Did you see that light bulb go off above my head?
You know the one that goes off when you either have an awesome idea or when you come to a realization of some grand proportion? I’m not one for awesome ideas so I’m going to chalk this particular light bulb episode to another epiphany of sorts. This one came when I was staring at the bowl of Halloween candy getting emptier and emptier and not one trick or treater had yet to knock on my door.
It went down something like this:
I’d just gone to Costco and stocked up on good healthy food options (where I also aimlessly walked up and down the aisles eating all the samples I can get my hands on). I don’t want to eat anymore so I eat a banana in hopes its going to fill me up enough to keep me from eating more. I stop at another store for smaller items (where I also buy a bagel and chop on that and realize that I am eating passed being full: I’m taking deep breaths in between bites). I’m finally home, in the kitchen trying to get my lunch together for the next day (today) and in between mouthfuls of cottage cheese and grapes, I’m also popping bite size tootsie rolls, charleston chews, dots and smarties.
I say out loud:
“I can’t wait for Halloween to be over so I can get rid of this damn candy”
My next thought:
Wow, tomorrow is November 1st.
 For my entire adult life November has always been the worst month of the year. It is the anniversary of my mother’s death as well as her birthday. My mother died November 6th of 1990. Her birthday is November 19th. It’s never an easy month to get through. Depression sets in more than normal and lingers until the first of the year. This time last year I weighed 270 pounds and ate without any thought to what I was putting in my mouth. This time last year I was playing World of Warcraft multiple hours on weekdays and spending entire weekends sitting in one position trying to find some reality in an unrealistic game. This is how I dealt with November: by not dealing with it.
This year is NOT last year.
This year is NOT the last 20 years of my life since my mother died.
I miss her more than ever this year. I want to tell her that I’m okay. I want to tell her that despite the tools she didn’t have I am finally living my life the way it was meant to be lived. I want her to put her arms around me and tell me that she’s proud of me for taking control. I want her to apologize for what she lacked in parental skills. I want to walk around the block with her and hold her hand and tell her that I love her and that despite the hardships I turned out okay and even better than okay. I want her to stand with me at a starting line, put her palms on my face, kiss my forehead and tell me to run like the wind. I want her to be there when I cross over a finish line and hug me and tell me that I’m the fastest runner out there.
Here I am again at the beginning of November and find myself resorting to old behaviors.
But this year is different.
I am aware.
As soon as I had that epiphany a calm washed over me.
I still want to eat but I have a few new tools in my toolbox this year: Knowledge and Understanding. I didn’t have them last year. I didn’t have them for the last 20. Not having these tools got me to 270 pounds. Not having them got me severe depression, anxiety and fear of living. Not having them kept me from taking control and moving forward. Not having them made me the walking dead..
Now I am the walking living.
We’ll see what November brings as I remember it’s been 21 years since I’ve seen her alive and as I wonder what she would look like had she lived to see what would be her 72nd birthday. We’ll see what November brings as I finally go through what is usually the hardest month of the year equipped with what every person should have:
A tool box full of understanding and knowledge.
 This is what I ate yesterday I have it.
I’m wondering if this is a “normal” phase of the weight loss journey. Do you get close to goal weight and then begin to eat such random things (or back to eating in old behavior mode) that you’re not sure who is controlling your mind at some points? I feel like this is where I am right now. I spent the last 10 months regimented in my food and it did what it was supposed to do. I counted every calorie. I planned 90 percent of my meals and the 10 percent were as planned as mentally/emotionally possible.
Now not so much.
No. Let me rephrase that. I am still in control when I want to be but there are times I just can’t seem to get anything healthy in my mouth and for those few moments (or more) my mind shuts down and I consume food that would normally not even cross my mind. Then I come back to reality until the next “episode”. I’m not over consuming. I’m leaving food on my plate. I’m eating until full and stopping but the food choices are just not what I would normally choose. Friday I ate teriyaki, which itself is fine because as normal I got it no sauce, no rice, steamed veggies only but then I also got a large size of gyoza. Yesterday I went to Red Robin and ordered a hamburger, which is normally fine because I usually make the necessary adjustments (no cheese, wheat bun, nothing too fancy) but yesterday? All the fixin (minus the condiments), bacon, egg, cheese and fries! Fries for Pete’s sake?!? Oh and lets not forget the pumpkin scone I consumed after my run and the endless number of pieces Halloween candy consumed while carving pumpkins…
Maybe I’m making a mountain out of a mole hill but this is not normal for me and it has been happening more and more since my trip to Houston. I feel like my mind and body are rebelling against me for what I’ve put them through for the last 10 months. I feel like I am sabotaging all the inspiration that I bring to this LCJ for other people (“Oh look at Tara – she’s not really as strong as we think she is”). I feel like I’m sabotaging myself because even as I look in the mirror and say out loud “Tara put down the candy”, I’m stuffing another tootsie roll into my mouth.
My mind is making excuses.
I ran 10 miles so (insert food) is okay.
I pack my food Mon – Friday so (insert food) is okay.
I go to the gym every day so (insert food) is okay.
I’m only up 3 pounds so (insert food) is okay.
(insert excuse) so (insert food) is okay.
Is this normal? Do I just let it go for a few weeks and stay as mindful as possible? Do I buckle down even more and continue to count calories and plan my meals even more? I feel like I’m in unexplored territory and don’t really know where to turn for the answers. Will this subside? Am I in for one hell of a ride? It was so easy for me to control the food in the beginning and yet now I feel like the food is starting to control me.
HELP!
I love it.
I hate it.
I touch it.
I cringe.
I squeeze.
I smile.
It’s the only one I’ve got.
I can’t go into a store and exchange it for a different style, or color or return it because it’s not functioning the way I thought it should. I can’t ask my friends to borrow their bodies for a night out on the town because their body would look better on me than them. I can’t put it away in a drawer and leave it there until it becomes a better fit for me in the summer time. It’s mine and there is nothing I can do about it. It’s what I was born with. It’s what I’ll die with.
This body.
Runs.
Jumps.
Moves.
Sweats.
Feels pain.
Lifts heavy objects.
Wears a smaller size.
Brings hope to others.
Brings hope to myself.
Inspires.
Intimidates.
Survives.
Lives.
It is strong.
Has Muscles.
Has extra skin.
Works hard.
Loves me unconditionally.
Spend some time today thanking your body. Thank it for all the love and support it has given you over the years (some of us longer than others). Thank it for showing up everyday despite all the hardships it has had to endure. Thank it for never giving up on you even when you gave up on your self countless times before. Thank it for putting up with the crap you ate and then thank it again for all the crap you took away from it after it was addicted to the food. Thank it for holding your hand as you took those first steps to living a better life and then thank it again for never leaving your side.
This is the body I will die with.
It has taken care of me for the first 40 years.
I intend to take care of it for the next.
Yesterday I got to hang out with Val over at SeattleRunnerGirl and through the course of our talking she gave me some really good advice:
Follow the advice you give to others.
I know I know, seems simple enough but truth be told we rarely follow our own advice that we give to others no matter how simple it sounds or how easy we know it is to follow. We spout words of wisdom and walk away feeling like we have all the answers that anyone could use and yet we never apply them to our own life.
Well I’m gonna do just that.
A few days ago I was having another conversation with a close friend about whether or not they should continue taking a certain class at the gym. They struggle to keep up and in the beginning it was fun to challenge themselves but as the weeks went on it became more of a burden and less fun and definitly more self deprecating. As we talked about what to do I said the following: If it’s not fun anymore then you should take a break and do something you enjoy.
Confession time:
I’m not enjoying all the time I’m spending at the gym.
I’m feeling extremely overwhelmed by all the time spent at the gym. It is my own doing. I take on too much and then when I get to a breaking point I don’t know how to give it back. I think people will be disappointed in me if I don’t go to the gym everyday. I think that people will begin to wonder if I’m giving up or don’t have the umpha to keep going as hard as I have. I expressed this to Val to which she said:
“Nobody will be dissapointed.”
“Except you.”
So fucking true! I even said this to my friend when they said they were afraid of disappointing people. People aren’t really going to care whether you show up or not. They have their own stuff they are working on. People don’t get up in the morning and think “hmmmm, I wonder if Tara will be here today” or “Wow, Tara didn’t show up this morning at 5am. I wonder if she’s stuffing her face with donuts” or “Tara must have given up and will never be back to the gym again”
Why does my brain do this to me?
I’m not spending enough time at home. I’m not spending enough time with my husband. I’m not spending enough time sleeping or sitting on the couch petting my dogs. I’m not spending enough time reading and cleaning my bathroom. I’m not spending enough time just hanging out with me.
For some reason I think that if I’m not spending 3+ hours everyday at the gym on the weekdays then I’m not doing enough. I’ve even convinced myself the reason I can’t reach 170 is because I’m not at the gym enough (cause I’m pretty sure that if I spent 4+ hours a day there I’d lose those 3 pounds in an instant).
As we continued to talk about how we never follow our own advice she said something that really hit home; “I don’t want to be sitting across from you 6 months from now and having you wearing a boot on your foot or a brace on your knee because you are pushing too hard and not taking care of yourself”
Touche
So, here’s what I plan to do about it. I do not want to give up the boxing classes on M/W/F morning and I don’t want to give up boot camp T/TH evening. I don’t want to give up working out with Godfather when he offers so I’m going to give up going to the gym T/TH morning. It’s not much but it will allow me to sleep in until 6a and have a few extra hours at home in the morning. It will also free up my M/W evenings not having to worry about getting ready for the following morning (laundry, making lunches, packing gym bag) and give me some precious few hours to spend with my husband and those cute little four leggers I call Makenzie and Penny.
I put all of this into practice this morning and you know what?
Nobody cared!
Yesterday in between going from one job to another, packing my food for today’s busy schedule and trying to remember to put clean underwear in my gym bag I took a few moments to enjoy one of my favorite go to foods: Chobani Greek Yogurt. I’m lucky enough to have a Costco that sells these delicious little 6oz cups of goodness in bulk so I always have them on hand when I’m looking for something good to put in my mouth (get out of the gutter you sleezeballs).
In the midst of enjoying said goodness I made a haiku and posted it on twitter.
It went a little something like this:
Take one banana
Add Chobani peach yogurt
Party in my mouth
Not but a few minutes later I get this response: “Chobani: @tidbits_of_tara We think you should host our next Twitter giveaway… what do you think?” O_o Did the makers of the greatest tasting Greek Yogurt just ask me to do a twitter giveaway or what I’ve termed a twitaway? OH HELL YES THEY DID!!!!!
People, listen up! Me, little old Tara. Ghetto girl from Tacoma WA (Holla!) is giving away up to 7 cases of your favorite Chobani Flavor! 7 freaking cases! That’s 7 winners! Man oh man I’m not gonna lie to you here; I’m thinking about creating 7 new twitter identities just so I can horde it all and bathe in the goodness of Chobani. However I won’t do that cause if you know me (and you do know me right?) I’m all about sharing the love.
The best thing is you’re not going to believe how freaking easy this is. They gave me full reign on this twitaway and told me to come up with the whole thing. The rules? Starting Thursday (whenever that starts for you), you put on your awesome creativity cap and come up with your own haiku (not sure what a haiku is? No worry I’ve got your back. Go HERE for definition) tweet it (make sure you @tidbits_of_tara) so I see it. Include your favorite flavor in the haiku (mine is blueberry but I was having peach at the moment) and then sit back and wait to see if your haiku is randomly chosen from all the others.
I’ll be putting all the haiku’s in the proverbial hat and come Friday evening I will randomly choose up to 7 people.
YES IT IS THAT EASY!!!
The most awesome thing is Chobani has always done their own giveaways but this is the first time they’ve asked someone else to host and I want this to be absolutely awesome! Put on your creativity caps and get yourself some Chobani!!! I am tickled pink (or should I say blueberry) to do this for such a great product. I’d name my baby Chobani but then I’m sure I’d have pay them royalties…
Let me leave you with another Haiku
Chobani Yogurt
If we ate it together
World Peace would happen
See you Thursday!
I don’t have much control when out of my comfort zone.
People often tell me how impressed they are with my weight loss and how motivated they are by my ability to stick with the journey. Some days I have no idea who they are talking about. The person who gets up at 330a, packs her food and makes deliberate choices when in her comfort zone is no where near the person that occupied her mind/body when out of those comfort zones.
Last Wednesday I went to Houston for something job related and for three days I’m not really even sure who occupied my body. Decisions were made that I never would make at home. Choices were acted upon that would never even cross my mind while in the comforts of my schedule. I try to justify why I ate the things I ate but in the end it comes down to the plain and simple “I don’t know how to say no when left to my own devices”.
I didn’t have a Plan of Action.
Though in all honesty, even if I did have a POA I don’t know that I would have been able to stick to it. There is something about being with a group of people that have no idea that 10 months I weighed almost 100 pounds heavier. There is something sneaky about knowing when you’re in line to get lunch and the cake at the end of the line, that you don’t even really want, is totally accessible to you because no one will do a double take or whisper “should she be eating that?” Every meal provided to us for three days had something sweet at the end of the line and every time before I got in that line I said to myself “you don’t need it. You’re not going to feel good about yourself. Just walk away from it…”
I was never successful in following through.
I tried other avenues. I brought fruit from the hotel room to eat after my meal if I was still hungry. I had gum in my pocket to chew on to help fight the urge to eat the cake / cookies / chips provided. I tried drinking water to give me the sensation of being full. Nothing worked. I know part of me panicked about not having access to my own food choices and obsessed about being hungry so I took the pieces of cake, the cookies and chips offered because I was afraid that if I ate the fruit from the hotel that I sneaked into my bag then I wouldn’t have any food to eat until they decided it was time to feed us again. So I horded the fruit in much the same way I horded food at my old job.
For three days I ate what was offered even though I didn’t want it.
However there are good points to this post. Because even though I didn’t make the best choices I did make some pretty good (and even monumental) decisions. I ate what I ate and sat with it. I didn’t eat and then cry or allow myself to have bad thoughts about those decisions. I only ever went through the line once. I never returned for a second slice of cake even though it was there for the taking. I ate something that I normally wouldn’t consume at every meal but it wasn’t multiple pieces at one sitting. The most important accomplishment on this trip is I didn’t purge. I thought about it. Often. But never once did I sneak away and make myself “feel better” by bringing up what I swallowed.
Monumental!
I’m home now. Back in the comforts of knowing exactly where all the grocery stores are. Knowing exactly what I’m going to pack for food for the day. Knowing that I can go back to having a POA. Knowing where I’m supposed to be and what I’m supposed to be doing just about every minute of every day. Knowing that I’ll be getting up at 330a tomorrow morning to return to my regularly scheduled life…
Working off the cake.
Working on taking control.
Learning and implementing.
Moving forward!
Living life.
First of all I would like to preface this post by saying I am extremely grateful for all the comments on the last three posts. “How much do you weigh Emotionally“, “Exposing myself to the world” and “Fear of making goal weight” were some very emotionally driven posts. I blog very truthfully not only because I know it helps me to understand things more clearly when I present them to the world in front of me but also because I know that if I’m thinking it, I can bet someone else is as well. I’ve become very passionate about letting people know we are not alone in this LCJ. No matter where we are or how alone we feel, there is always someone out there who understands.
I blog with honesty, I blog with emotions and I blog with what’s literally eating me from the inside out. I won’t lie to you; that goal weight of 170, which is practically within my reach is what’s eating me from the inside out.
It took a hidden message for me to realize that I need to (try to) let it go.
Last week when I was getting ready to leave the gym Robbie, the head trainer (and boot camp instructor), stopped me and asked me point-blank what was wrong? I didn’t really understand the question since I thought everything was fine (and I thought I felt fine) so he repeated himself…
“What’s the matter with you?”
Again, I didn’t understand the question so he said “Something is eating you. I can see it on your face”. I took a moment to decide if I wanted to be honest with him or just give off my usual “everything’s fine” response and get the hell out of the gym. I decided to be honest and explain my frustration and fear about making goal weight. I told him I was 5 pounds from seeing 170 and I think I was too scared to see it. I told him I’d been stuck for a month between 174 – 176 and it was really bugging the crap out me. I told him I just wanted to see the damn number so I could move on (whatever that meant since I still am trying to figure out the next phase of this LCJ). He did something I never expected: He offered to give me a free training with him and he pretty much promised me I would see 169 by the time we were done. Of course his plan of action (or POA – thanks Jessi!) was to lose water weight so that meant hard cardio with intervals of going into steam room while wearing full length sweats + hoodie. I didn’t care what he had planned I just wanted to see the number. We solidified plans to meet this past Tuesday and I left the gym completely obsessed over making goal weight.
For the rest of the week it was all I thought about. What would I feel? Is this what I needed to move on? What if it didn’t work? What if it worked? Could I go through the session without passing out (it was a concern of many people I talked with). What if I wasn’t strong enough to go through the process? What would Robbie think of me? What would I think of myself? I even prayed about it in that “please let me see 169” sort of way…
Obsess, obsess, obsess.
Tuesday morning came.
I showed up.
So did Robbie.
He was with another client so I waited until our scheduled time together (6am)
And I waited.
and waited.
Around 6:20 I realized he had forgotten about our appointment. Now the freak out begins. He doesn’t know me. He doesn’t know about my inability to say when something is wrong. He doesn’t know about my “he did this on purpose because he hates me” compulsive type of thinking. He doesn’t know that by 6:20 while I’m standing there in the middle of the trainer area and chewing the inside of my mouth I’m on the verge of an emotional break down and I literally freeze where I’m standing. 170 was all I thought about for the past 4 days and here again it was going to slip past me…
He finally noticed I was just standing there (uhhhhh yhea it is a little odd that someone would stand in the same place at the gym for almost 25 minutes) and came over and asked who I was waiting for…
“You”
We didn’t go through the “promised” workout.
He had forgotten why I was there and I was too emotional to remind him. He didn’t get me down to the magical number of 169. I didn’t go into the steam room or run on the treadmill. He only spent 30 minutes with me. He probably felt like we were being rushed and didn’t really understand why we were spending this Tuesday morning together.
I did.
I wasn’t supposed to reach that number that morning. Instead I was supposed to see that I could lay on the floor and pull my 173 pound body up to a standing position using only my hands and bring myself down to beginning position without dropping my body (twice on knotted rope and twice on flat rope). Instead I was supposed to see that I could do 10 nearly perfect pushups in between each rope pull and then grab a 20 pound kettlebell and learn how to do a “windmill” without falling over. Instead I was supposed to see that I could do a proper deadlift and do it multiple times and then get on the flat side of a bosu ball and squat 20 times without falling off.
Instead I was supposed to see that I could repeat all the stations in 5 minutes and 27 seconds and get a “not too bad for your first time” from Robbie. I started our session so disappointed that I wasn’t going see 169, I mean for Pete’s sake I prayed about it but as I walked toward the locker room I knew why things had happened the way they did. As I wrapped a gym towel around my body for the first time ever and it covered my body completely: I knew. When I dried myself off and looked at my back muscles: I knew. When I put on my new underwear size medium and slipped on my size 32 pants: I knew. When I looked in the mirror on the way out and saw a woman who was stronger than ever and can only get stronger from this point on: I knew.
I’m not saying that I’ve stopped thinking about this stupid number completely. I haven’t. But you’re right, nothing is going to change. One day I’m going to step on the scale and it’s going to give me the number I think is going to change my life forever…
My life is already changed forever.
I will never go back to being 263 pounds. I will never go back to endless hours of disconnecting from reality because I’m too scared to face my world. I will never go back to relying on medication to ease the pain of my depression. I will never go back to laying in bed wondering if today is the day that I will get up and start taking control of my life. I will never go back to eating and purging and then repeating it multiple times per day. I will never go back to being the old me…
I want 170.
I don’t need 170.
It will come…
When it comes…
Whoa, Tara!!!
Fear of making goal?!?
Don’t you mean Fear of NOT making goal weight?!?
Okay, seriously who’s is afraid of making goal? I mean when we start this LCJ and we look down at the scale for the first time in God only knows how long and see a number like 263 screaming back at us, the first thought we usually have is “I’m never going to make it down to my goal weight of (insert number here)”. For me that number is 170. When I sat down and did what most people do when we have no idea how to get started (googled “weight range”, got to Calorie King, filled out the questionniare and got a healthy range of between 119 – 171), I picked the higher end of the range because anything below 170 seemed too scary to think about.
Even in the beginning 170 seems unattainable. My highest weight was 270 and now I’m being advised via some random website that losing 100 pounds would be ideal. I remember stepping off the scale and thinking “well that’s NOT gonna happen any time soon – if ever”. I mean for Pete’s sake I hadn’t been below 200 in over 15 years and I think the last time I saw 170 I was a sophomore in high school. But I didn’t let that deter me this time around. I stopped thinking about the big picture and focused on much smaller goals. Instead of the final 100 pound goal, I looked at this journey in 5 pound increments. Each time I lost 5 pounds, I moved on to the next 5. I never focused on that 170 number…
Because I never truly believed I’d get there.
Today I look down at the scale and instead of thinking “it’s never going to happen”, I’m thinking “holy shit, it’s right there in front of me”. For close to 10 months everything about me has been this weight loss journey. Every waking moment whether conscious or not has been about making the necessary changes to be healthier in all aspects of my life. Physically, mentally and emotionally. But, truth be told I never in a million years expected to be looking down at the scale and instead of seeing 263 see numbers that began with 17(insert random number here cause I’ve seen them all except zero).
The last five pound goal is right in front of me.
And yet, for over a month I’ve been stuck between 174 – 176. You can call it what you want (plateau, maintenance, stall). I call it plain old fear. The fear of succeeding. The fear of having to believe in myself. The fear of what’s next. The fear of “wait a minute, this is all I’ve known for close to a year”. The fear of living “thin”. The fear of people looking at me and not seeing Fat Tara anymore. The fear of not finding comfort in a 1/2 gallon of ice cream. The fear of knowing the words “Super Size” would never be coming out of my mouth again. The fear of actually losing 100 pounds. The fear that for the first time in my life I would be considered “normal” in my weight range when all I’ve known are the labels “overweight,” “obese” and “morbidly obese”.
Tell me all you want about muscle weight vs fat weight and how I’m probably just building muscle mass (cause in case you haven’t seen my guns or my legs there are some serious muscles coming through). Tell me all you want about having to take my loose skin into consideration as added weight. Tell me what you want about plateauing and how it’s inevitable that weight gain slows downs considerably as you get closer to ideal weight. I know all of this. It’s been my life for the 10 months. What I also know is I am scared. Scared to look down at the scale and see the number I’ve worked so hard to get to.
Would it surprise you to know that for the last few weeks I’ve actually contemplated gaining my weight back? Maybe not to the extent of weighing 270 or more but gaining enough back so that I could say things like:
“See I am a failure”
or
“I will never be good enough in the eye’s of my dead mother”
or
“I will never succeed”
or
???
I don’t know what it is about this last 5 pounds. It’s like I’m running a marathon and I stop right before the finish line. I’m afraid to cross over. I want to turn around and run back to the beginning and start again because what does one do after you cross over? In the world of running, you pick another race. In the world of lifting heavy shit, you lift you lift heavier shit. In the world weight loss…at some point you have to stop.
And then what?
Live a normal life? Live exposed instead of hidden behind a layer of fat? Shop in the smaller sizes instead of finding comfort in XXL? Cry while eating an apple instead of drowning my sorrows in fried chicken and mash potatoes? Stay in the moment instead of continually berating myself for past failures (that probably dare I say weren’t really failures). Allow myself to be happy? Allow myself to believe that for once in my life, I can instead of I can’t? Actually go out there and live?…
Yhea, I’m not ready for that yet.
I know I know, sounds crazy. But truth be told I’m not ready. As long as I can keep the label of “overweight” even “marginally overweight” then there is comfort in my lack of being able to succeed. Roll your eye’s all you want and tell me “I can’t wait to get where you are” or “Tara how can you say such things. I mean hello you’re so damn close”. I’m not afraid to speak the truth. The truth today is I am scared. It doesn’t mean I’m giving up. Quite the contrary. I’m moving more today than ever before. I’m running farther, lifting more, sweating more profusely than one can imagine. I’m doing everything in my power to reach that goal of 170…
Except mentally preparing.
I’m not sure the point of this post today. Some days I have clear and concise messages to share. Some days it’s just about putting out there what needs to said. Thinking “I’m scared” and saying it out loud for the world (at least the blogging world) are two totally different things. I am standing before the finish line…
 I am afraid to cross over.
This time last year I was still sitting around playing World of Warcraft for upwards to 8 hours a day. I weighed the heaviest I’ve ever weighed (270 pounds) and I was in a sad state of affairs. This time last year Mish was typing a post about exposing yourself and loving the body in which we have. I didn’t love my body. I didn’t love me. There wasn’t very much I loved about my life…
Oh how a year changes so many things…
Today is the one year anniversary of her “expose” yourself challenge. Brave people all over stepped forward and took pictures of themselves. Taking pictures of myself during this journey is nothing new. I do it all the time. In fact, just two days ago I wrote a post about emotional weight and in that post I showed a nearly naked (okay all the way naked but posed precariously) of what I looked like in the very beginning of this journey.
But the picture from December is not me any longer.
This is me…
And this is me…
But this is also me
 - thighs sitting down
and this is me…
 Thanks Jen (priorfatgirl) for the courage to take this picture. Everyday I see the loose skin and I hate it. You can tell me all you want that we should wear the loose skin as a battle scar to what we’ve overcome. What I see is the results of what I did to my body over the last 40 years. I love the way I look in clothes…
I hate the way I look naked (exposed)
I’m joining this “exposing” yourself challenge because I want to learn to love the way my body looks both in and out of clothes. I want to learn to love my arms (which are getting better all the time) and to love my belly (which may or may not change over the course of the next year). I want to learn to love the muscles I see in my thighs (which I do) and also learn to love the skin that covers those muscles (which I don’t).
Part of me wishes I had been on this journey this time last year because the change is night and day. I don’t know what I’m going to look like a year from now but I’ll tell you one thing for sure…
I’ll still be here.
Will you?
We don’t often think about that question.
We’re so bogged down by the physical number that we base our successes / failures on whether or not the scale is moving and forget about the weight that weighs the heaviest on us: The emotional pounds. Now I’m not a therapist nor do I play one on T.V. so of course what I write about is just from my own personal experience so take it as you will but I believe the following statement to be absolutely true: If you aren’t willing to lose the emotional weight, then your weight loss journey will NOT be successful or life-sustaining.
Oh you’ll lose some weight and you might be able to keep it off for some time but without examining the emotional aspect of your journey it will come back and it will come back with a vengeance. Emotional fat and physical fat go hand in hand. Now I’m not talking about those people who only have a few pounds to lose (whatever that definition is) because they stopped exercising after they got married or had a few children or couldn’t find the time to go to the gym after starting a new job. I’m talking about me: Bulimic since adolescence, morbidly obese, 100 pounds overweight that stuffed her pie hole every time something went wrong (read: stuffing pie hole on daily basis). I tried the diets. I was ready to sign on the dotted line for gastric bypass (and by ready to sign on the dotted line I mean I had the pen in hand, loan approved and ready to go but chickened out last-minute). I lost some weight. Atkins got me 40 pounds lighter. I gained back 60. Gastric bypass requirements got me down 30. I gained back 70. I was doing all the physical work and it was so damn frustrating to think “okay I got this” and then 3 months later realize I had gained everything back and gained back its brothers and sisters and all of its fucking cousins. I thought I was doomed to just be a fat girl and settled in to watch the scale move closer and closer to that 300 pound mark.
I was losing the physical weight.
It wasn’t enough.
What I didn’t do was examine why I was carrying around all this weight. I didn’t understand why I needed my physical fat. Let me say that again: I needed my physical fat self!!! I was too afraid to look inside. It was easier to focus all my energy on hating my physical self so that I wouldn’t have to learn to acknowledge / love my emotional self. I was too scared to look at all the circumstances of my life and acknowledge that I was dealt a crappy hand from the beginning so I just stuffed the hell out of my body and built up a shield against the world.
Against myself.
When I started this journey, I had no idea the emotional angst it would bring me. I had no idea that I would on a daily basis feel a plethora of emotions ranging from anger to sadness to pride to confusion to frustration to elation all within the same hour. I had no idea that there would be days that I would be so overwhelmed with what happened in my past that it would keep me from moving toward my future. I had no idea that I hated myself so much…
I hated myself.
I hated myself for being the child of an alcoholic mother. I hated myself for being the child of a father that left me when I was barely 90 days old. I hated myself for being the little sister of three brothers where sexual abuse, abandonment, and pure hatred for me being born in the first place was common. I hated myself for being the over achiever in school because it was the only way I knew how to get the much needed attention I wasn’t getting at home. I hated myself for being the short lived step daughter to my mother’s alcoholic husband, where they would spend hours being in love, sharing matching bar stools only to come home and trade blows while I clung to my mother’s leg begging for them to stop (and just so you don’t get the wrong idea – my mother was the physical abuser, not my step father). I hated myself for coming to the early realization that boys really do love you when you take your pants off, or at least that’s what I thought, and found a lot of boys that “loved” me. I hated myself for finding peace in eating until bloated and then throwing up until my throat bled and then turning around and hunting down more food because it was the only way I felt in control. I hated myself for watching my mother die as I battled my Meth addiction and once again realizing I failed to be the perfect daughter and now I was never going to get the chance to earn her love…
In that hate, I learned to survive. In that hate, I learned to function. In that hate I learned to keep my emotions at bay by continually eating and allowing myself to sink deeper into the depth of sadness and depression until one day not so long ago enough was enough. There was a war going on inside my soul, my mind and my body and I was losing.
I was the walking dead.
The last nine months of my life have been hard. I’ve lost the physical weight but the losing of the emotional weight is a much slower lifetime process. It’s hard to understand how I can physically carry the body of a woman that weighs 170ish and yet mentally and emotionally still carry the 260+ pound little girl inside. When I look at my body (and I spend more time in front of the mirror naked than ever before) I’m still seeing this:
 December 2009 And not seeing this:
 October 2010 As a quick side note, I had to wear underwear for this last picture because in trying to recreate the same pose I realized my girl parts aren’t covered by the fold of my belly fat. Also note I’m trying to stand in the same place and my ass is in first picture is at the door, however I still don’t see what the rest of the world sees…what is plain in front of me. The difference this time around is I am embracing my emotionally fat self and fighting for her life too. When she cries because she wants pull the cover over herself and never face the world because she feels she’s failed, we cry together. When she’s angry that she can’t stuff her face anymore and find control in throwing up, we’re angry together. When she’s afraid to take the step forward because she knows she has to face her past, we hold hands and carefully place one shaky foot forward.
This was one of the most emotionally painful posts to write but it has to be done. While I am closing in on my ideal physical weight, I know today that the journey is no where close to being finished. Every day is a battle to bring my physical self and emotional self closer to being one person.
Together we will make the changes.
For a lifetime.
So now the question has to be posed: How much do you weigh emotionally? Are you hoping the physical weight loss will take care of everything? Are you wondering why you can’t lose the weight? Are you protecting something you’re afraid look at? What are you shielding? I’m here to tell you that no matter how painful you think it is to try and lose the emotional fat, it’s even more painful to carry it around for a lifetime. Never in my life, have I felt so exposed to the world in my emotions. Sometimes I feel like I’m going crazy but it’s only because I never acknowledged how I got here in the first place. There is something powerful in firmly planting your feet and telling the world “Yes, I am emotional. Yes I will cry at the drop of a hat. Yes, I will have emotional break downs over buying myself a Pumpkin Spice Latte at Starbucks. Yes, I will laugh hysterically when I realize that my husband bought me a pair of medium pajama bottoms because he knew they’d fit and I can’t wear my extra extra large pajama bottoms any longer. Yes I will catch my breath when someone points out that there is more life in my eyes than they’ve ever seen before” and every time I tell the world that I’m embracing all of my emotions no matter how difficult, I’m telling myself.
And when I tell myself…
another pound of emotional fat hits the floor.
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