Dear Internet,
The image to your left is of me in 1989, when I was all of 17. I stood the height at what I am now, 5’10, and weighed nearly (sans 20lbs) half my current body weight. The later is hard to admit publicly without the immediate feelings of shame and the questioning and statements that swirls around that shame: “How did I get so fat?” “Why did I think I was so fat then?” “I wouldn’t shag me now so I can’t expect anyone else to shag me — hell, even want to be with me.” “I am just as unhappy now as I was then regardless of my size.”
I always have answers on the ready. “I have had no problems getting lovers so it doesn’t matter how much I weigh.” “I’m okay as long as my belly doesn’t outdistance my tits.” “My metabolic health (blood pressure, cholesterol, and so on) levels are perfect and I’m not pre-diabetic, so there is no need for me to lose weight.” “I’m predispositioned in being bigger and I have poly-cystic ovarian disease (PCOD) so it’s not my fault.” “I’m fairly active so I’m okay.” “I’m working on things A, B, C and it’s hard to work on all the things without something having to give.” “I’ll deal with this another time.” “I have an hourglass figure and my weight is proportionate.” “Everyone thinks I’m 50-75lbs less than what I really weigh so I’m okay.” “It’s the cut of the item” or “The manufacture short sizes everything.”
And you ignore the constant realities: The bottoms (pants, skirts, shorts, and underwear) that fold over at the waist (like my shorts are doing right now) because of the extra rolls. The inability to buckle up in plane seats and needing to ask for an extender. (But the counter argument is the seats are too small for just about anyone.) The sometimes difficulty of masturbating or having a lover masturbate you because your belly is in the way. (Sex as a whole is easy for me to do since I have some flexibility but certain positions, such as doggy, when I want to masturbate while my partner inside me is nearly impossible. (The interesting about me and sex is that I’m confident as hell in the bedroom despite aforementioned statements.)) The constant hiding in pictures and the quickly bypassing mirrors so I don’t see how much of a fat cow I am. Clothes don’t really fit but you’ve been wearing them for so long they have stretched out. The worry that no matter what you eat, be it a salad or a burger, people are staring and judging (I thought this even when I was 17). The worry that if you buy something with a weight limit, an office chair as an example, it will break when you sit on it.
This is why we are here today.
This post has been languishing in drafts since 2014. Its original goal is blurred but I know the overall thought was to track my weight as it fell off, replete with images starting with my heaviest. I would then publish the post with those images of the Lisa melt-away with a TADA! How fabulous is my body?
But I will not post those images, at least for now, because I’m too ashamed to show the world what the world already knows: I am fat. Not abundant, not chubby, not rubenesque, but fat.
And please don’t tell me I’m not fat or I am beautiful just the way I am because while my face may be beautiful, my body is not and at this point in the conversation there is nothing you can tell me to convince me otherwise
Friend A, whom I met a few years ago, nanny’s for Friend B. Friend A and B were weighing themselves one day and Friend B.’s daughter, the Empress, jumped on the scale after them. Friend A noted the Empress was thrilled with her weight — it meant she was growing up to be big and strong. Friend A said she wished she had that same kind of attitude as the Empress and silently I thought that about me too.
(I’m paraphrasing A and B here as this was months ago and I didn’t save a link to the post to reference later. Sorry dudes if I got the situation not quite right but I know the ending to be true.)
I reference days lately when I find my body to be beautiful and all the amazing things it can do and those days are growing closer together but what I really mean is my face and nothing from the neck down. I can think of only two instances in the last year when I looked at my body without revulsion.
I know the drill psychologically about the origin of why I carry this weight: The bullying from my family I was too tall and too big. To illustrate: I was 5’4-5’6 when I was 11 or 12 and weighed around 120lbs but was always put on diets by my family. I’ve been dieting on and off since I was nine. (Cottage cheese was always involved which is probably the reason why I hate cottage cheese.) The case of the boy in my third grade class, Roger, who threw me down on the ground in the playground area and dry humped me while my classmates stood around and laughed; the near gang rape from the high school swim team when I was 14; the multiple date rapes over the years from various lovers.
The fat protected me and it isolated me from the attention, just like my growing tattoo collection. But in reality, that is wholly untrue. I’ve been single since October 2015 and this is the first time, in at least 15 years, I’ve gone this long without having a lover. While it’s by choice, the point is I have clearly found men who found me attractive while I always privately thought their affections were horribly misplaced. No matter what I believe, there really is love at any size.
The irony is in my early 20s I lamented I wanted someone to like me for me and not as a fuck doll. Now in my early 40s, men like me for me AND also find me attractive so I think they must be some kind of desperation in their acts.
I just can’t win.
You’ll be hard pressed to find a full head to toe image of me, regardless of time or weight, either in physical or digital media. As the need to connect with others on the internet has grown, so too it has come the sharing of personal images and videos. Almost every image of me is from tits up and carefully posed so you don’t see the sagging jaw line and the bigness of my belly.
There is not a day that hasn’t gone by in the last 2 years that either TheBassist or TheExHusband haven’t plied me with compliments on how gorgeous is my face, body, or personality. That I’m a kind person. That I have a big heart.
It has been allegedly confirmed via science the constant private affirmations from either yourself or someone close to you helps build up your destroyed self-esteem because if you continue to hear it, you may eventually believe it. Two years on and all I can do is continue not to believe it and say “Thank you” because to deny these “truths” ends up bringing on a fight on my reluctance to take compliments.
I’ve been staring at this post for about a week now, writing and rewriting it and today I decided to be brave and finish. What prompted this push was this morning I was horrified putting on my shorts and while I’ve stayed the same weight for the last couple of years, I could barely do up the snaps, the waistband immediately folded over, and I had a muffin top like woah. (I do not remember it being this bad last year, which probably added to the alarm.) It’s currently 82F here in L-ville and I was not going to wear jeans taking Thursday on a jaunt along a park that buttresses up against the Ohio river. Naturally, as the shorts have some stretch, the ass and thigh areas stretched to comfort while I walked but the waist remained tight. I have de-shorted and I am now wearing a stretch waistband terrycloth shorts as is my fat girl right.
Something needs to change and that something starts today.
I’ve been doing beyond awesome with the small changes I’ve been making in my life (the exercise, quitting smoking, journaling, meditation, etc) since November and keeping at them too. Deciding I needed to do something about my weight in November, I started chronicling my weight every week at the same time and the same day with notes on what was happening that week that could throw my weight off (period, holidays, etc) and to track patterns. Adding in cardio, I started slowly losing weight, about .5lb a week. When the cardio gave over to only yoga, and I stopped paying attention to what I was eating, the weight slowly creeped back up.
47 days ago, according to MyFitnessPal, I started keeping track of everything that goes into my mouth. I set a sensible goal of 1.5lbs weight loss a week and watched as my weight has stubbornly stayed the same. I assumed, incorrectly, I was not going over, that much, my allotted daily calories or that the lack of cardio was bringing me down. If I was over a bit, I was not going to beat myself up because it was only a few calories.
I was going over. Not by 50 or 75 calories but by 200 – 400 calories putting me close to the daily amount I needed to maintain my current weight. Out of the last 47 days, over half had overages. On days when I was under the caloric amount, my daily intake was processed food and sugar. Mainly lots and lots of Coke. My daily sugar levels were almost always double or triple the recommended daily max amount. There was barely any protein or fresh fruit/veg in my diet.
It wasn’t the attempt to eat better wasn’t working, it was that I was self-sabotaging myself with these ideas I was keeping to my healthy eating plan when I was so obviously not. A Coke maybe be drunk under my calorie allotment for the day but the sugar was fucking me up.
if I had learned anything from the reports I’m generating from MyFitnessPal, the eating better part is false. I need to track exactly what I’m putting in my mouth and doing exercise more than yoga. I’m starting the couch to 5k program this week, with an intent of speed walking over running because I hate running. I’ll still do yoga everyday to stretch the body. I’m allergic to dairy but I cheat as a motherfucker. Who can turn down pizza? It also doesn’t help whey/lactose/milk products come under a variety of different names and are found in everything from breads to fancy waters. I bloat up and get rosacea on my face when I eat diary in any form, so that’s a good reason to completely cut it out. I’m also going to be more diligent on ditching processed sugars and adding more protein and fresh fruit and veg.
For the few month or so I’ve been doing yoga five times a week and at least once weekly since November. I know between 20 – 30 poses from memory and my routine every day is different. As far as I know, I have never been able to do the first stance in the King Dancer sequence (see image to the right). Never ever even when I was thinner. In between movies I was watching this morning, I walked to the kitchen to make coffee and for some reason thought about attempting that pose.
I did it. Both sides. Without any kind of help. I may shake for the few seconds I am standing in that position, but the fact I can do it is a victory. A small victory, but nevertheless a victory.
(I hopped around punching the air when I was done.)
Even with the fits and starts, I have five months worth of data and patterns to analyze. I do, however, have a couple of reasons why I need to make this a top priority:
- If I don’t start shedding off some weight soon, I’m going to not be able to buy clothes in stores. It will be online only and by a tent maker. I am not joking. I’m straddling between a size 22 and a 24 and most stores stop carrying clothes in at a size 26/28.
- My mother checked out of her life when she was in her early 60s and now spends most of her days chowing down on sugar laced (she’s a diabetic) and high sodium foods while watching Turner Broadcast Network or Fox News. She has no energy, no will to change, and claims she is happy. I don’t want to be 74 and like my mother. Ever. I want to run a 5K when I’m in my 70s and climb mountains — I want to be super active in my advanced age..
- I am exhausted of feeling miserable about my body. It takes a lot of energy to hate yourself and it’s not getting me anywhere.
- I am not concerned with numbers or clothing sizes but with general health and activity. Okay, I am fibbing a bit — I do need to drop a few sizes or else the tent maker is going to become my best friend but that isn’t the main point.
- I don’t want to end up on my 600lb life. (I’m no where even close to that but you catch my drift.)
I want to be one of those women who are, “Fuck you beauty standards!” But I can’t. I just can’t. This is the part where it’s not so much self-loathing but as I stated above the realities of living in a normal sized world and there is a lot of activity I want to do that requires a healthier diet and fit. It really is just that simple.
I’m aware I may be giving off a confusing message in this piece. The more mentally healthy I get, the more of my confidence and sassiness shine through. I am confident and satiated with my face, my brain, and the paths I have chosen in life. I like me. I think I’m pretty fabulous not in a egotistical way but in I’ve done a lot to contribute to the world way.
You know, all of this is true except how I feel about my body.
xoxo,
Lisa
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