No Longer Feeling Trapped at All

Ok. Well. This is not the post I set out to write when I started typing, but it’s obviously the one that needed to be written. I guess that’s my disclaimer. Oh, additional disclaimer: no matter what I tried, every title for this blog sounded extremely lame, so I went with this one so I can get on with the rest of my evening.

About 5 ½ years ago I wrote an entry titled Trapped in the Body of a Fat Girl. I’ve shared that entry on social media a couple of times over the years, the most recent being this past Friday. I remember writing it and the truth of the words. I felt trapped inside a body that I could not love or appreciate or do anything to change so that I could feel those positive ways about it. I wanted to believe that I was really a thinner person inside that bigger body, but I was not. Everything I wrote that day was true – I was always hungry (even if it was mental hunger), always thinking about my next meal, frustrated and angry that other people could seemingly eat whatever they wanted and maintain a healthy weight, and often binge eating in secret. Oh the secret eating!! I didn’t want anyone to see me, to know that I couldn’t control myself. I hated what I was doing to myself, but I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t find a reason to care enough about myself to stop what I was doing, but the food consoled me. Nowhere to go and nothing to do? Well, there are Oreos in the pantry so why not eat some. And by “some” I mean 9 or 10, on top of whatever else I had eaten.

I’m not currently a skinny girl – I have co-worker who often sees me coming down the hall and says, “Here comes Twiggy!” which makes me feel slightly proud, but also very odd and uncomfortable at the same time – and I never will be. I’ve simply experienced a much-needed weight loss and I’ll be completely honest and say that the thought of gaining any of that weight back terrifies me. I don’t ever have to lose another pound or ounce, but if I gain it back, I don’t know what I’ll do. I can’t go back. Now that I’ve proved to myself I could do it, I can’t go back. I just can’t.

I’ve re-read the old post several times in the past few days because I needed to evaluate how I felt about it now and whether or not it still applied to who I’ve become in the past year. I hate to phrase it that way – “who I’ve become” – like it’s some massive change, but then I stop and think, well, it has been. Not only has my body changed, but my brain has too. For the first time in my 44 years on this planet, I like my body. It’s not perfect and it’s not flat in places I’d like it to be flat or trimmer in places that I’d like to have a little less fat (I’ve always had hips…big hips…), but I can look at myself now and like what I see. Strangers may look at me and see someone who is still overweight (I’m 5’ 7” and 177lbs, which falls into the “overweight” category in everything I’ve seen), still struggling to be healthy, but they don’t know me and don’t know that a year ago I was 218lbs. They don’t know how hard I’ve worked to get to where I am now. They don’t know me and they just don’t know. All of that also reminds me not to judge anyone else because I have no way of knowing what their journey is either. Oh perspective. I’ve gotcha now, buddy.

I had a lot more thoughts on that old post yesterday when I was really putting some effort into dissecting each sentence and paragraph (gimme a break, I had time on my hands and needed a project!), but today I’m tossing all that out the window. Here’s what I know, a year into this new journey:

·         I am no longer a secret eater. If I want cookies, I have cookies and it wasn’t that many months ago that I know I ate 14 Oreos at one sitting (I clearly have Oreo issues). But I was honest about it at my workout the next day and didn’t beat myself up about it. I may still eat more sweets than I should as they are a huge vice of mine, but I don’t hide the behavior. I’m honest about it and try to balance my calorie intake or get more exercise in to burn the calories. Not only do I not secretly eat, but the people who most often see me eating, my co-workers, think I’m a healthy eater. Guess I’m pulling that one off reasonably well if I’ve got them all believing.

·         I enjoy exercise and now seek it out. I’m often shocked about that. I already know what I’m doing tomorrow to get in some exercise. That baffles me. Planning in advance to willingly exercise? Whatchoo talkin’ ‘bout, Willis? Craziness.

·         My body functions better now that I’ve lost weight. My digestive issues, once a constant plague in my life, are nearly non-existent since I started treating my body better. My arthritis is 100% better than it used to be and I can walk for miles at a stretch or spend 2 hours doing Zumba and come home without any negative repercussions or pain. I can’t tell you what a blessing that is!

·         I eat when I’m hungry and sometimes I eat A LOT. Not every day, not all the time, but if I’m craving something like I was tonight, I will have it. Otherwise my brain won’t leave me alone until it gets what it wants. Tonight it was guacamole on toast and I have no idea why I like that so much, but I do, so I had it and now I’m satisfied. Denying myself never has worked well so I’ve stopped.

The other day I was driving to work and thinking about, well, something. I have no idea what it was now, but I usually pray when I’m driving to work. Unless, of course, I’m singing along really loudly to 80s songs on my iTunes, cause sometimes you have to do that. Anyway, I was stopped at a traffic light and asked God to help me shed the protective cocoon I’ve kept around myself for so many years. I read a book once about a woman who had lost a good bit of weight and acknowledged to herself that she’d used that weight as a way to hide. I always related to that because I’ve always known on some level that my weight was a way to hide – from other people, from the world, from myself. But I’m tired of doing that and refuse to keep hiding. It’s not nearly as much fun as not hiding. I’m also tired of trying to figure out my feelings about my weight and my body and blah blah blah. Right now I am in a damned good place and I just want to enjoy that! My body is not perfect, but I finally like it and appreciate it. This is HUGE and I grasp the magnitude.

I can’t claim I’ll never have another blog entry about my weight or about weight loss, but I do want to find a way to make it a less important part of my life. Four months ago, right after my 44^th birthday, I declared it to be the “Year of Yes” and I have not taken nearly enough advantage of that so far. It’s long past time to find more things to say yes to than reasons to say no. Except ritual sacrifice. You have to draw the line somewhere you know.

I'm not that girl

I’m so confused these days. For days on end, I’ve been happy. That should not cause confusion, but it does because I’m not sure why. There isn’t anything special going on. No exciting events taking place. I just wake up and get going and…I’m happy. Cheerful. Annoyingly chipper, even. Well, I did hit the wall last night and turned rather melancholy and seemed to be that way this morning, but those days on end of happiness have been really, really strange.

Why, you ask? Well, you see, I’m not that girl. I’m not the one who is cheerful all the time for no reason. There aren’t bushels and buckets of amazing things coming my way that would cause this. I just…am. I exist. I go through my days and I’m reasonably happy, but I’m not the girl who’s always feeling good. Except lately, I am.

While at lunch with a friend the other day, I was talking about this unexpected happiness and saying that I hated to tie it to my weight loss and put so much emphasis on that, but it seems to be at the core of things. I hate admitting that because it seems so vain “Oh, look at me, I lost weight and people compliment me so now I’m sooooo fabulous and happy!” That’s not the truth, believe me. Compliments are nice, but fleeting. However, when I dig down, the weight loss is at least the catalyst for things.

I stepped on the scale today and I’m 0.6lbs from my goal weight. I already have a 2^nd goal weight in mind because I want to be able to say that I’ve lost 50 pounds. And it’s also terrifying to think, “I needed to lose 50 pounds?!?!” That still might keep me in the “Overweight” category for my height, but at 5’ 7” and now weighing in at 175.6 lbs, I think I’m just fine. If I lose more, that’s great. Icing on the cake (damn, but I do love cake). If I never lose another pound, that’s ok too because I did it. I did this. I have to focus more on maintaining the loss and eating healthier foods. I can’t go back. I just can’t.

That number this morning floored me. It’s not like I haven’t been close for a while, but to be *thisclose* to the goal weight I set nearly a year ago? I can’t comprehend it. I put on a pair of pants this morning that, when I bought them about 4 months ago, where a teeny bit snug and I wondered if they would be ok. Today, I could stuff a pillow down the gap in the front. Like, a small airline pillow, not a monster queen sized or anything, but still. I could fit a pillow in them.

My brain can’t comprehend this. I don’t understand. How did I do this? How did I change? And how do I deal with this new person that seems to be emerging. I’m not that girl. I can’t be. I don’t know who she is or how to deal with her.

I feel better now – physically better (clearly not mentally!). My body is functioning better than it has in years. My digestive issues have nearly vanished. My arthritis in my feet rarely bothers me. I crave healthier food (except for Oreos. I will always want Oreos.). It is so confusing. I don’t know who this person is.

I look better. Now, I’m not fan of my looks (I think I look “fine”, which means not good and not bad, just…well, fine) and recently when someone said, “You do know you are very pretty, right?” I managed to say thanks without including what was in my head, which was “It’s nice that you think so, but that’s definitely not true.”  I’m not pretty. I’m not that girl.

I see the physical changes. My face and neck are thinner. That sounds weird, but that’s what people seem to notice first – the changes in my face, neck and collar bone. (My chiropractor says I look like my sister. If I had a sister.  Which I don’t. “You look like you, but different.”) I look in the mirror and think that maybe I am pretty. A little bit, anyway. But then I remember that I’m not that girl. 

If a man walked up to me right now and started flirting, I wouldn’t know how to handle it. Men do not flirt with me. I’m not that girl. As a rule, no one pays much attention to me at all.

It feels like so many things are changing and I don’t know how to deal with all of it.  I’m more active. Willing to be more adventurous and trying to be more social. I’m comfortable in my skin now and with my body. I just don’t know how to handle it all.

I’m not that girl! Dammit, I don’t know how to be that girl!!

I’m not that girl. I’m not sure who I am right now, but I may have no choice but to find out. And that scares me. A lot.

For the love of God, please stop trying to take my picture!

The turning of a new year is generally a time for reflection and often declarations of what we plan to do differently in the coming year. I tend not to make resolutions because I only turn right around and break them a few weeks later. I have absolutely no idea what I did on January 1, 2015, but I started 2016 with a long walk. It’s my kind of weather today – grey and overcast (although admittedly I am desperate for some sunshine too since we haven’t had any in what feels like weeks), but no rain today and cool temps with a breeze. I threw on some clothes and a hat (because bed head is no one’s friend, no matter what Hollywood tries to sell) and headed out with some music. Since the first song that cycled up was David Bryan’s version of “In These Arms” with him singing and playing piano – and since he’s been the rock star of my dreams for over 30 years now – I figured that was a good sign for a nice walk and I was right. I managed about 3 miles, which is shorter than I’d hoped for, but my aging knees don’t always allow me to go as far as I might like. Sometimes the walk is more about thinking than anything else though, so rarely do I come back disappointed in whatever I’ve managed to accomplish.

I often pray during that time or simply ask God to speak to me. I’m not sure he had much of anything to say to me today, but that’s when I start spending time in my own head. Today as I walked, I realized that I do not like to look at myself, especially in photos.

It’s no secret that I do not like to have or allow my picture to be taken. It happens now and then, but more often than not, I avoid having my picture taken at all costs. I will sneak out of the room, hide in the back of the picture and try to literally hide behind someone else completely so I can’t be seen – do anything to avoid being photographed.

Most often I try to politely decline to be photographed, but people make a huge issue out of it. I’m at the point of saying that I’m afraid the camera is going to steal my soul so that folks will just LET. IT. GO. There are photos that exist of me out there in the world. I don’t look that different now than I did when those were taken, so I really think that should suffice. It simply makes me very uncomfortable to see photos of myself. I can get dressed and go someplace and think I look nice, but when I see the photos, they are just horrible and make me feel bad about myself. I don’t want to see myself that way and I shouldn’t have to look.

As I walked along this morning, those thoughts played in my head. I looked at my reflection in the mirror this morning before I left home (which I find infinitely more palatable than looking at photographs) to make sure my hat was on straight and I thought, “Hey, even in my workout gear, I look pretty good.” I had on form fitting clothes, which is something I’ve only been willing to do in the past year since I lost weight. My go-to outfits before that were always loose and baggy, as larger sizes were always more comfortable – both mentally and physically. Now I’m comfortable leaving home in form-fitting cropped leggings and a sleeveless slim shirt because they are more comfy for exercise and when I see myself in the mirror, I think it looks pretty good. Or at least ok. But show me a picture of me dressed like that and I might change my mind.

A key piece of this whole twisted scenario is that, as I said above, I lost weight in 2015. I can fit into smaller clothes (I’m insanely pleased that I can buy size Large now in shirts and sweaters when I can’t even remember a time I ever could do that) and with that is coming more confidence in my body. You always hear that the number on the scale should not be so important or that we should not assume that life is going to improve just because we shed a few pounds, but I don’t completely buy that. Life should not revolve around what size you are, but I found that my life HAS improved since I lost weight, if only in terms of how I feel about myself and that I have more confidence. I am comfortable with my body and in my own skin now and I wasn’t before. I think that comes through in my attitude and how I interact with the world. When you feel good about yourself (no matter your size), it shines through. It just so happens that when I was heavier, I did not feel good about myself and now I am taking better care of myself. By doing so I’m telling myself – both my physical AND my mental self – that I care about me and if I don’t care about me, why should anyone else? It has to start with me.

I don’t have perfect body by any means. I have fat and cellulite and rolls here and there, but I have less than I used to. I can see the changes. I have even gotten to a place where I can see myself naked in the mirror and be comfortable with that (apologies for that visual and any trauma it may cause someone at the thought of me naked). And yet, fully clothed photos of me really mess with my head. I’m not sure it makes any sense, but it’s still true.

I got to wondering today if my issue is more than simply not liking to look at myself in pictures. Am I afraid to really look at myself – my inside self? *pausing to ponder that briefly* Oh. Well. Let’s not ask hard questions that early in the year, right? Egads. That’s one to think on.

All I know for sure is that on this New Year’s Day 2016, I’m a happier person than I was a year ago. I’m a more confident person. Every now and then this year I may even agree to be photographed, but if it steals my soul, well, I can’t be held responsible for my actions at that point. I’m already full of so much snark  that if I suddenly end up soulless, who knows what might happen.