The following is a repost from my other blog, but it fits here so well, I wanted to place it. More posts, new ones, will be here soon. :)
I come from a family of over weight women. Growing up all the core women in my life were quite heavy, so I'm comfortable with overweight people. I barely even notice weight to be entirely honest. In that picture of me as a teen, I remember like it was earlier today, I felt so fat. I mean I was certain people were staring because I had the nerve to wear shorts. Fast forward the clock about 25 years and I truly am over weight, but I don't feel any differently on the inside than I did back then at sixteen.
I think that skewed view of weight and body image contributed to my ability to wind up 150 lbs over weight at my heaviest. I honestly didn't see it and it didn't feel like a big deal to me as that's what I grew up around. It seemed natural.
Here I am now, just turned 45 and for probably the first time in my life, I'm honestly dealing with food and weight in my life. I'm not fat because I love food...
Now don't get me wrong because I'm quite passionate about food, good food. Fresh produce and well prepared meals do excite me from an artist standpoint and having a great meal with friends is still one of my all time favorite activities, but these are not the reasons I'm overweight.
Part of my personal issue with weight is the plain truth that in our culture we are so busy and broke and good groceries are expensive and cooking, time consuming. We eat more meals out than we do at home anymore, so often our weight it truly just situational and the only way that will ever change is with a priority shift. Its so strange to me that we live in a time were food is just as much of a health issue as the famines of old, only we have the problem in reverse. We're dying from eating too much, and from eating bad quality nutrients rather than from starvation, but make no mistake about it, we are dying.
What those fast food places are doing to our health should truly be criminal, but I completely understand being
tired and how much easier it is to run through a drive through than it is to go home and cook. I also know that most people will never look close enough at what they are truly eating from those places and won't genuinely make the connection between fast food, or restaurant food, and their health. I have. In fact I rarely eat fast food anymore and when I do, I pick the healthiest option I can find yet still sort of cringe as I'm putting the food into my body.
However, as much of a problem as I see our fast paced, stressed out culture is to our weight and health, there is something else that I believe is far more important and far more incideous. I realize I'm going to get hate mail, and I'm not trying to be cruel, but I believe being over weight most commonly is a tell that something else in your life is off kilter. While I agree that not everyone is naturally a size two, I also don't believe anyone is naturally a size 28. In my experience, being overweight, morbidly obese, is a real good sign that something else is going on. I think many, many people medicate with the food, I know I certainly have. We also tend to exchange the pleasure food gives us for other things we may deeply crave but feel getting is out of our control. In my case I was very specifically exchanging the enjoyment of food for something else I wanted, but couldn't have, sex and intimacy.
My road to embracing my rather potent sexuality is still very much a work in progress, but if you will indulge me for just a second, try and empathize with a young woman who'd been raised to believe what she craved sexually was wrong, good girls and the missionary position and all that, and now she's married. In her dreamy naive mind she assumed her husband would teach her everything she needed to know about sex and she found out rather quickly that was never going to happen. I had never in my life been presented with the concept of sexual compatibility and my husband and I had many intimacy issues. Add to that his undiagnosed asperger's syndrome, I honestly came to believe he hated me, so I was one extremely lonely woman who still had the desires of my youth burning inside me. It scared me to think I could be the kind of woman who would cheat on my husband. I had made a commitment and I take my commitments seriously so I felt trapped and I simply found satisfaction and pleasure through food. Simple as that.
This actually had a side effect that served me, as an overweight woman, men stopped looking at me and I felt safer in my unsatisfying marriage that way. No temptation to stray and all that, but the facts of my life now are that I'm single, I'm a whole lot more confident in myself and I'm trying to build a life for me for the first time ever. In that life, I'm not fat. I want to once again be the sexy woman men look at, only this time, I want to enjoy that sensation. I was to know what it feels like to be thin, healthy and sexy. I want to know what it feels like to not be fat and recognize that.
Here's my truth, I was a size 6 the day I got engaged, a size 12 on our first anniversary, right now, I'm an 18, I was a 26 at my heaviest and my goal is to get back down to a 9 before Florida. I am working my ass off to make certain that happens, but I don't believe I would have stood a chance at success on this if not for dealing with my underlying emotional issues. I think its a case of pruning all the dead leaves off the plant, but it has root rot, and if you don't treat that, all your going to get is more dead leaves until you have a dead plant.
Weight is a complicated issue for me, there are lots of ties attached to it. One landmine I discovered recently was a memory of being ridiculed by my family at ten because I decided to become a vegetarian. I've always had an enormous soft spot for animals and I simply didn't want to eat them anymore. Rather than a supportive family who would help a young girl figure this out, they all laughed at me and said I could never do it because I liked cheeseburgers too much. Going about 90% vegetarian this year has felt like a coming home of sorts, something I was always meant to do and finally I'm living it.
Honestly, my weight has been a source of embarrassment for me for many years, but today, I'm giving myself some grace and forgiveness. This was simply my journey and as I'm taking responsibility for my body, I'm so incredibly proud of myself. As I see my body start to change, and I need to buy new clothes which I did today because the old ones simply don't fit anymore, I feel more and more of myself aligning with my own personal truth and there is a reawakening happening. I'm remembering who I am inside and who I want to be and I'm gaining the confidence to know I'll achieve everything I dream. The weight coming off is solidifying my journey. I'm learning how to navigate food, social activities, and restaurants in such a way that I honestly don't think I will ever again have trouble with the mechanics of weight and all this makes me stronger. As one week leads into the next, its somewhat easier to do the things necessary to keep my new found momentum going and I love that.
While body image continues to give me a hard time, I'm very glad to say I'm in an exceptionally healthy place with food these days. My blood pressure is now down to the PRE hypertension stage, I have amazing amounts of energy, and I have completely kicked my fast food addiction that has plagued me my entire adult life!And might I add, have you experienced the amazing summer ripe produce available right now? omg its like heaven!
Anyway, this is the first post in another series I'll be running here on the blog. I feel like I'm finally at a place where I can talk about it and start figuring it out better by sharing. If anything in this post rang a bell for you, examine it. Find your truth and live it, I can't tell you how amazing a thing that is. :)
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