Food is a comfort to me and it is also a mood stabilizer. Now that I can acknowledge this fact, I can start looking for healthier ways of dealing with my uncomfortable feelings and my anxious moods. Instead of stuffing food in my mouth to squash down the discomfort and going to learn to sit with my discomfort, learn to engage in other, healthier, activities to help me to feel better.
I wasn't always fat. For a lot of my life I looked and felt healthy. Here's a picture of me when I felt and looked good.
I want to get back to looking like this. I know it's possible. That good looking girl is still inside me insulated by layers of protective fat.
This is what I looked like in July of 2008. I'm even heavier now. My current weight is 276.4 pounds. I want to weigh 160 pounds at the end of this journey. I'm not ashamed of who I am right now because I know that weight is a way of protecting myself. I was abused growing up and eating was my way to comfort myself. The subconscious thought has been that if I am fat, no one will bother me. That hasn't been the case though. Now people stare because I am so fat.
Looking good was a way for me to get attention, attention I so sorely needed. I'm not sure where I learned this behavior. It was probably from my family though. Most of the 7 of us sibs were overweight at some point in our lives and continue to be overweight until this day. So, again, if I know that I was trying to get attention with my looks then I need to work out what I will do once I start losing weight.
That reminds me that when people start noticing that I'm losing weight, I usually sabotage myself and gain even more weight. I'm so afraid of being noticed for my physical appearance. I think it will lead me down paths that I don't want to down. Then it was an issue of looking good to get attention. Now it's an issue of health not looks alone. I have to get comfortable with looking good again. I have to realize that by looking good I'm not going to become an immoral person. That is my fear - that I will become something I don't want to be just because I look good.
One of the things I notice when I look at pictures of me back then, when I looked good, is that I was always doing something, moving, being active. Now most pictures of me are of me sitting in my chair in the living room where I seem to spend most of my time. It's hard to be healthy when all you do is sit and stare. I need to find that active girl again and let her run loose. I always looked like I was somewhere or had somewhere to be. Now I look lost.
So, how am I going to make these changes? Well, by slowly losing myself, by eating healthier foods and exercising. I would say exercising more but that would imply that I'm exercising at all (and I'm not). I'm in such bad shape that just walking over to the mailboxes in our community takes all that I have to give. Mostly it's my back that bothers me. I have a huge belly that is not supported well and pulls on my back muscles. I have to learn to walk through that pain. I'm going to stick with walking for the start of this transformation. Once I lose some significant weight and I no longer present a danger to my knees, I can look at doing other activities. Oh, and the pool. I can do that now also.
I want to be that princess that I used to be. I know I can do it. I just have to put my mind to it and take advantage of the support that I have (Marianne, friends, David, etc.).
So, here I go, jumping in with both feet. I don't know how I will get there but I do know that one day I will arrive. But it's the journey that counts. So follow along as I'm slowly losing myself.
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