Tuesday, June 21, 2005

Movie Weight

I have bad news. As of today I cannot eat for at least a week straight.

That is the only way I am going to lose the 10 pounds I’ve gained in the past month while “working” on this movie. (And by “working” I mean “eating”)

Seriously, this is ridiculous. Ten pounds. I can’t remember the last time I gained ten pounds. My weight for the past 5 years or so has been impossible to change. I actually trained 4 months for a marathon, ran 300 miles, burned 100 billion calories, and lost NOT ONE POUND. And then I’ve gone on kicks where all I eat is french fries and Mountain Dew and I don’t gain any weight at all.

But that was all nothing compared to the effects of sitting on a movie set for 4 weeks. A movie set presents a multitude of weight-gain opportunities. You work for 15 hours a day. And you are eating for at least 13.5 of those hours. Cause movie sets have little things called Craft Services (aka Table o’ Food) available to all the people on the set, all day long. Craft Services not only feeds us three meals a day, but they also keep munchies out all day so as to meet all our ass-growing needs.

This seems like a pretty cool perk until you realize the consequences of having food available to you all day. It would be like if someone set your cubicle up in an AM/PM, and said you could eat anything you wanted. Willpower is a trait you think you have until you are staring down at a basket of Oreos, Corn Nuts and Doritos. Next thing you know you are washing them all down with your fourth Cherry Coke of the day. And if you’re counting Weight Watcher points you’ve just dipped into your points for 2007.

Normally my food intake consists of food I can cook (absolutely nothing) and Bags O’ Salad (in four fabulous flavors!). And I usually only eat meals when I’m hungry, which is usually only twice a day. (Plus the occasional munchie if I’m procrastinating.) So I usually don’t have to worry about taking in too many calories. Then I go play soccer a couple times a week which burns like 4 calories and then I can consider myself a healthy non-weight-gaining human being.

But throw me next to a Craft Services table and my entire weight maintenance regimen (aka eating only Bags O’ Salad) goes to hell in a hand basket. But what am I supposed to do? People are cooking for me! I’ve never in my life turned down a meal that someone has cooked for me. That’s just bad manners. And then there are the various Nabisco Fun Packs full of, well, Fun (in chip and cookie form). Who am I to deny myself the Nabisco Fun? You only live once right? Go ahead, have the Oreos. And don’t worry, no one saw you eat that entire sleeve of cookies.

They always said that the camera added 10 pounds. I had no idea that that included everyone BEHIND the camera as well.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Now you know why once people in the movies who "make it" all of the sudden start looking a bit more puffy. It's the damn table! Why does it have to be accessible at all times? Don't they know how bad this is? Why don't they have the all access part of the table be just water, bananas, and other non-ass increasing food ingestibles? Why must they torment the cast and crew with every kind of food that fullfills a craving? Why, just the other day, I was having lunch with a girl who said "If a man wants to win my heart, he doesn't need money, jewels or vacations - just give me carbs! Take me to a restuarant where they have cheesy bread you can dip into sauces and I'm yours"!

While this is funny, it is also dangerous! The Craft services people know our weaknesses and they ABUSE it. They snivel. They conspire. They twirl their mischevious Crafty-moustaches in hopes of driving us insane. They are supposed to be sensitive that some of us (ok, most of us) have self-control issues when it comes to eating junk that is placed in front of us, with no danger of it going anywhere other than your mouth-to-your-belly.

Solution: Maybe, dawn, you shouldn't sit so close to the table. That might help? Maybe ask them to bring in "Bag O' Salad"? Nah, that's too hard...bring on the carbs...

Anonymous said...

why is no one else commenting on this post? This is a serious problem!!!