Fat

I'm fat.

"How fat are you?"

We're not playing that game. This is a different game.

My goal is to stop using that word about myself. To stop saying it, and to stop typing it. I'm doing pretty well. For this post though, it's the easiest way to convey the point. I am fat. I do not like to be fat, so I am working at not being fat anymore.

Want to see my before picture? I'm going to have to lose a lot more weight before that happens.

I find that now I look longingly at pictures from when I was younger. The only thing I really miss from my teens and twenties is being relatively effortlessly thin, though I was convinced I was hugely fat, and always trying to lose weight. Which is probably why now that I'm really fat (thanks kids) I have such a hard time losing weight.

I have an unhealthy relationship with food, and an unhealthy body image, and unhealthy expectations.  I could blame lots of things for this, but none of it matters. Why I have so many body issues isn't important, only that I do.

So this time I'm trying to do it healthy. I'm trying to change the way I relate to food, and exercise, and my body in general. I am trying to learn to love my body just the way it is.  Yes, I have stretch marks, and cellulite, and lose skin in unattractive areas.  I'm overweight to an unhealthy degree.  I cringe every time I accidentally pass a mirror naked. (we don't have many mirrors in the house)  But it is my body. Most of my complaints come from having two very difficult pregnancies not very far apart. (My children are 23 months apart)  Every flaw I now see on my body came from giving me to beautiful (if often maddening) children.  I would not trade them for the skinny body of my youth. I would not even consider it.  So, I am trying to learn to love my post baby body just the way it is.

Meanwhile I'm trying to change it. Yes I want to love it just the way it is, but that's only because if I don't learn to love it now it won't matter how much weight I lose, I will always hate it. I will never have my pre-baby body back. And when I did have my pre-baby body, I hated it too. I've only ever appreciated my body after it has changed. So, this time I'm trying to learn to love it no matter what.  This is hard for me. (Hence my goal of no longer referring to myself as fat)

I am doing a diet, of sorts. Really, I'm just trying to eat healthier. I'm trying to have a healthy relationship with food. No diet pills, no shakes, or bars, no meal replacements, no get thin quick schemes.  I have my goals I am working on hitting when it comes to nutrient intake daily. I have found the hardest thing for me to do is hit 1200 a calories every day. I tend to be low. (though I manage to go above my target fat intake by nearly double, lol) I am working with a personal trainer on them. I also do resistance training 3 days a week, and cardio 3 days a week. (My favorite cardio is a 6mile walk)

I started jogging Aug of 2011. ("jogging" is a very charitable word for what I was doing.)  I kept at it, probably more because of an unexpected death in the family then for any other reason. It's therapeutic, running. I've learned to love it. (Although I have spent most of my adult life abhorring the idea of exercise for the sake of exercise)   I lost 30lbs in 6 months pretty easily. Then  plateaued.  Nearly a year later and I'm at -32lbs. Very depressing.  I look better though. I feel better. I am thinner. I had to go buy new running pants recently as mine were too big. All of these things are good.

So I am working. Really working on being healthier. Not thinner. I want to be thinner, but that's not my goal, and not what I'm working towards. I'm working towards being healthier.  I want to be healthy. I want to not avoid activities with my children because of my weight. (such as, putting on a bathing suit to go to fun water activities.)   I want to be able to run, and play with them. I want to take long walks with my kids, and my dogs, and my husband.  I want to be the hot mom at the PTA. (or bike rally, or field trip, or wherever) I want to be the hot wife at the company parties, or BBQs. I want to feel confident in how I look, and be healthy in how I live.

I want my daughter to love herself, no matter what. I want to remove the word "fat" from our vocabulary.  I don't want her to see me diet, or binge, or starve. I want her to see mom eat, and see mom run, and see mom be happy. I want her to see mom say, "yes" to cake, and still manage to be healthy and happy.

I want my son to value a women for her mind, her personality, and her heart, not her appearance. I want him to accept women on a deeper level then thinness. At the very least shoot for healthy. (there are many, many thin people who are nowhere close to healthy)  I want my children to flip society, or the media, or peer pressure, or whoever, the big old finger, and say, "I love myself, screw off."

For them to have any hope of doing it though, I'm going to have to set an example. So this is where it starts. I'm trying to eat healthier. I'm trying to interact with food differently, I'm working on losing weight through exercise and increased muscle tone.

So this is one of the journeys I'm on. I'm sure eventually I will post pictures, I have them, so everyone can marvel at my change in appearance. I'm not feeling confident enough for that yet. For right now I'm going to have to settle for publicly declaring my intentions and my goals.

The Disease Called "Thin"

To blog, or not to blog? that is the question. 

Do I stay up late and write something, or do I sleep? Do I write something deep and moving? Something truthful and and therapeutic? Something that pulls my heartstrings, and is probably uncomfortable to read? or do I write something funny? Do I find a way to spin our daily, boring existence, into something witty and relatable? 

Mostly I sleep. 

The blog is at my whim. I write when and about what I feel like. Sporadic at best. It is always my goal to do better. To post more, to have a schedule. To have a direction, give a meaning to what I write.  So often though I feel set adrift. Either that what I have to write is too deep, too personal, would be too upsetting to read. Or that I have nothing interesting to say. Nothing that hasn’t been said before. More nonsense about kids, and parenting. Blogs about lack of sleep, colds, funny colored snot, or poop. It’s relatable. If you have kids, otherwise it’s a glimpse into a private world, a secret club. 

Being a mom totally grants you membership into a secret club.  You are handed a single, repeat conversation starter in the form of a small person.  Striking up conversations with other moms anywhere is easy. At the park? Of course. Playgroups? no doubt. The grocery store check out? Absolutely. Doctor’s office? check. Women’s bathroom? Yup.  You name the location, add two moms with children of same general age, and you have conversation. “How old is she?” “Oh, mine too.” “How many words does he say?” “Oh my gosh! I thought he was older!”  You name it, we’re on it. We exchange vaccine records, milestone dates, behavioral evaluations, speech evaluations, academic records. We compare pediatrician’s guidelines, sleeping tips, feeding tips, phone numbers, favorite diapers, detergents, clothing brands. We’ve got tips on sleep training, breastfeeding, postpartum bleeding, nipple bleeding. Very little is sacred.  It’s like being allowed access to a super secret club you didn’t even know existed. Momdom.  You can share your deepest fears about your child’s development, or your failures, with someone you just met, and chance are, she’ll understand.  Think you’re raising the antichrist? Nope, because SHE is.  You gain a whole new set of friends. People you may have absolutely nothing in common with aside from having children of the same age, but that’s enough. Motherhood provides hours, weeks, YEARS of discussion topics. You don’t ever have to discus anything else. You can prefer different music, be staunchly religiously opposed, politically opposed, even find the other person slightly morally abhorrent, but if your children get along, you manage to be friends. Or, at least, friendly. 

There is a person though outside of momdom. I was a woman before I was a mom. I had autonomy once. I had my own likes and dislikes. I got to focus on things I wanted. I have vague memories of a time before kids when I had my own desires. It’s vague though.  Hellion has started preschool. She has gone for 1 full week. I haven’t managed to do anything, because I’ve been so sick that anything other then continuing to breath all day is asking a bit much. It’s a little bit of heaven to be able to drop the kids off and school and come home and be sick. Lie in bed, drink fluids, rest. Things I haven’t done for years.  I’m still not well. If anything I’m sicker then I was. (Enough sinus infection, give up already!)  The question plaguing me is; what do I do when I feel better? There are 6 million things I want to do, and I want to do them all at once. 

I’m going to start working out hard core. I’m going to lose this baby weight. (Is it still baby weight is they’re in preschool?) I’m going to eat healthy. Now that I only have to feed myself for some meals I don’t have to plan them around what my kids will or won’t eat, or what might be a choking hazard, or what won’t stain the wall when they fling it across the room. 

I want to work with dogs. A friend of mine and I are going to go photograph dogs in need of adoption, and get their pictures up. (I think) Hopefully we can help get some dogs adopted. Walk my dogs. Train my dogs. Walk stray dogs. Maybe help train dogs looking for a home.  Go to school for... something. Something that will pay money. A way to afford two kids in preschool. A way to be productive, a way to contribute. Read. 

But first, first I have to heal. I’ve had the same sinus infection for a month. It’s not getting any better either. It’s actually getting worse. I have finished 1 round of antibiotics, and started on a second, stronger one. My breathing is worsening again. Forget exercise, I can’t sleep without an asthma attack.  I’m tired of being sick. I’m tired of being fat. Most days I’m tired of being me. I can sit around being tired forever though and nothing will change. That’s easy. Hate, self loathing, depression even, those are easy. Change is hard. Different is hard. Progress is hard.  Liking yourself is hard. Hating yourself is easy. Every little girl is taught to hate herself. We are not good enough, never good enough, for some reason or another. Too fat, too thin, too tall, too short, too smart, too stupid, too kind, too mean, too opinionated, too outspoken, too quiet. We don’t do enough. We should be more mothering, and less invasive, more compassionate, and less intrusive, more helpful, but less controlling, we should simultaneously know where everything is, and never make anyone feel bad. We should be quiet, giving, caring, clean, tidy, helpful, and never, ever make waves. 

I have an entire blog post about how I’m trying to get healthy. About how I’m trying to love myself for who I am now, for what I look like now. Because if I don’t love who I am now, it won’t ever matter how thin I am, I still won’t love who I am. It’s not about thinness, or beauty, or clothing, manners or presentations. It’s about self loathing, or self love.  I have an entire post about how thin is not necessarily healthy. About how this time, this time, my goal is health. To be healthy. To emulate healthy for my daughter. To love myself, so I can teach her to love herself. To believe that I am good enough just the way I am, so I can raise her to believe that she is good enough just the way she is. 

I haven’t posted it. It was one of the first posts I wrote, and it sits in the “drafts” folder. It’s a lie. I don’t love myself. I hate myself. I look in the mirror an am filled with self loathing and disgust. I don’t want to be healthy. I don’t care about health. I want to be thin. THIN.  Because in my mind thin is synonymous with pretty, with worthy, with worth. I can’t look in a mirror without wanting to never leave the house, or be seen, by anyone, ever. I don’t look in the mirror. I look, very carefully, at my face to brush my hair, and nothing else. Never anything else. 

I am too sick to exercise, at least at the moment, for the entire last month. I spent 1 full year working out 6 days a week. Seeing a personal trainer 3 days a week. Running, cardio, weight training, diet. 1200 calories a day, 20% fat, 40% carbs/protein. Low sodium.  I didn’t lose 1 pound. I actually gained 3. I exercised with sinus infections, I ran with bronchitis, I saw my trainer after I’d been rear ended. I took 2 days off after the car accident, and was back in the gym. I went with broken toes, broken fingers. I went after slamming my hand in the car door. I went with a 3rd degree sunburn. I went with my skin blistered and peeling. I went sore, and tired, sick and hurt. I went and I went and I went. My trainer was baffled, my doctors were baffled, my nutritionist was baffled.  I gave up on the diet, missed a couple of weeks working out (after a year) due to severe illness, I gained 25lbs in 3 months. 

So now I am fatter then I have ever been in my life. I hate myself more then I ever have in my whole life. (because, for me, those things go hand in hand) I am sicker then I can ever remember being. I am more miserable then I can ever remember being. 

I can do everything right, and make no progress. It’s depressing. I feel like Sisyphus. I keep pushing the boulder up the hill, and it keeps squashing me on the way down. I am the walking definition of futile. I would do liposuction if I could afford it. I would have my stomach stapled if I didn’t get a serious infections at the drop of a hat. I would take any sort of diet pill that I thought would work. I would cut, mutilate, and torture my body if it would make me thin. There are no delusions of health here. I don’t want to be healthy. I want to be thin. I want to be thin at any cost, and if I thought there was something that would make me thin I would try it in a second, health be damned. 

It doesn’t make me a very good role model. It doesn’t make me a very good mom. I am a good liar though. I lie. I will lie and tell the world I am happy with who I am. I will lie and tell my daughter that I love myself. I will lie as well as I can, be it overt, or by omission. I will not talk calories, or diets, or bemoan not being “allowed” to have desert in front of my child. I will not refuse to have my picture taken, Iw ill not crop myself out. I will try and teach her that health is worth more then thin. That thin is a bad word. That size is a number, and not an evaluation of worth. I will try and teach her that her worth is derived from what she carries within her, not what she carries on her outside. Along the way I will try and convince myself. 

My clothing size does not dictate my self worth. If I am not exactly beautiful, I am also not exactly worthless. 

EDIT: I did post my first Fat Post. You can read it here