted your chests with your school letters, or of your headshot for hollywood - I want any and every picture you have!

E-mail them to me at jillygagnon@gmail.com with the subject "dope pictures" and they'll be sure to make it on there sometime soon - you'll be famous! And if you have loads of good ones, by all means send them all - this doesn't have to be a one-night stand.

Can't wait to hear from you!

-Jilly

p.s. here's a classy one of me to get the ball rolling: 

Send them to me! jillygagnon@gmail.com

Watch Jilly Write!

See Jilly Self-obsess!

...for your excess pounds as for these cash cows

Jilly on the Huffington Post!

Jilly on her own time, dammit!

Seriously, people back in the day were DEFINITELY thinner. Do we think these things worked? (I know the tapeworms would...)

For maintenance or just for fun, I think this is a plan:

As E. Jean knows, I have been convinced, at certain periods in the past, that I have a tapeworm. I could only BE so lucky.

Jilly on the Huffington Post

Other Jilly-based writings

This is my new one:

So I did it. Lost the weight. Never again. All that jazz.

As you'll recall, of course, my bet was to lose 0 pounds, determinable by whether or not I still fit in all the same clothes. Here are today's jeans pictures:

Do ignore the sullen glares and wolfman hairs - it's the morning, I just got out of the shower, and I'm taking off my comfy robe and putting on less-comfy pants to get these. Also, I'm part wolfman.

So the betting phase is at a close, but I fully intend to maintain my maintenance right alongside all of you - keep plodding along with the same bowl of oatmeal every morning, the same glass or two of wine at night, and (hopefully) the same pair of jeans.

Keep my honest, flaab! Not that I won't watch myself more closely than will ever make that necessary, but still...it never hurts.

Off to a work-filled Saturday!

-Jilly

...On the Huffington Post

...In Her Own Troubled Mind

I wonder how good for your diet loads of sausage would be?

How about a veggie-load?

Does ingenuity overcome falsehood with weigh-ins as well as Wintours?

And is this really fat?

Ahhh...reality. Where have you gone?

(Looks healthy to me...)

So we all post hiLARious tidbits like the fact that shoveling snow, or playing cello or doing, hehe, you know, the, giggle giggle, NASTY will totally burn off those pesky calories.

<-- according to calorie counter, this is TWICE as effective as sex...

But seriously, how many of you are vigorously having sex for an hour? 

This is not a slight on your boning abilities. Just...HONESTLY.

I'm not going to help your diets by inducing vomiting with details here, but suffice it to say that I'm unconvinced that I would fall into that category. Ignoring the fact, of course, that i've done loads of research - visiting 2 calorie counting sites, now, and reading the abstract of a newsweek article that popped up in my google search of "sex burns calories" - and the range for sex, with or without vigor, goes from 70 an hour to 270. Incidentally, that 270 is from a site that didn't ask how...bouncey I get in bed.

There goes THAT diet plan.

Where did we leave me?

Oh yes. 10 years old and counting fat grams.

That's what I did for a solid few years, because at the time the concept of fat COMBINED with calories was rather sophisticated for me. I figured if spaghetti wasn't fatty, and I picked all the meat out of my pasta sauce, I could eat until I was full. Hell, as long as I pulled the mayonnaise and bacon off of the BLT, I could have 2, right?

This is why I was still quite pudgy up until the end of 7th grade. At that point, I started paying closer attention, cutting foods entirely, refusing dessert. My family went on a trip to Europe the summer between 7th and 8th grade. I look back at the pictures, and I was definitely still in an awkward phase, metal all over my teeth and horrible clothes that I didnt know weren't fashionable all over my body, but I wasn't pudgy anymore.

Here's the thing: I knew I was, though. While my sisters had "dessert fantasy" all across Europe, trying iles flotantes and tiramisus and mousse and what-have-you, sometimes even after lunch, I ordered nothing. Wouldn't get pizza in Italy. Wouldn't eat a flourless chocolate cake on my birthday in Paris.

My parents called this "discipline" at this point - as in "Jilly's so disciplined with how she eats, that's great."

It wasn't until 9th grade, though, that discipline tipped over into serious insanity. Suffice it to say, for the moment, that I learned about calories.

For now, I'm off to pull the pizza I'm making out of the oven. Thank GOD I'm back in a life that includes pizza.

...but definitely a good time on a Tuesday night.

You know what I mean. Inauguration drinking games.

Enjoy!

P.S. You'll look like, or sleep with, this, upon completion...

I mean, with a body so svelte from this video, it's necessary to have these sorts of ace phrases up your sleeve...

...says the girl sitting inside on a snow  day, drinking mimosas over a viewing of "The Fugitive."

Thank god all I have to do in a week or so is fit into my current clothes...

And we wonder how the western world became obese?

I made it to the gym this morning, which means, obviously, that I'm a good person. Baby Jesus ain't got nothin' on me.

The bizarre thing, though, is that this is an event worth celebrating at all.

I used to go to the gym every day, every week, week in week out, all year round. I'd freak out if there wasn't an exercise alternative on days I couldn't be near my gym (a treadmill, or a few miles that needed walking). I'd sometimes dread leaving home for a few weeks in advance, because I knew it would f*ck with my schedule. When I lived in Brooklyn for a while, between junior and senior years of college, I'd even wake myself up at 6:30 days I had my internship, so I could work out before heading into the city.

It wasn't always like that.

But with me, it wasn't ALWAYS like anything. I have some definite OCD. That might be just a WEENSY bit of an understatement (I know, imagine, the nerdy girl with 4 jobs and a former eating disorder might have a touch of the compulsions. Hard to believe) - point is, it's there. I won't go into my issues with sidewalk cracks, or M&M candies or what have you at this time, we'll just reference the pertinent obsession/compulsion: routine.

The funny thing is that, while going to the gym was definitely something I did to keep my weight down, it only ever started after I'd mostly gotten past the worst of my food stuff. In fact, let's be honest - it started because my boyfriend freshman year in college was an olympic-level freestyle mogul skier, and had a serious workout regimen a large number of days per week, and I was oh so LONELY (I'm so sorry guys, I can't help my 18 year old self, though I wish i had...) so I started coming along a few times. And then over the summer at home started going to the gym a few more times. And then, back at college sophomore year, thankfully liberated from the boy, I was stuck with the gym habit. He also gave me the ability (habit is WAY too strong - vomit is still one of my biggest fears) to make myself puke when drinking. Gave it forcibly, after a night where HE decided I needed to puke, otherwise we couldn't leave the bathroom. But that's another story.

This fall my boyfriend and I moved into a new house after a week trip to Belgium. They don't have gyms in just-above-hostels in Belgium. And lugging stuff up and down stairs all day, painting all night leaves little time to head over to another location in which to sweat.

Basically, My routine, for a month or so, was necessarily gym-free.

And now I have to remind myself to care enough to make it to the damned place.

I still get exercise every day (living in a small, walkable city without a car is a great tip for all the maintainers out there - you can't help but burn calories), but today, and Wednesday, were the first 2 gym days in...a few weeks? 

I really never believed I would be saying that without major surgery or other bed-rest illnesses to account for it.

I think it makes me happy...but I can't tell. Give me a few months to figure out my routine and I'll get back to you...

^ Me, in my workout clothes/makeup/feathers. Really, considering the effort it takes me to get ready for the gym, it's surprising I made it so many years running...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jilly-gagnon

http://www.jillygagnon.com

Apparently exercise is great and all, but if you wanna stay...not fat, diet is what really counts.

So no, you can't just treat the whole affair as "well, I DESERVE" this one.

DAMMIT.

<---- not going to work.

I'll just start off this little post by saying yes, it probably is.

But I ask the question because I know, have known for some time, that I'm relatively incapable of looking in a reflective surface if it's in the near vicinity, or if I'm passing by it on foot.

Yes, I know which windows are more "mirrored" on routes that I take frequently.

I am more than happy to post pictures of me making ridiculous faces that add new chins, allergic-reaction lips, and a nose that Adrian Brody would turn away from in disgust. I've never untagged on facebook. I don't style my hair (mostly because I'm functionally retarded at it, but potato, puh-tah-toe). But still - I always f-ing look. Always. Can't help it. Don't want to (seriously, if you never style your hair, you should check that shit on occasion).

  But here's the thing - the looking in mirrors stems from a completely obsessive, and probably wrong - probably STILL wrong, sense of what the reflection looks like.

As I type this, I'm sitting on my couch, poking the back side of my squashed up hip. It doesn't go skin-bone, there's a slight something in between. Don't have my weird, 50s-era fatness pliers, but I'd guess somewhere between an eighth inch and a half inch (I'm also functionally retarded at judging distances). I'm convinced I must be huge.

Every reflective surface is a judgment moment. Is that thigh too thick? My torso is not looking reedy and waifish. Why did I eat that stupid sandwich, I could have managed just fine with cottage cheese and carrot sticks!

It's not QUITE as bad as all that anymore, but the habit's there.

So am I vain, or am I just...habitually vain? Again with the potato puh-tah-toe...

So when you're maintaining weight, you don't count every sip, every crumb, every half a calorie - at least you shouldn't, it's not healthy. In fact, I've been in multiple places as far as how much 'leeway' I allow myself, both in regards to exercise and to intake, and i have found that a routine that INCLUDES a few indulgences, like a glass or two of wine at the end of the night, and maybe a bag of popcorn while the boy and I watch a movie (remember, the British Medical Journal recently noted that the long-held 'truth,' that eating late at night makes you fat, is just a load of...larded thinking) keeps me thinner. I know, it's counterintuitive, but logic it out for a moment - if your body is getting 1400 calories a day for a long period of time, it learns to function on that - once you up it, you gain, because it goes into hoarding mode. If you eat slightly more on a regular basis, your body gets used to that level as your 'even keel.' See: every Woman's World article about fat women losing hundreds of pounds just by cutting out the cola!

Still, having your indulgences fall solely into the 'food' category isn't a healthy attitude, either. Which is why I eat haircuts.

Live, breath, eat, and SLEEP haircuts.

I wish I were one of those barbie-salon heads that constantly regrew at the press of the button. I love nothing more than the trip to the salon, all anticipation, the soothing sensation of someone ELSE'S hands rubbing your head, and then, BOOM. Stunning new final product.

My final product is here: 

and here:

and also here:

So yeah.

Of cours I can't style it nearly like the salon-man can, which is probably part of the reason why I crave return visits almost immediately post-cut, but it's fun. And new.

In other news, I'll get back to my oh-so-harrowing tale of childhood...issues, soon. Soonish. Stressful week - talking about being 10 and counting fat grams wasn't going to help that...

Stay up too late working to manage to get to the second glass of wine or the bag of popcorn you're just dying for. 

Recently, I've been doing so here.

Check out my newest piece - it will be like champagne and salmon dip for your spirit. Okay, it's nothing like that, but dammit, laughing burns LOADS of calories.

-jilly

www.jillygagnon.com

www.huffingtonpost.com/jilly-gagnon

I know, it's something that we don't talk about. Something we naturally back away from. Something we claim not to even DO if we're female (or at least I do, sometimes, unless the situation is too bizarre to go unwitnessed, at which point the boyfriend is called in)

You know what I'm referencing not-so-slyly: poop.

(Sorry, I am not a fan of the 'reality-based' poop pictures. Just because I'm recommending this doesn't mean I have to love it whole-fart, erm, heartedly)

You may recoil from your coils, but here's the facts: pooping more will help you maintain, even lose, weight.

Just on a gut level (I'm sorry - the truth is, my form of humor is hardly a step up from the toilet, and i frankly love puns) it makes sense. Think how much lighter, freer, immediately hungrier you feel after letting loose.

But, if you can stomach it, think a little harder on it. Pooping at LEAST once a day means your body is processing what's going through it, not holding onto the parts and turning them into fat. And foods that make you poop - ruffage, like that massive salad you choked down instead of the philly cheesesteak, and fibrous foods in general, like your oatmeal breakfast for cholesterol, or your apple-instead-of-twinkies mid-afternoon snack - also make you full. I can eat 4 Krispy kremes before my stomach even wakes up enough to talk to my guilt. 4 bowls of oatmeal and, well...no matter what it wouldn't be pretty to eat that much oatmeal.

Now I'm not talking about artificially pooping. Just using it as a litmus test (because maintaining weight is, unlike losing it, a series not of deprivations and denials, but of litmus tests strung together, tests like 'do these jeans feel tight?', and 'am i really hungry?', and 'how much poop today?').

Mmm...what a way to start off your monday. Next installment: why drinking will make you STAY thin.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jilly-gagnon

http://www.jillygagnon.com