Familiar
I feel like I’ve written this a few times before, and I have but I figure if I keep putting it out there it expresses my commitment to being commited.
I’m fat. I’m horribly fat. I’m obese. I think I’m even technically morbidly obese. I often like to pretend that I am not but the numbers don’t lie. And I’m tired of being in this category. I’m tired of not really trying, not putting forth the effort (for any extended period of time at least). Today I am putting it ALL out there. I’m losing out every day and I don’t want to do that. I want to be LIVING life. More importantly, I want to KEEP living life for a long, long time as I have 2 small children of my own and an abundance of others that I hold dear. Adding to this I want my siblings and my parents to be here too for all the good times to come.
Quick? summary of my story (get use to all the question marks)
- First decade of my life? Well obviously, I was a child 
Not much to be said here but I will say something anyway. My family was health conscious. Conscious because of our family size (8) and conscious to the level of society at that time. We never had soda, we got milk from a dairy, my mom made her own butter, the only sweetened cereal we had was generic honey nut o’s (and rarely), we ate a lot of rice and corn, nutty breads, adam’s PB, etc. Although a huge salad can come with more calories than one needs our splurges were often salad bar nights, etc.
- Next 5 years? My mom was sick (bi-polar), things got rough. My dad started doing more cooking. Lots of fried rice with things I was too picky to eat (water chestnuts, slivered almonds, eggs). I wonder in retrospect how much I just became a picky eater to have control??? I balked at a lot of food offerings. I guess as I got older I also realized how differently we ate from many families and talking to parents about those kinds of things were low on the totem pole. We ate more meat centered dishes, more casseroles, more pasta. From my memory banks I recall food becoming more of a scrounging effort. We often had food boxes and I recall “then you aren’t really hungry” being tossed around. I know that through junior high I developed a complex about eating in front of the male persuasion and kind of in front of people in general (normal? for a teen) I ate almost nothing for a while, a salad and milkshake at school for lunch, eaten in the corner and maybe something for dinner. For years I was one who refused to eat breakfast at all.
- Next 5 years? Are you keeping up with me? I’m now between the ages of 15 and 20. Still not eating breakfast much. I’ve been through foster care at this point and home is different. For a while it is only my parents and me and we eat out a lot. I’ve got more friends, freedom, and finances under my control and I can eat other places but home. I’m just out of high school so it is only recently that I’ve started driving more. I’m not out playing. Having been slender all my life, but always concerned about my weight, I start gaining almost immediately once living on my own. I was around 150/160 when I graduated. I know I was wearing a size 9 dress in my photos and at the time I was a bit frustrated because my mom and I were sharing it and I think I could have worn a 7. The weight goes immediately to my lower abdomen where it has stayed to this day. I remember the day I got measured at a dr appt and I weighed 204. I was flabbergasted because I knew that was 1 lb more than my dad weighed at the time.
- 20-25? Good times filled with lots of work, lots of fun, lots of learning to be an adult and living on your own. Exercise and eating well has never really been PART of my life. These weren’t exactly happy times either. Ups and downs for those I love and for me. Lots of Mexican food. I guess I was always so sure that anyday now I would make it a priority. Or that maybe I would just stop gaining. I really kick myself for not taking the girl up on her efforts to instill changes. And admittedly I became really stuck in my ways for emotional reasons when she became a vegetarian. So many ways I tried to assert my individuality, not because I really felt like an individual but because I like to feel left out. sigh. Oh hindsight! You are a BITCH!!!
-25 through today (I’ll be 34 this year) I really fell into a rut of eating out. I lived with the Thin Man. Get togethers with my family were often out. At some point when I worked retail I lost some weight (240 down to 220) but I really don’t know what I did to accomplish that. It felt good though to have the compliments, to feel better in my clothes. I’ve been self conscious of my stomach for so long. The weight always goes there first. Most of the time I’m lucky and it often comes off there too but I know how scary all this weight is. Life got really shitty again (broken engagement, unplanned pregnancy, etc) and I just don’t know. I kept off weight during my pregnancy because I was so sick. In the end I gained quite a bit. I never knew for sure because I wasn’t sure my starting weight but at least 40 lbs. I lost almost all of it immediately and continued for those first few months to keep it off due to nursing. But I know now I was eating way too much even for a BF mom. By the time my son was 3 I was back up to 275, just under my top pregnancy weight of 280 something.
I joined WW and after 4? months I lost 10% of my body weight (28lbs). I’m not entirely sure why I stopped doing WW exactly. Shortly after stopping WW I got pregnant with my daughter. I employed a lot of what I learned in WW about my eating and managed to gain less weight than before but still more than someone already overweight should gain. I’ve become a bit more of a meanderer. I can’t really say “walker” because I often had a kidlet in tow I’ve had stretchs that sometimes last for a few weeks where I’ll do yoga or regular walking. I’ve done 2 5k-walks and a 10-k walk over the last 2 years. This summer I was walking 40 mins daily. I was seeing a masseuse, acupuncturist and chiropractor for unrelated reasons but found I was losing wait. Since WW, about 4 years ago now, I’ve been able to maintain the loss of about 10/15 of those 28 lbs. I’ve thought about rejoining. I keep my “you did it” badges out. For a few months I did a delivery of organic produce. I feel like the steps have been small but I like to think I’m gaining some momentum. The end goal stays in the forefront of my mind more…
I think I will break off here. I started this yesterday and it has become long winded and I will have to break again. As I have reached the here and now for the most part I do imagine that is its own entry any hoo…
to be continued…
