I am 23 years old. 5'3". Styled, dark blonde hair (the color of "twilight and shadows", according to a friend in a corny moment.) Intellectual-meets-trendy box rim glasses. Full lips, perfect teeth, and large, deep grey eyes someone, someday will get lost in.
I am also 300 pounds.
Now, if you're anything like me, you just imagined something akin to the figure in Wii Fit blowing up to epidemic proportions, as if inflated with a large tire pump, while the computer-chipmunk voice oogles and says "omg! omg!" Or perhaps, this is only another of my infinitely odd mental pictures.
I've lived with this problem for most of my life. When I was a child, it was "baby fat". I operated on the assumption that it was a temporary condition, like acne. It too, would drift away one day on its own accord. Not surprisingly... it hasn't.
I always thought that my problem with my weight was that I didn't like what I saw when I looked in the mirror. I didn't like that I couldn't wear trendy clothes, didn't like that my body was man-repellent, personified. After awhile, I thought that I didn't like that I wasn't healthy. That I couldn't cross my legs. Couldn't wear skirts without my legs chafing. Couldn't climb multiple flights of stairs without needing CPR and a cheer squad.
I was wrong. It's all those things. I now wonder how it is that I let something like this rule over me. Everything I do, my weight comes into play first. Will I fit? Can I do it and keep up? Will I look like an idiot? Will others stare? Will I bump into people? (After all, the butt can be a lethal weapon, given enough circumference.) The words "does this dress make me look fat" never crossed my mind, because let's face it. If you can't see it, you either have the sight of Stevie Wonder or the integrity of Rod Blagojevich.
And so, all these things in mind, life becomes not about my potential, not about my capabilities, but about how to get past my weight long enough to do it. Which makes my entire life about what I can't do. I want to be done with that life, that perspective. Hence, the experiment.
I've seen blogs online about women losing weight. One in particular called "The Adventures of Dietgirl" (which I really recommend, should you get the chance.) Maybe mine will be nothing new and different. But it's a way to say what I want to say, to keep myself accountable as I go down this new, exciting road filled with fruit, yoga, and all around ass-kicking. It's my effort to give some humor and encouragement to someone else as I go, so that I have the motivation to keep trying.
So join me for the ride, dear friend, if the road be long and your butt be as big as mine. It's sure to be one heck of a trip.
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It's amazing how a person can see themselves in the revelings of another. It reminds me of walking down the street and suddenly out of the corner of my eye seeing my reflection in the store window of a chic petite shop. Or,maybe for the first time looking at a self protait I painted while wearing a blind fold. For me it's been like driving down a familiar road with all the warning signs posted yet lost in thought or life I failed to really see them for what they were and suddenly I find myself at the edge of a dangerous ravine and the bridge is out. I can't go forward until a new bridge is built, yet I don't seem to have the strength or inclination to retrace my steps and go a different way. I just discovered your invitation to this site...I am praying for transformation for both of us.
ReplyDeleteI really do know how you feel, and you put it in a fantastic way. Problem is, there really is no shortcut, is there? All those "lose weight fast(tm)!" products are only rocket-packs that could speed you down the road to recovery... or off the cliff. (Why did I suddenly equate weight loss with Wile E. Coyote?)
ReplyDeleteDon't worry. You'll get there, and so will I.