Coming to terms with the size of my thighs

I would swear I've used that title before somewhere, but maybe it's simply a statement that's run through my brain often enough that it seems very familiar. I do spend entirely too much time thinking about my thighs. Are they too big? Is there too much fat surrounding them? Will I ever be able to walk without them rubbing together?!?! So many questions. But the other day I realized that, while it has taken me nearly 45 years, I have finally come to terms with the size of my thighs.

I'm a big girl. Always have been, always will be. It's in the genes. If you'd ever seen my mother or her sister or their mother, you'd know that I come by it naturally. I told my oldest niece recently, when she mentioned something like how we had similar hips/builds, that "child, we have good birthin' hips." (Sometimes I like to put on the Southern accent thickly, for emphasis - but it's never as bad as Olympia Dukakis in "Steel Magnolias".) To which she sassily replied, "Yeah, but it's not like you've ever given me any little cousins!" (or something like that - she'll correct me if I am misquoting her I have no doubt) I really have no idea where the kid gets her sass. No idea at all. *tries to look innocent* But yeah, I can loose all the weight in the world and I'll never be small and that's ok. It's who I am. It's just sad that it's taken so long to be more comfortable in my own skin.

I don't have any interest in running on a regular basis, but on Sunday morning, I ran. Well, I ran for maybe 4 minutes, but I ran without stopping and whenever I run it's usually short sprints at most, so this was a big deal to me. I wanted to stop...until I didn't want to stop. I pushed and prodded and told myself "Just go a little farther" until my body said it really was time to stop. When I did, I realized how damned good it felt. Not stopping, but how good it felt to push myself. To challenge what I believed I could do and prove that I could do more. How good it feels to not stop, even if you want to, but to keep on going because you know that you can. Because my body will allow me to do it.

A year ago, I'm not sure my body would have stood for this kind of thing. I had just finished a weight loss research study and lost about 20 pounds, putting me around 198 - 200. My body was doing better and I was treating it better, but I wasn't as active as I am now. Oh, I'm not super duper active by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm better than I was before. That's how I gauge things - determining if I'm better than I was before.

I'm getting far away from my original thoughts though, so let me circle back around. After my workout on Sunday, I realized the power that I have in my muscles now. My thighs will never, ever be thin, but they are pretty solidly full of muscle. Oh sure, there's a nice layer of fat around the muscle in places - I will always have curves and some jiggly parts -  but when I do squats or plies, I can feel the muscle in my thighs. They are even rock hard in some places. I'm fascinated by that and it reminds me that appearances can be deceiving. Sure, my thighs are big, but they are solid, too. They can do some amazing things, like help me run when I can't usually run that long or that far.

I talk entirely too much about weight loss and am sure I place too much emphasis on appearance, even if I am not always that enthusiastic about my own, but for the first time in memory, I truly feel that I've come to terms with the size of my thighs. Oh, I'll never complain if I finally manage to get my diet in better shape so that I can lose some of that fat layer, but I'm also not eyeing other women's bodies and wishing they were mine. I'm giving up worrying about what I look like in comparison to someone else. I can't make that a factor in my life. I won't make it a competition because I can't and won't compete with someone else. I'll only compete with myself. To push myself when I need to be pushed. To work a little harder today than yesterday. To appreciate my body how it is, right now, and the ridiculously amazing things of which it is capable.

Society at large can keep their notions of what is a "perfect body" because I already have a perfect body. MY perfect body. It's perfect for me and it can do the most amazing things (I know I just said that, but I think it bears repeating, haha). I won't let myself forget that. Not again.

So tonight at boot camp, if Melissa tells us to run, I'm going to run. If my body says don't, we'll reach a compromise and do what works for both of us, but we'll keep going. I'm not stopping. Never again. Because this feels too damned good and I damned well deserve it. 

Life is Messy...Like My Hair

I was standing at the sink in the restroom at work, brushing my teeth after lunch and looking at my hair. Thinking “What a mess!” because I’m trying to get a little length on my hair so that my hairdresser and I can play with the color a little bit. Every time I ever try to grow out my hair, even a little bit, it’s a debacle. I’m just a girl who is meant to have short hair and it’s still short, but it’s also kind of messy right now. I hate that. I like every hair in place (this is why, even with short hair, I used too much hair spray in the 80s). Every shoe lined up with its mate. Every fitted sheet folded just right (that’s right, I am a badass because I can properly fold a fitted sheet). I like order and right now, my life is more in disarray than order.

I’ve been saying for months that I’m eating like a machine. I eat and eat and am always hungry and it’s finally caught up with me with a gain of about 5-7 pounds. That’s unacceptable and I am going to have to fight to get those pounds off again. I know I can do it because I’ve done it before, but I also know it’s going to be very hard. I like food and I like to eat, but when I find myself eating and I *know* deep in my bones that I am not really hungry, but I am doing it anyway, well, there’s a problem there. Life is messy and the road to better health is scattered with chocolate bars and cupcake wrappers.

These days I’m also fighting some mental demons. Knowing that I’m reasonably unarmed for battle (uh...did I just call myself dumb? Huh…), I decided to go see a counselor to see if she can help me get things sorted out. I’ve only been twice so far, but I can see we’re about to dig into territory that is amazingly uncomfortable to me. I have a big mouth and spout a lot of nonsense into the world, but the truth is, I have pretty low self-esteem. Well, not every day, but a lot of the time. Sure, sometimes I run my mouth about how amazing I am and I mean it when I say it (mostly anyway), but she’s going to start asking the tough questions. I’m not sure I want to delve too deeply into that right now, but suffice it to say that she asked me something about how I reacted when men expressed an interest in me and I said, “Well, they don’t.” I’ve said it many times before, but if a man is attracted to me, he’d need to hit me over the head with a neon sign because I’m never going to notice it. Why? Well, because my entire life has been a series of me being attracted to men who are not remotely interested in me and vice versa. I just shut down that part of my life and my thinking and it would never occur to me that any man might be attracted to me. I’m truly oblivious.  I could see the fire light up in the counselor’s eyes when I said that I 100% never thought men were interested in me. Oh yeah, I’ve given her something to work with alright. Life is messy and apparently so is my brain. All kinds of messy.

Work is stressing me out these days, but then again, it likely always is. I just feel so behind and everything is important, but I keep pushing back one VERY important thing. If I leave work tomorrow without having truly finished a specific schedule, well, that’s not good. To put it mildly. I’m better than this. I know what has to be done, but I somehow end each day without additional progress being made. Life is messy and right now, so is my desk.

Yeah. Life is messy, just like my hair. Maybe I should rename the “Year of Yes” the “Year of MESS”, whatever it may bring. So far it’s shaking me up, but ultimately I think it’ll be in the best way possible. Say yes to the mess! Maybe I can get that on a bumper sticker.

Finding God in Van Halen once again...no, really

I’ve said many times recently (if only to myself) that I feel far from God. I know it’s because I’ve pushed myself away, rather than God pulling away. God loves us and he never leaves us, even when it seems like he has. I don’t know why bad things happen or why they are allowed to happen and quite frankly, I long ago stopped trying to figure that out. I simply choose to remind myself that God loves me and I’m good enough.

Lately though, God and I have been having some interesting chats. I mean, if you can’t talk to him, who can you really talk to and trust?  I feel that maybe slowly, surely I’m finding my way back to a good place and better relationship with him and that makes me very happy. I’ve found a Bible study that I enjoy and that makes me want to go back again each week. Hopefully one day I’ll find a church that makes me feel the same way. I love Jesus, but I don’t always like religion, but having a faith community is something that I need and I know it.

On the drive in to work this morning, Van Halen’s “I Can’t Stop Loving You” cycled up in iTunes and I have to say that I nearly started crying. Which would be a great sight on Gervais Street early in the morning – some silly crying female trying to turn left onto Bull Street.  No, I wasn’t crying because it was Sammy and not Dave (as I tend to prefer the Hagar years over Roth), but because that’s the song I hear when I know that God is talking to me. When he’s reminding me that he loves me and nothing I ever do is going to take that love away.

I told this story years ago and there are still those that I know roll their eyes at the notion of God speaking through a Van Halen song, but I believe that God speaks to us in the ways that he knows we will hear him and listen. This song, however, is “our song”. It’s the song I have with God. You can keep your “Amazing Grace” and all that stuff because I’ve got this. Yeah, it’s not Bon Jovi, but that would be too obvious. It's better. 

The original blogpost on this (also pasted below) is worth a read to understand better where I’m coming from and how this came about, but I felt so much love and understanding this morning that I wanted to cry. It was nearly overwhelming…and absolutely what I need right now in my life.

As I said back then, “I think if you look and listen, you will find God all around you, every day.  You never know when or how or why He is going to send you a message. You just have to be open to it.” I have a few things going on right now that I don’t really talk about with anyone except God and it’s so good to be reminded that he’s listening, that he loves me, and that I seem to be on the right path.  I can only wish that for us all.

*********************

June 28, 2011

Play It Again Sam(my Hagar)

Once upon a time I wrote a little blog for my church group (back when I used to do a weekly email for the group) about how I heard God talking to me through a Cher song.  And I've heard God speak to me through an episode of WKRP in Cincinnati as well.  And I've frequently heard God speaking to me through a Van Halen song.  I searched and searched and cannot find the blog I thought I'd written about this years ago, because some time around the Cher experience is when I think this all came about.

Now, there are those that scoff at hearing God speak to you in any other way than through reading the Bible.  Well, I disagree. I think if you look and listen, you will find God all around you, every day.  You never know when or how or why He is going to send you a message. You just have to be open to it.

On this particular day I was out in my yard pruning the lantanna. Which is not my favorite thing and generally only happens in January or February once the leaves have fallen.  I'm not sure exactly how my head got into this particular place, but I was talking with God and wondering how he could stand the human race most of the time. I mean, good grief!  We are a messed up bunch of people that's for ding dang sure.  Fortunately, God offers us grace and forgiveness and salvation.  Can't get much luckier - or rather, blessed -than that.

So as I'm pruning and pondering and asking God how he can love someone like me, who is certainly undeserving, the Van Halen song "I Can't Stop Loving You" came on and I heard these words:

There's a time and place for everything, for everyone 
We can push with all our might, but nothin's gonna come 
Oh no, nothin's gonna change 
And if I asked you not to try 
Oh could you let it be

and 

I can't stop lovin' you 
And no matter what I say or do 
You know my heart is true, oh 
I can't stop loving you 

I can't clearly recall, but I think I started laughing a little bit at the fact that at the very moment when I needed something like this, this song came on.  And I truly believe it was God speaking to me. Reassuring me.  Reminding me that no matter what I do, He can't and won't stop loving me.  It was pretty cool.

So now every time that song pops up on my iPod, I stop and smile and listen, remembering that God loves me. Even though I don't deserve it.  And that sometimes, if He asks me not to push and try so hard, can I just let it be.  I'm grateful for God's love and His grace, especially when I have no idea what is going to happen or which way my life is headed (which is basically all the time the past few years, or so it seems).  And I'm grateful that God chooses seemingly strange places and things to use to speak to me. I believe God chooses the avenue that is best for the individual and how He knows He can get through to us.  And he definitely does get through to me in this song.  I dunno... maybe it has something to do with Sammy's hair.  :o)

The Ugly Truth

The other day a friend emailed me to ask what motivated me to finally lose weight. I feel like all I do on social media is talk about weight loss. Well, that and eating cake. Yeah, those things don't go together, but there you have it. But I digress...

This friend wasn't looking for a magic pill or wave of a wand, but really wanted to know what changed mentally to help me start to change physically. I can’t speak for anyone else, but that’s how it had to happen for me. Something flipped in my brain and said, “Enough!” and I knew I had to start helping myself to heal and get healthy. Yeah. Heal. That’s a biggie it seems. I’m not sure I ever really realized a lot of what my weight was about, but I have a tad more wisdom now, for whatever it’s worth to the world.

It started at my 25^th high school reunion in October 2014, when I saw pictures of myself and how bad I looked. I never realized just how big I'd gotten until then. I was in denial. I struggled for a while after that because I don't have great self-control at all - hence all the cake I eat all the time - and needed something to hold me accountable. When left to my own devices, I do tend to go off the rails.

In January 2015, I heard about a research study taking place at the University of South Carolina about the effects of sleep deprivation on weight loss and quickly signed up to participate. Since they expected you to lose some weight each week and made us track all food intake in a journal that we turned in (which really just showed calorie intake and they had given us a specific amount of calories we could eat on a certain number of days per week) then I was accountable to someone to stay on track. If I wasn’t losing weight, they were going to sit me down and ask why and I didn’t want that. I wanted to push forward for myself and so that I didn’t let them down. I was the 2^nd participant to complete the study and, based on some conversations with the person running it, one of the more compliant. I didn’t complain (which is shocking for me since I complain all the time about basically everything), I lost weight every week (about 1-2 pounds which is how you want to do it), and did everything they asked of me.

When the study ended, I had lost around 20 pounds, which was 50% of the goal I’d set for myself. I didn’t set out to lose 40 pounds, but to get to a specific number, which was 175 pounds. I started at 218 and 175 seemed like a good number. Today the scales registered 173.6 which is the first time in a year that I’ve gotten to or below my goal weight! I’m pretty excited about that. Unfortunately, my standard way to celebrate is wanting to eat cake. Or cookies. Go have a milkshake. I won’t lie and pretend that I didn’t eat a brownie today, but I also forced myself outside for a 3 mile walk. Hahahaha That totally makes it sound like I’m some person who has enough sense to balance what they eat with exercise and I’m really not that kind of person. It’s just how today turned out.

Ultimately, I knew that once I saw some results I would get motivated and I was right. I needed something that would force me into action and the study did that. I need to pay more attention to what I eat rather than just the calories in the food because I'd like to lose some belly fat and some of the fat on my thighs. The real challenge I’m facing is to KEEP it off and start balancing my diet better. If I eat crap food all the time that’s not helping my body be healthy and heal and that’s what I’m after. Feeling healed. It’s for sure that the digestive issues I’ve battled for 20 years have greatly improved. It’s not often these days that my body has a violent reaction to food, whereas in the past it was happening more than once a week. To say that is a blessing would be a gross understatement.
Exercise has also helped a lot because once I lost weight and started being more active, it is easier to be more active. It's helped my digestion problems and it's helped the arthritis in my feet. I used to be where I couldn't do much walking at all without a lot of pain and now I'm so much better with less pain. It's been a blessing for sure.

In the end it’s mostly that I got tired of looking in the mirror and not liking what I saw. That's why I don't like photos of myself - even though I keep taking stupid selfies now, but I'm just excited sometimes when I think I might actually look good. I didn't do this for men, but it's a nice notion that now I seem to attract a little male attention and that's never been the case for me in my life. Although I will say that I think I've tended to hide behind food and being fat as a defense mechanism in life. I could say, "Well, no one is interested in me because I'm fat" and leave it at that because as far as I knew it was true. Now, I also tend to be really snarky and controlling at times and probably do scare some men off with that (and if I could scare them, I wouldn’t want to date them), so it's not all the weight, but now I do get attention that I didn't get in the past and it's a nice change, even if it's just someone complimenting me on looking nice one day or something. I’ll take it.

It's hard and I'm not going to lie. I struggle every day. Not only with food, but with my self-esteem issues. I’ll never look in the mirror and see someone who is pretty. I’ll never look and see someone who isn’t fat. At least that’s how it feels, even on the days when I look and think, “Hey, maybe I look ok today.” It’s so vile how we torture ourselves about our appearance. The only thing I know for sure is that I’m done hiding behind my weight. I’m done hiding, period. It got me nowhere, whereas pushing the boundaries and forcing myself outside of my comfort zone has gotten me to a happy place. And if weight loss played a huge part in that, then that’s the way it is. I never realized I was hiding from the world behind the extra pounds and baggy clothes, but I was. Hiding from myself as much as anyone else, but no more. Being happy is so much more fun and I refuse to let that feeling go.

My mid-life crisis of hapiness

Lately I've been really, really happy and quite frankly, it's messing with my head. Strange as it may sound, I'm not sure how to handle that. I would not say I'm a particularly unhappy person as a rule. Crabby, complaining, whining and snarky, sure, but unhappy? Not necessarily. Sometimes I simply want to vent and then I move on.

I don't skip down the street or whistle a happy tune - although I do jump up now and then and have a dance party in my office, especially if Tom Jones's "It's Not Unusual" comes on the radio - but I would never classify myself as unhappy. These days though, I seem to be a touch too much on the other side. Oh trust me, people have noticed (for good or bad). I think my co-workers are a little disturbed at times, but otherwise it seems to be a pleasant surprise to most everyone else.

It's fascinating to me to be happy and not be able to trace it to a particular reason. And NO, this is not about a man, as a friend queried the other day. You should never pin your happiness on a person because they will always let you down. That's what humans do and we're all human. This seems to be bubbling up from inside me for no particular reason and I think I like it all the more because of that.

I walked outside leaving work the other evening and the sky was blue, a light breeze was blowing, birds were singing and suddenly, anything else going on earlier in the day vanished and I was happy. Peaceful. Possibly even a little joyous. For whatever reason, since my birthday last October, I seem to be embracing the lighter, brighter side of life.

I guess it started with my birthday gift to myself - finally getting to see Night Ranger live. I've loved them since the 80s when I spent every afternoon in the fall of 8th grade listening to the Midnight Madness album on my brother's old stereo while  doing my homework. My hard-core love for them resurfaced about 5 years ago and when I found out they'd be playing basically in my own backyard, well, it was an easy decision. Add in Def Leppard as the headliners and Foreigner to boot and I was instantly sold. After about 4 hours of classic hits from 3 great bands, I declared it the "best birthday party EVER!" and it really was.

The following week I was chatting with a co-worker and declared that this next year of my life would be “Year of Yes”. The only “rules” are that I try to say yes more than I say no to things and try to get out of my comfort zone and let me assure you, it is working. I started keeping a journal of the things I say yes to and how that experience turns out or makes me feel. It has ranged from stepping out of my social comfort zone and going places and meeting new people to buying cute little dresses that are pretty form-fitting, which is not something I would have considered doing a year ago.

All I’ve been able to figure out is that I’m having a mid-life crisis and you know what? I say, bring it on! If this is what a mid-life crisis is, then everyone should be having one. Right now. This is the best thing that’s happened to me in quite possibly my entire life. I’ve never felt happy like this, I’ve never felt as comfortable with my body as I do now, I’ve never been more willing to step outside of myself and my comfort zone than I am these days.

So bring on more of this mid-life crisis if it brings on more happiness! Up next, I’m taking a chair dancing class with a couple of friends, one of whom said I was the last person on the planet that she would ever, EVER think would want to do something like that. I say, good for me! If I can surprise people at 44-years-old – including myself – then I’m pretty sure I can do damned near anything. And I’m certain that I’m going to try.  

How to look good naked

As I was getting ready this morning after my shower, I realized that somehow over the course of the past year, I've started to look good naked. Oh sure, I've lost a few pounds and that changes your body and makes a difference, but that's not all of it. These days I look at myself in the mirror and actually feel good about what I see. I think I look pretty good. Now, I'm not saying that anybody else would see my body the same way, but I'm also not necessarily offering anybody else the opportunity to give an opinion.

When I look at myself naked in the mirror, I'm no longer seeing all the fat. I don't see someone overweight (although the charts still say that at 5' 7" and 175lbs, I am). I bypass wishing my thighs were a little bit smaller or my belly didn't have a pooch. What I see are my toned shoulders, a defined collar bone, trim neck. I see where I've got definition in my waist and maybe, possibly even the hint of some definition in my abs. I see where my butt has gotten flatter (which I'm totally ok with!) and even if my hips haven't really gotten any trimmer, I can absolutely see the changes in my body.

Ok. Sure. I'm 44 years old and wish I had breasts more like so did when I was 24 (or like I believe I had when I was 24...I'm convinced they were once perky, but I have no actual recollection or proof of that), but barring any money appearing for me to have the girls lifted, nature has decreed that they are going to sag. But you know what? Looking in the mirror this morning I realized that it's ok. I still think they look good and hey, they are healthy and real! Perky is over-rated and you can fix that with a good push-up bra and some underwire anyway.

Believe me, getting to this point has been a long time coming. It's not something I ever would've done prior to some weight loss and it's not necessarily something I stand around doing all the time now. But when I look in the mirror and see myself without clothes on, I'm okay with it. This is HUGE. So very huge. I never wanted to look at myself naked in the past, but now you know what? I'm kinda proud! Because dammit, I earned this body. I've worked hard over the past year to get this body and I'm going to appreciate it and be proud of it.

So, how do you look good naked? Well, I can't speak for anyone else, but for me, it starts with looking in the mirror and making the choice to like what I see. Flaws and imperfections? I'm sure they are there, but I don't see them anymore because I choose not to. It's one of the best feelings in the world. I highly recommend it.

Hey February, I think I love you

T.S. Eliot (or as my friend John called him in college, “the T-ster”) said April is the cruelest month, but sometimes as a single person I think February better fits that distinction. We’re bombarded with Valentine’s Day as soon as the clock chimes midnight on Christmas Day (and sometimes even earlier!) and so much importance is placed on that day by the retail establishments that it can be demoralizing. It doesn’t particularly affect me anymore because the older I get the less I give a flyin’ flip about a lot of things, this being one of them.  Valentine’s Day? That’s kind of a gimme for romance, but as Blanche Devereaux once said, “Get lucky on a Tuesday morning, then call me”. 

I actually like the month of February. A lot. To me, it’s not a winter month so much as a not-quite-spring month. It always seems so hopeful, with all the bright reds and pinks and happy smiling hearts that Hallmark throws at us (and I’m all about discounted candy on the 15^th…I may have a serious candy issue…). There’s always a post-holiday let down that comes in January, but then February arrives and it feels like we turn a corner.

For some it’ll be Mardi Gras celebrations and for others it’s the arrival of the Lenten season and what that means to them.  I grew up in a Baptist church and became a Presbyterian as an adult (and currently have been regularly visiting a Lutheran church, so denominational confusion is part of my life it seems) and I don’t always give up something for Lent since it wasn’t a part of my traditions growing up. Some years I choose to incorporate something positive into my life, rather than eliminate something that seems negative. I’m still deciding on what I’m going to do during Lent this year. Adding in a dedicated prayer and quiet time with God really should be at the top of my list because I have gone woefully astray from that in the past year. I have never enjoyed reading the Bible, so I should probably work on incorporating that into my 40 days as well, but we’ll see. Those would certainly be positive steps to take in my life. Right now it’s leaning toward giving up brownies and cake because sometimes I think my life is made up of going to work and then finding a way to eat baked goods every day. I’m still not sure how I’ve maintained a weight loss with what I frequently consume on any given day. I’ll probably wake up tomorrow 10 pounds heavier and be surprised that it happened.

The bigger picture of February for me, however, is that I often make life changes or have interesting new experiences during this month. I’m not sure how it happened, but now I eye each February 1^st with a question of “What will happen this year?” Sometimes it’s nothing, but other times, well, it’s sure been something.

One year I moved halfway around the world, jumping at an opportunity I was more afraid to let pass me by than I was to say yes to. It didn’t turn out the way I’d planned, but I wouldn’t change that decision for anything.  Two years after that, I was accepting a new job in the middle of February and getting ready to make another move, but this time it was back to my home town and to be closer to family. Another good decision made that I can’t regret…even when 6 years later I started February being laid off from that same job. Ultimately that turned out to be the best thing for me, but it did make February 2009 a bit scarier than the others.

In February 2003 and February 2006 I had some seriously fun Bon Jovi concert experiences and anyone who knows me knows how much I love those boys and that band.  Having the rock star of my dreams, David Bryan, acknowledge my existence on the planet was so much fun. Having my father with me at the show – my Bon Jovi concert going buddy since I was 14 – was even better. We have some great memories of those shows over the decades.

February 2007 probably brought my favorite February experience though as that’s when I got to travel to Australia for 5 weeks. Australia had been a dream of mine since high school and one I never thought I could achieve, but thanks to the Rotary Foundation’s Group Study Exchange program I was able to not only visit, but meet so many wonderful people and spend 5 weeks all over Western Australia, seeing and doing so very much. It’s hard to believe it’s been 9 years now since that trip. Time does fly.

This year February may not bring much of anything new or different or exciting into my life. I won’t be able to say for sure until March 1^st. So far it’s got some interesting prospects laid out before me and as I’m in the midst of my “Year of Yes” challenge to myself to be open to more experiences, for all I know, February 2016 might be the most amazing one yet. All I know for sure is that I’m looking forward to finding out.

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.