By: Kaiko Shimura Jan 25, 05:37 AM |

Unlike most girls, I am not as predictable as clockwork. I’m reliable, but not minutely exact. I understand the general gist of when things are happening, but I couldn’t give you a time or place.

Paradoxically, I hate to run out on established plans.

Which is why, last Friday, I was on a geared road bike, doing laps around Central Park when all I really wanted to do was curl up into a ball on my bed under at least two covers and make gutteral whimpering sounds in between sipping hot chocolate and eating crushed saltines sprinkled on a giant Wholefoods vegan brownie. I craved salt, fat, carbs, and sugar. Loud noises gave me a headache and my moods were swinging dangerously from Sidi-throwing temper tantrums to irrational crying fits over things I just found “sad.”

It was that time of month and I had to get into Lycra.

If you think that stripping down and putting on what is akin to a skin-tight superhero outfit is hard when you’re male, tend to be on the lean side, and do at least 100 miles a week, think about how you would feel if you had to put on that same kit over a fat suit. Then imagine every one of your friends laughing and pointing out all your imperfections and you’ll start to get the idea of what it’s like to get into a simple pair of bike shorts when you’re female. Add 150 more pounds to that fat suit and that’s what it feels like to go on a bike ride when your uterus realizes that you’re not planning on baking any buns in that oven and starts spitting out pizza sauce. In short, I felt enormous, bloated, and torn between weeping or screaming. I was not ready to go on a bike ride.

Never mind the fact that I was already dressed from head to toe in the tightest, yet hopefully slimming, articles of clothing that I own. I tried to avoid looking in the mirror and failed. I sat on the couch and rested my head on my knees. And when Mike said “let’s go,” all I could manage was.

“I can’t go on a ride. I’m too fat.”

If you’ve ever wondered what a beached whale might feel like, ask a girl who has managed to overcome the psychological trauma of getting into a kit when her cervix is retching out three week old placenta and she’s gained two pounds of water weight and about ten tons of hormone-induced crazy overnight. And through the assurances that the ride was going to be fun and easy and we could stop whenever we [read: I] wanted, I almost believed that if Mike had dragged me outside by one cleat-shod foot, that I would be able to swim back to the couch and plant myself on it until I died of dehydration or fell asleep, whichever came first. But lethargy and laziness always go hand in hand, and the thought of crawling back out of my layers was exhausting enough. Neither did I really want to visually revisit the rolls and folds of flesh that felt like they were multiplying and expanding like a colony of wild rabbits as I sat there, pouting. And, yeah, the whole thing was kind of lame, too.

So I got up, thanked Patagonia that my jacket made me look more shapeless than bulbous, and got on some gears. I want to say that it made everything better, that it totally cleared my head and chiseled away at the drama bouncing around my psyche. To be honest, though, it wasn’t the miraculous cure-all I had been looking for; I still felt like a walrus when trying to climb hills. But the imaginary tire around my waist made the descents that much faster.

And that’s gotta be worth something.