Saturday January 28, 2012
Growing up in the south we are taught from birth that to be social is to eat. You can't have one unless you have the other. If we start talking about getting together with friends we start talking about what food we are going to make and/or take, who is bringing what, and oh I hope so and so brings their famous mac n cheese or famous pecan pie. Family get togethers always take place in the kitchen. If the family does not start out in the kitchen I can just about promise you that everyone will gravitate there at some point. Try growing up in a food based culture as a person with a weight problem. It has never been a recipe for success.
However, I recently realized that it doesn't always have to be that way. I went to lunch with a group of friends at a restaurant that sells hot wings (one of my favorite things, but let's be honest what isn't). As we sat there and everyone glanced at the menu and quickly made their decisions on what they would eat, I struggled. I knew I wanted to eat a healthy lunch and stay within my goal of not loosing control and going outside my points, but man those wings sound good. They had all returned to talking and enjoying their time and I was still pouring over the menu trying to decide if I could just eat a salad and fruit for dinner to be able to eat this lunch that I knew was bad for me. I wasn't enjoying my time with them. I finally closed my menu and decided to stop the madness. I decided to just have the salad and I could have the wings when I had been "good" long enough to have them.
I sat there and talked with everyone, but I was still thinking about my order and would I regret not ordering the wings when the friend sitting next to me got hers. I was not realizing that I was still focused on the food and could not enjoy my friends. I was letting the food consume my time and energy. Their food arrived and I got a chance to see what everyone else was eating. Of course it would be my luck that my salad would take 5 minutes longer than their fried wings and french fries. But when it arrived and I cut everything up and began to eat the thoughts of what I was missing vanished. I had one of the most enjoyable lunches from that moment on that I have had in longer than I can remember. We laughed and joked and enjoyed our time together and not once did I think about the fact that I did not have a wing or french fries. I did not miss them at all. My friend even offered hers to me, but I had no desire to have anything but my salad.
I had an epiphany that day sitting at that table with my co-workers. I can be at a social gathering without food being the center of my attention. That food I ate was just as satisfying as the fried food I would have eaten a month ago. I did not feel deprived for what I did not eat and don't feel like I need to be "good" to have them when I truly want them. I am not saying I won't ever eat a hot wing or french fry again. I am sure that I will, but I don't have to just because I am at the restaurant where I normally do. I also realized that just I also don't have to have them today because "I don't know when I am going to be able to have them again". There are restaurants on every corner and those lies I tell myself have been silenced by realizing this.
I am slowly beginning to relearn some of the lessons that have been ingrained in me since birth. I don't know what my next lesson will be, but I am sure there will be many to follow. But for now, the freedom from just this one lesson was enough to bring tears to my eyes when telling a friend what I was feeling and what I learned.
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Friday, January 27, 2012
A little about me.
A good friend of mine has inspired me to start a blog about my weight loss journey. So in honor of her bravery to put her feelings out there and try to work through what has put her where she is I am doing the same. I know blogs are a dime a dozen and this may never see the light of day, but if it helps me work through the issues I have and gets me to my goal then it will have served it's purpose.
I could not count for you how many diets I have been on, but I am sure that I could name most all that exist for you and I have tried them all. I guess it is safe to say that they have all been a failure or I would not be here right now. I can't tell you what point in my life caused me to start eating or what I am trying to bury with my eating or what emotions I am trying to shove down with food. But I do know that I use food for far more than what it is intended, which is to fuel my body. If that were not true I would not be sitting here looking at a 200 pound weight loss journey straight in the mouth.
I have been fat my entire life. There are a few pictures of me when I was 3 where I am super skinny and then the next pictoral stop of my childhood timeline I am fat. Somewhere between the skinny 3s I entered the fat 4s and never left. My mother always blamed herself. She said that all I wanted to eat was Pringles and she was afraid I was not eating enough and would get sick so she began to force me to eat. Well it seems I learn my lessons well, because I started eating and never stopped. I on the other hand don't blame her for my obesity (not a word I really like, but a reality in my world). You can look at my entire extended family and realize that genetics do, in fact, play a role in part of this. As my father always said, my elbow plays a part in the rest. Yeah, if my elbow didn't work so well the food wouldn't end up in my mouth so often. Which leads me to the title of this blog, which I did give quite a bit of thought to.
Just because I am fat does not mean that I don't also have feelings. Under this large layer of fat lies a person just like everyone else. I hurt, get angry, cry and love just like a skinny person. Not everyone in my life has understood that. Some have hurt me because they just did not realize the power of their words and thought the way they tried to "help" me was the right way when in fact it probably made me eat even more. While others who may or may not know me simply don't care to realize that I am a person just like them, they were just lucky enough to not be burdened with the same problems I have. Some people do not see a fat person as a person at all, they are simply repulsed by me as if I am not flesh and blood the same as them. It is truly their loss.
But don't get me wrong, I have friends who love me. I have a husband who loves me and married me when I weighed 150 pounds more than I do now and has never once cared what my weight is. I have wonderful co-workers who don't look at me any differently than they do anyone else. So I am blessed. But that still does not change the feelings that are felt when you see someone stare at you and snicker or whisper (I still know what you are doing) and you push it down. Or you hear a child make a comment and the parent does not correct them because you know the parent feels the same. I have learn to ignore the hurtful ways of others, but it still does not make it right. I do still have feelings. But you wouldn't always know by seeing me either. I have hidden my hurt over the years by continuing to be happy and outgoing even when I was hurting inside. I have become good at hiding.
I think my turning point to a better, healthier me started on December 16, 2010. I sat in a hospital room on that day, after being there 17 straight days, with my beloved mother and watched her take her last breaths as she died from lung cancer. At 72 she was gone from lung cancer after never smoking a day in her life. I was destroyed and angry. My mother meant the world to me. My father (I was a Daddy's girl this his death) died at the age of 66 from heart disease when I was 17 so for 23 years it had been just me and my mother still at home (until I moved out of course). I knew I needed to make some changes, but I was so sad, depressed and lost that I lived in a mental fog for the following year. I ate with out thought to a single thing than entered my body. I didn't care what happened to be honest. But in December 2011 me and my husband went on a trip by ourselves for Christmas so that I could "get away". Even after a year I was not ready to be with family for Christmas to be honest. Even the thought of the holiday made me sad. On that trip as my heart ached for her and I remembered her I also woke up. I realized that I was not going to live into old age if I did not do something. On that trip I made up my mind to make a change. So almost 4 weeks ago I joined Weight Watchers with a friend at work. I have had 3 weigh ins and so far I have lost 12 pounds.
I can't explain what is differnet in me, but this time I feel different about my need to change my eating habits. I hope that putting my feelings and troubles here will help even if I am the only person who ever reads it. It might take me 3 years to get to my goal weight, maybe longer. But even if it does, if I don't change my eating habits in 3 years from now where will I be? I would be heavier and less healthy or maybe dead.
Every night I say a prayer to God thanking Him for getting me through this day and please give me the strength for tomorrow. Every morning I pray to please give me the strength to get through this day. Some days I pray to get through it minute by minute. I know that I cannot get through this on my own. My friends will help me and God's strength will help me. Alone I know I don't have the strength, none of us do.
I could not count for you how many diets I have been on, but I am sure that I could name most all that exist for you and I have tried them all. I guess it is safe to say that they have all been a failure or I would not be here right now. I can't tell you what point in my life caused me to start eating or what I am trying to bury with my eating or what emotions I am trying to shove down with food. But I do know that I use food for far more than what it is intended, which is to fuel my body. If that were not true I would not be sitting here looking at a 200 pound weight loss journey straight in the mouth.
I have been fat my entire life. There are a few pictures of me when I was 3 where I am super skinny and then the next pictoral stop of my childhood timeline I am fat. Somewhere between the skinny 3s I entered the fat 4s and never left. My mother always blamed herself. She said that all I wanted to eat was Pringles and she was afraid I was not eating enough and would get sick so she began to force me to eat. Well it seems I learn my lessons well, because I started eating and never stopped. I on the other hand don't blame her for my obesity (not a word I really like, but a reality in my world). You can look at my entire extended family and realize that genetics do, in fact, play a role in part of this. As my father always said, my elbow plays a part in the rest. Yeah, if my elbow didn't work so well the food wouldn't end up in my mouth so often. Which leads me to the title of this blog, which I did give quite a bit of thought to.
Just because I am fat does not mean that I don't also have feelings. Under this large layer of fat lies a person just like everyone else. I hurt, get angry, cry and love just like a skinny person. Not everyone in my life has understood that. Some have hurt me because they just did not realize the power of their words and thought the way they tried to "help" me was the right way when in fact it probably made me eat even more. While others who may or may not know me simply don't care to realize that I am a person just like them, they were just lucky enough to not be burdened with the same problems I have. Some people do not see a fat person as a person at all, they are simply repulsed by me as if I am not flesh and blood the same as them. It is truly their loss.
But don't get me wrong, I have friends who love me. I have a husband who loves me and married me when I weighed 150 pounds more than I do now and has never once cared what my weight is. I have wonderful co-workers who don't look at me any differently than they do anyone else. So I am blessed. But that still does not change the feelings that are felt when you see someone stare at you and snicker or whisper (I still know what you are doing) and you push it down. Or you hear a child make a comment and the parent does not correct them because you know the parent feels the same. I have learn to ignore the hurtful ways of others, but it still does not make it right. I do still have feelings. But you wouldn't always know by seeing me either. I have hidden my hurt over the years by continuing to be happy and outgoing even when I was hurting inside. I have become good at hiding.
I think my turning point to a better, healthier me started on December 16, 2010. I sat in a hospital room on that day, after being there 17 straight days, with my beloved mother and watched her take her last breaths as she died from lung cancer. At 72 she was gone from lung cancer after never smoking a day in her life. I was destroyed and angry. My mother meant the world to me. My father (I was a Daddy's girl this his death) died at the age of 66 from heart disease when I was 17 so for 23 years it had been just me and my mother still at home (until I moved out of course). I knew I needed to make some changes, but I was so sad, depressed and lost that I lived in a mental fog for the following year. I ate with out thought to a single thing than entered my body. I didn't care what happened to be honest. But in December 2011 me and my husband went on a trip by ourselves for Christmas so that I could "get away". Even after a year I was not ready to be with family for Christmas to be honest. Even the thought of the holiday made me sad. On that trip as my heart ached for her and I remembered her I also woke up. I realized that I was not going to live into old age if I did not do something. On that trip I made up my mind to make a change. So almost 4 weeks ago I joined Weight Watchers with a friend at work. I have had 3 weigh ins and so far I have lost 12 pounds.
I can't explain what is differnet in me, but this time I feel different about my need to change my eating habits. I hope that putting my feelings and troubles here will help even if I am the only person who ever reads it. It might take me 3 years to get to my goal weight, maybe longer. But even if it does, if I don't change my eating habits in 3 years from now where will I be? I would be heavier and less healthy or maybe dead.
Every night I say a prayer to God thanking Him for getting me through this day and please give me the strength for tomorrow. Every morning I pray to please give me the strength to get through this day. Some days I pray to get through it minute by minute. I know that I cannot get through this on my own. My friends will help me and God's strength will help me. Alone I know I don't have the strength, none of us do.
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