Been There, Done Fat

There is a picture of me, age 20, standing at the buffet table at my grandmother's house. A family friend is in the foreground, dressed as Santa Claus, holding my young cousin on his lap. They look happy, even jolly, as is expected at the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.

I do not. I look embarrassed because I am obese and the person taking the picture has captured me mid-bite. It is Christmas Eve and the table is heavy with festive food of every sort - cheery green punch as bright as a jewel, meatballs simmering in a Crock Pot, fancy deli meats, breads, cookies, pies, chips, Chex mix, fudge - with nuts or without. I believe I am indulging in a smear of cheeseball atop a cracker when the photo is snapped.

It is a veritable feast of Tiny Tim proportions.

I am dressed carefully for the occasion. White t-shirt, jeans, blue button-down shirt worn open for some color contrast. My jewelry is small and tasteful. My hair is trendily cropped short, and I am doused in Clinique Happy like many reasonably privileged young women in the early 2000s.

But the truth of my life has been captured in this picture. No matter how mainstream my dress or how quietly I sneak extra bites, I am fat and I am miserable.

That picture was 16 years and 70 pounds ago. I keep it hidden in my things so when I'm having a tough day, I can look at that picture and marvel at how far I've come. It is just for my eyes, though. It is too painful to share with anyone else.

I thought for a long time about what I wanted to share in this post. First, let me tell you what my intentions aren't: I am not looking to fat-shame anyone. There is no doubt in my mind that beautiful people come in all shapes and sizes. In fact, my own experience has taught me that being romantically successful has much more to do with self-respect and understanding that you deserve to be treated well than it does with any physical trait. There are also people healthier than me than have a higher percent of body fat than me. So, I'm not here to make blanket statements about any of it.

I guess I want to offer some encouragement and real talk for my friends who are either looking to lose weight or just curious about my experience. I've gotten a lot of questions about the details of my weight loss. I want to make a very important point: slimming down was not a panacea for me. Plenty of things got better but others stayed the same or got worse. That's the truth.

I was at a healthy weight until 3rd grade. Then, I got chubby. I stayed chubby until after my dad died. By my freshman year of high school, I was obese, and I stayed that way until 2008. If you've never been sensitive or suffered trauma, you may not understand how food can anesthetize you so your bad feelings temporarily go away.

If you've never been poor, you may not understand how buying name-brand snacks and soft drinks is the one easy and inexpensive way you have to fit in. You may not think that rolling into a party holding a Mountain Dew or Frappuccino bottle instead of a generic cola drink makes much of a difference socially, but it does. If you've ever agonized over having to wear a pair of store-brand sneakers from the Pic-n-Pay on the first day of school, you know what I mean.

Being poor also means limited food choices. Sometimes, we wouldn't have eaten if Mom hadn't brought home leftovers from the cafeteria. Unfortunately, the leftovers weren't usually healthy. School pizza is uniquely, unquestionably delicious, but no one needs to be eating it several times a week. Many people have little access to better options.

I write these things not to offer any excuses but to remind you that obesity is a complicated subject. Even once I found an effective caloric-burning formula for myself in 2007, my reasons for wanting to lose weight in the first place were not coming from a good place - so my head was a wreck.

My old nemesis Anxiety and I met back in 2000. For years and through various treatments, it has waxed and waned. In 2007, it had waned, and I moved from Atlanta to Knoxville with my fiance at the time. He was a nice guy and a decent person. I wasn't happy with him, but I wasn't unhappy, either. I thought, quite frankly, that I was too picky, and that a 'not bad' marriage would be just fine.

At the same time, I was fast approaching my 30th birthday, and felt like I owed it to myself to try my hardest to lose weight. I was already worried about some health problems I had developed. I felt that if I could 'fix' myself, I would know once and for all what to do about him.

Girl. Who were you kidding?

I made losing weight my top priority. Every day, with few exceptions, I stuck to a 1500 calorie diet. I also walked on the treadmill or Sweated to the Oldies or put on headphones and danced around for an hour almost every single day. And that's it.

Before, 2004

After, 2009

It took me 23 months to reach my goal weight, and I spent almost a year trying to lose the last 12 pounds of it. Let me say that again: It took me a less than a year to lose 58 lbs, and almost a year to lose the remaining 12. Real talk.

When I hit my goal weight, I threw myself a huge party. I knew that Richard Simmons, whom I had adored for years, had a reputation of being kind and loving to his fans. (I knew this because he didn’t have my mom arrested when she broke through the barricade at the St. Jude’s Walkathon in 1991 and ran up to hug him. He just hugged her back.) For fun, I emailed his company and invited him to my party. I was thrilled when he wrote me back, that sweetheart.

"I am so proud of you. I will keep you in my prayers. I will ask God to continue to give you strength on your journey. Thank you so much for sharing your story. It made my day. Love, Richard"

Anyway, most of you have read the story of how I met the man I married, so you know I eventually broke off my previous engagement. I've stayed a healthier weight, as well, usually gaining or losing those same 10 lbs depending on A1C and cholesterol levels.

It's a full-time job, keeping a healthy weight. A few days of carb-heavy heaven takes a few weeks to remove, especially as I get older. Here's the good stuff, though: I have seen a huge improvement in asthma symptoms and blood sugar crashes. I used to have to pause halfway up a staircase because I was out of breath - that's no longer the case. When I was obese, I used to feel such shame shopping for clothes or talking to doctors or eating in front of others or even exercising in front of others because I was embarrassed by my fat. Those things don't even enter my mind anymore. I don't give them the briefest consideration.

You probably believe that those last victories aren't that great because no one should feel embarrassed by any of those things and I agree. I'm just telling you how things are different for me now.

As always, I aim to be blisteringly honest on this blog. Plenty of things didn't improve after slimming down. My crippling anxiety issues didn't disappear with the weight. If anything, they can be worse because I don't use food to self-medicate anymore.

I made a conscious effort to keep my goal weight a little plumper than the BMI chart recommended. You can't lose 70 pounds without your skin losing elasticity. However, keeping a little extra weight helped minimize that effect. (Let's just say, I'll never wave goodbye to you wearing a sleeveless shirt.)

During the process, I also had to re-evaluate and recalculate a lot of relationships. Your resolve to reach your goal has to be stronger than friends, family, and co-workers who begin to endlessly comment on your food and new eating habits. As you change, your relationships with them might change as well. Sometimes they feel threatened because of it. This happened to me.

Real talk.

This has been my journey since 2007. Slimming down was a definite net positive but it didn't solve everything, and the maintenance never stops. Becoming healthier is a full-time job, and it doesn't look the same for each person.

2018

If you need encouragement, I will give it. I will not judge you, because I understand how hard it can be. No matter your method, though, please know - the time and effort you invest in yourself is worth it!

October 17, 2018